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the Mardi Gras issue

“ I once presided as King of the annual Push Mow parade in Abita Springs, a ragtag ensemble of local eccentrics and oddities pushing — and riding — their beloved Poulans and John Deeres, plus the occasional renegade wielding a Weed Eater.”

Mardi Gras can be as grand a notion as universal love or as trivial a matter as a welcome day off to gambol with family, friends, strangers and lovers. (Sometimes, they’re the same thing.) There are brass bands, steel bands, Cajun bands,military bands, high school marching bands and some really, really great bands who’ve created the sound of the celebration (page 30). Professor Longhair takes us to the Mardi Gras (page 30).We move our feet, we scream, we shout, we do the Funky Butt — on many occasions and for no reason at all. And we boil crawfish, the shared eucharist of Carnival. Everywhere. Lots of it. While, for everywhere else in the country … it’s just Tuesday. But there’s another way to explain it all, particularly the family aspect: Picture Christmas, if Christmas lasted a month and on most days you got to wear Halloween costumes and, instead of shelling out a thousand bucks for presents for your kids, they get free gifts from strangers tossing beads (page 41), toys, novelties, baubles,

candies, MoonPies (page 18) and rubber dog poops — yes, rubber dog poops. Sound strange? Not here, stranger. Mardi Gras is community, shared ideals, shared spaces, shared stories, and shared food and drink. It’s no backyard get-together. It’s no private assembly. It’s a front-stoop celebration, public revelry, a democracy of equals, with your view to the horizon — or even across the street — often clouded by a thick, nearly impenetrable plume of smoke billowing off sidewalk grills, meat cookers and seafood pots. And though I am a sucker for soul-piercing carols (“O Holy Night,” “Away in a Manger”) the truth is, when you lay down the cards and go jukebox to jukebox, Mardi Gras music (pages 30 and 32) beats the Christmas canon hands down. It’s “Carnival Time.” Again.

The Krewe of Bilge in Slidell and the Krewe of Tchefuncte in Madisonville are two of the more popular floating parades. Krewe members in decorated boats heave Mardi Gras beads and throws to parade-goers along canals of Eden Isles and banks of the Tchefuncte. ​

Cajun country carnival traditions go be- yond Mardi Gras Runs in Mamou, Eunice, Iota, Basile and surrounding areas. Le Fes- tival de Mardi Gras a Lafayette at Cajun Field includes parades, live entertainment and a carnival midway. There are other family-friendly community parades in nearby towns including Youngsville. St. Mary Parish celebrates Mardi Gras on the Cajun Coast, while towns and com- munities centered along Bayou Lafourche — Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou — offer 17 family-friendly parades with a Cajun flare.

Houma and Lake Charles both claim the second-largest Mardi Gras celebration in all of Louisiana. But it depends on how you measure. Houma offers more than a dozen parades, including Krewe of Houmas, Terrebonne’s first carnival club, which parades on Mardi Gras. Lake Charles only has seven parades, but the area has more than 50 Carnival krewes, a number second only to New Orleans. Each krewe is a part of a larger organization called Krewe of Krewes.

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2018

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