Fat Tuesday Comes to the Big Easy!

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This has been a big week for learning how various calendars work.  The Lunar New Year, which some refer to as the Chinese New Year in reference to China, one of many nations which form their calendars around lunar cycles, began last Saturday and ushered in the "Year of the Dragon," and now, just a few days later, we are focused on some significant Christian religious events which also have their timing (for the most part) in lunar cycles and phases of the moon.

Today is "Fat Tuesday," the day before the annual beginning of the Christian season of fasting, or "Lent," which begins on "Ash Wednesday."  Ash Wednesday is forty weekdays before Easter, an especially important Christian holiday whose exact date changes every year because it is related to the phases of the moon.  (Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox - March 21 or March 22.)   This year Easter will be on Sunday, March 31st.

The period between "Old Christmas" (January 6th) and Fat Tuesday is regarded as the "carnival season" and it culminates on Fat Tuesday with large celebrations such as the "Mardi Gras" of New Orleans and Rio de Janeiro, events which are alive with parades, parties, music, drinking, eating, and puking - as many good Christians exorcise all of their debauchery in preparation to begin fasting on the following day.

I have been to New Orleans five times, I think, but never for Mardi Gras.  That is my loss, because I am sure that the "Big Easy" did just fine without me and did not even notice my absence.  My family went through New Orleans in the summer of 1957 just after I completed third grade.  My clearest memory of that visit was spending the day on the beach at Lake Ponchatrain where everyone in the family got too sunburned and suffered large water boils on our skin which broke and oozed throughout the remainder of the trip.  We also drove up into Tennessee and visited Stone Mountain, Chattanooga, and Memphis on that trip.

When I was in college I visited New Orleans for a second time when the Student Union chartered a bus and took a group of us to the French Quarter for a couple of nights over the Easter break.  It seems like the fee for the bus ride was thirty-some dollars.  That trip was the most enjoyable time that I spent in that beautiful and historic old setting, and it was on that particular visit that I learned to love Dixieland jazz, fresh cumquats, and the wonderful sugar-coated beignets at the Cafe du Monde. The night life was also memorable.  

The third time I was in New Orleans was also while I was in college, and that time an old high school friend and I drove there in her car and stayed with wealthy friends of hers who owned the major brewery in the city. I remember one exceptionally wild night at the amusement park at Lake Ponchatrain during that visit, as well as several very risqué clubs in the French Quarter. 

The next time that I was in the city of New Orleans was in the early 1980's as an adult sponsor of a high school senior trip.  There wasn't much that those country kids didn't see as they walked and gaped open-mouthed up and down Bourbon Street!  They probably got more education the couple of nights that we were there than they did the rest of their senior year!

My final visit to the "Big Easy" was with a lady friend in the early 1990's.  We reserved a bargain room before we left home, and found out when we arrived that it was so economical because it had no windows!  But that was not a big problem because very few people sleep in New Orleans anyway.  We did Bourbon Street and the French Quarter a couple of times, and also took in some civilized activities like visiting the aquarium and the zoo.  Old age was beginning to set in!

Have a loud, romping-stomping, Fat Tuesday, New Orleans.  I'll be thinking of you.  Party hearty and sling those beads!