My earliest Mardi Gras memory is at 110 Fontenot Road, where my mom had relocated her brood of four to her sister, also German-born, whose husband was stationed at Chenault Air Force Base at Lake Charles, Louisiana. Grass grew through the floorboards there. On Mardi Gras Day, drunken masked cowboys rode up on horseback, shooting pistols, demanding chickens for the communal cookpot. That’s the Cajun courir de Mardi Gras. I hid under the house.
My second Mardi Gras memory is 1967. We had moved to New Orleans. Someone in Mom’s office gave us comp tickets to the grandstands opposite Gallier Hall, the Greek revival old city hall. From grandstands, we watched Mayor Vic Schiro toast the kings of various parades. Better yet, all of the marching bands performed right there, for the mayor, and the masked men on floats showered people in the bleachers with beads and trinkets. When we went home, my younger sister and brother and I played “practice parade” – one of us stood on a bed and threw beads to the other two on the floor, who hollered “throw me something, mister!”
Many New Orleanians go skiing in Colorado during Carnival. There were years when I did not venture out to parades at all – no interest. When our son’s second birthday fell on Mardi Gras Day, the whole family went dressed as Three Blind Mice.
Now people are trying to blame Louisiana officials for not cancelling Mardi Gras and thus spreading coronavirus. There are numerous misunderstandings here, beginning with the fact that Mardi Gras 2020 was February 25, long before the federal government had advised against large gatherings of people, and before covid-19 was recognized within the USA. The CDC advised against gatherings of more than 250 people on March 12, three days after Louisiana’s first confirmed case. On March 13, Governor John Bel Edwards closed schools and ordered other social distancing objectives. Mardi Gras was February 25.
New Orleans has been scapegoated before. When Hurricane Katrina landed in 2005, the initial reports were that New Orleans “dodged the bullet.” Some people said, “why did they build a city in a bowl?” The city was NOT created in a bowl: the original city, the French Quarter, did not flood during Katrina. Man-made problems – overrun canals and levees – caused the grown city to flood.
But commentators far and wide put a Biblical curse on New Orleans – “too many black people,” “God is punishing the gays!”
Now these same people are trying to blame Mardi Gras for Louisiana’s infection rate.
First: people from all around the world come to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. If they brought coronavirus, or brought it back home, they spread it. This is not a New Orleans problem, but a problem with any place that hosts a big Mardi Gras – Brazil, much of Europe, the Caribbean. Mardi Gras celebrations have become a big deal round here –Fayetteville, Eureka Springs. When people travel the globe, and may unknowingly carry coronavirus, none of us is innocent. The holiday preceded the scare.
Spring Break, a few weeks later, was disregarded by certain places, again, because the federal government had not issued warnings. Collegiate (March Madness) and professional athletics (Major League Baseball) cancelled events. To consider New Orleans an evil hotspot is wrong.
Carnival season in New Orleans begins on January 6, the twelfth day of Christmas, but party season starts way earlier. The Saints play their home games in the Superdome throughout the fall, and the Bayou Classic, between Louisiana’s top black colleges, Grambling and Southern, is held right after Thanksgiving. The Sugar Bowl is held New Year’s Day.
When I worked at the Hyatt Regency Hotel across from the Superdome, my colleagues referred to New Year’s Eve as “amateur night.” We worked 36-hour shifts but earned hundreds of dollars. Back then, the Dome also hosted Muhammed Ali fights, Rolling Stones concerts, and Super Bowl games.
My point is, New Orleans is meant as a party destination for high-rollers and street people alike. Mardi Gras came too early for the warnings this year, but late enough for contagion. Don’t scapegoat New Orleans. They are grieving without anyone’s accusations.