Big Easy Blog: Feb. 23, 2006
By Pableaux Johnson, Citysearch Contributor
Photo by Pableaux Johnson
Short and bittersweet celebration
In some ways, the first weekend of Mardi Gras parades was everything that New Orleanians could have hoped for. There were marching bands and rifle squads, huge colorful floats ambling down oak-shaded St. Charles Avenue. Satin-clad krewe members loaded tons of carnival "throws" to appease the screaming masses that lined the parade route.
The crowds, mostly locals keeping with tradition, wore bold swaths of the city's Carnival colors--purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power. From the first blast of police-escort sirens, the spectators became part of the action, clapping for the passing faux royalty and jumping for glittering beads and shiny commemorative coins (doubloons) like their lives depended on it.
If it were your first Mardi Gras, it would have been a grand old time.
But for veterans, the whole spectacle ended just as soon as it began. With parades shortened by the city's evacuation and local marching bands on hiatus since the storm, the five krewes zipped along the six-mile route in record time. A five-parade day during any other Mardi Gras season would have been a daylong marathon of bead-screaming and rump-shaking lasting from noon to nightfall.
But this year, the whole affair took just over an hour on each of the two parading days. On Saturday, five krewes (Pontchartrain, Shangri La, Pygmalion, Sparta and Pegasus) traversed the route in about 70 minutes, the same amount of time that Carrolton and King Arthur needed to roll on Sunday.
The crowds packed up as the street cleaners raked up the errant beads and discarded plastic cups. Sure, we might have wanted it to last longer, but this year, we're grateful to have the chance to catch any beads at all.
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