Laissez les bon temps pistolette!
Feb. 28th, 2006 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fancycwabsHappy Fat Tuesday!
Mardi Gras in Mobile where I grew up is slightly different from the drunken debauchery of New Orleans; certainly less tits-obsessed ("You say that like it's a bad thing," you complain). I dated a girl for a number of years whose uncle was in a couple of parading societies, attended their ball, etc. Her uncle semi-invited me to join the society at one point or another, but I had to decline for two big reasons: 1. Dues etc. were in the thousands of dollars range, and 2. The society (like most parading societies in Mobile) was whites-only, as late as 1994 (possibly later--I can only count the time that I was involved with my then-girlfriend).
The other thing that Mardi Gras brings back is grouchy old man syndrome. My daughter is currently in the high school marching band, and occasionally "marches" in "parades" which involve a one-mile trek down the street behind convertibles and church-sponsored floats. Marching in a Mardi Gras parade involved four miles of marching through occasional horse shit while onlookers pelted you with hard candy in poorly-aimed attempts to ring the Sousaphone. (Is Sousaphone capitalized?)
Good times!
Mardi Gras in Mobile where I grew up is slightly different from the drunken debauchery of New Orleans; certainly less tits-obsessed ("You say that like it's a bad thing," you complain). I dated a girl for a number of years whose uncle was in a couple of parading societies, attended their ball, etc. Her uncle semi-invited me to join the society at one point or another, but I had to decline for two big reasons: 1. Dues etc. were in the thousands of dollars range, and 2. The society (like most parading societies in Mobile) was whites-only, as late as 1994 (possibly later--I can only count the time that I was involved with my then-girlfriend).
The other thing that Mardi Gras brings back is grouchy old man syndrome. My daughter is currently in the high school marching band, and occasionally "marches" in "parades" which involve a one-mile trek down the street behind convertibles and church-sponsored floats. Marching in a Mardi Gras parade involved four miles of marching through occasional horse shit while onlookers pelted you with hard candy in poorly-aimed attempts to ring the Sousaphone. (Is Sousaphone capitalized?)
Good times!
