Mardi Gras And A Pair Of Beads On The Ground

As I watched CNN's all day coverage of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I wondered where the reporters got their info about why parade watchers didn't pick up beads or other Carnival throws that missed their hands and fell to the ground. They kept referring to it as if it was some philosophical tradition of New Orleaneans; that the thrill or challenge was in the “catch”, not in the item itself. Wrong!!! I can only think they spoke with people from "uptown", like lawyers, or other "high society" types, who grew up in the Garden District, or 30 something and younger individuals who didn't experience Mardi Gras back in the 50's and 60's. During those years, people would scramble for beads that landed on the ground, like fans at the World Series diving for a baseball that lands in the crowd.

There were a couple of reasons why this "diving for trinkets" died over the years. Older and taller parade goers would often attempt to step on beads they missed catching in their hands, called the “stomp and retrieve” maneuver, with the result being that a lot of kids, lacking the height for catching in the air, but the advantage of being closer to the ground, had their fingers crushed. I think New Orleans lost a lot of potential piano and guitar players during that era.

The second reason we no longer “fought” for grounded beads, is parade krewes started to throw a lot more stuff than they use too. As a kid, if I went home with a handful of beads and a few "crappy" plastic trinkets, I considered it a decent haul. Now you can often fill a large kitchen garbage bag full of beads, doubloons, stuffed animals,plastic cups, etc. from one average size parade. In other words, as the rich got richer, besides being able to buy a bigger home in the Garden District, they could also purchase more junk to throw to the masses during Mardi Gras; known as the trickle or “trinket” down effect by those who support huge tax breaks for the super affluent. Also, as the years progressed, a lot of Carnival parade krewe members, now came from the working class, and they remembered what it was like down on the streets. So, they too, increased the amount of "throws" to the crowd. With bead sacks now filled to the bursting point there is no need to scrounge for anything that hits the ground.

I was also surprised none of the CNN reporters, or any of the local news or celebrity personalities that appeared on the all day broadcast used or mentioned the term “a pair of beads”. True New Orleaneans don't refer to Mardi Gras beads as “strands of beads”. Even one strand of beads is called a “pair of beads” I don't know how or why we came to use that term. In fact, up until about a month ago, I never realized there was anything peculiar or wrong, mathematically speaking, in the expression. It wasn't till I read a novel by Julie Smith “New Orleans Mourning” that she brought up this particular quirk in the New Orleans vocabulary. Because this expression, was such a subtle deviation from the norm, unlike “banquette” which is what we still called a “sidewalk” back in the 50's (Rarely heard nowadays) that I never realized this was another one of those typical New Orleans lexicons that unfortunately, may be passing out of the city's culture. Thank God we still have our neutral grounds!

My New Orleans

"Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans", a song written back in 1946, is having a rebirth with Post-Katrina New Orleaneans. The song never actually faded away. Someone would usually request it at a local piano bar, like Pat O'Briens in the French Quarter. Hearing it nowadays, though, the tune has a much more melancholy effect on me than it ever did before. I also find my self singing it just about every time I break out my guitar.

I grew up in the Ninth Ward and later the Gentilly section of New Orleans. My Aunt lived in Lakeview. All three of these places were devastated by Hurricane Katrina. They were old neighborhoods, each one having a different "feel". They all had their own neighborhood grocers, bars and restaurants. When the white population began to move out of the Ninth Ward, many of them migrated to newer homes and subdivisions in St. Bernard Parish, to communities like Arabi and Chalmette, and there too, the neighborhood family owned establishments were the "heart" of the community.

That's not to say we didn't love the French Quarter or Garden District. If not the heart of New Orleans, the French Quarter and Garden District are where you find it's history and spirit. I think major damage in those areas would have truly meant the ultimate demise of New Orleans as the world knew it.

My last visit to the New Orleans area was just 5 months before Katrina. I still had family living in Chalmette. I would stay with them when ever I came back for a visit, which was every year, usually in the Spring...crawfish season! There were several seafood markets and restaurants within 5 minutes of their house. I could also walk just a few blocks to Tony's Po'boy restaurant, as well as Vincent Brocato and Daughter's Italian Ice Cream and Pastry shop, tucked in the middle of a residential block of older homes. All of these places are gone, along with the crawfish (at least for this season) maybe never to recover. My sister and her family along with my mom are also gone, having evacuated to Florida a day or so before Katrina hit. The damage to their homes was so bad that my brother-in-law sold both homes, and they have re-settled in Florida. This is the scenario that has been repeated with the majority of the New Orleans population. Neighborhoods gone, family and friends gone, not just those that died, but those that moved away and won't be coming back.

I have no doubt that New Orleans will survive as a city. It's too important as a national and international port and its most popular tourist attractions, the French Quarter and Garden District, survived practically unscathed. I can't help but wonder, though, if the old neighborhood communities in New Orleans and St. Bernard... my New Orleans... is gone forever.

Great Quotes

Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.

Johnny Cash

Closed Minds

In Life, no matter what the circumstances,
If your mind is closed to all possibilities,
Then your mind is closed to God.
God IS all possibilities!

Koi Pond "painting"
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Oahu Rainbow
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Castle Beach
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Castle Beach Sunrise
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Christian and Tails
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Boomerangs

Just got back into the sport of tossing boomerangs. I started doing it back in 1984 when my marriage was breaking up. I found it was good therapy and exercise at the same time. I even got my 4 sons interested in the sport. Over the next 20 years, I would throw only occasionally, sometimes going several years without touching a rang. A lot of my boomerangs I distributed amongst my kids. They continued an interest in the sport over the years, and during my most recent visit with two of my son's in Louisiana I went out with them to throw. I'd forgotten how much fun and also what a physical workout it was ,which my body quickly reminded me over the next day or so. I purchased a few new rangs and renewed my acquaintance with Rich Harrison, The Boomerang Man. I've never met Rich in the 21 years since my first purchase, but consider him a friend and very generous human being.

A month and 5 new boomerangs later, I was back in Hawaii, in Kailua on the island of Oahu. Now Hawaii, although a beautiful place and having comfortable temperatures all year, is in many ways not the ideal place to toss boomerangs. There are strong tradewinds a lot of times, and when tossing boomerangs, no wind to medium wind is best. One also needs a big, deserted field to have room enough to allow for an occasional, or in my case, quite a few wayward tosses. In Hawaii, finding such a field is almost as impossible as trying to find a surf spot where you're the only surfer. Oh, there are quite a few large ball/soccer fields around town, but with the year round, almost perfect weather, there is usually some event taking place on them all the time.

I made several attempts to find an ideal place, including a little used, three tennis court area (Where I could only throw one of my plastic short distant rangs) and a small field bordered on one side by a highway and the other by a sawgrass covered hillside. A bad toss, with my newest and smallest rang, had four of us looking in the serrated edged, chest high weeds for fifteen minutes. Three of us, including myself, abandoned any hope of ever finding it and went back on the field to collect the rest of my boomerangs and leave. Fortunately, my girlfriend, an intensive care nurse in the newborn unit of a local hospital, did not want to give up quite yet (Which is why she's probably such a great nurse) and a few minutes later emerged; scratched and itching, like the rest of us, but with boomerang in hand (I fell in love with her all over again!).

I have now had to resort to getting up at 5 am on the weekends and going to the baseball and soccer field at the elementary school near my home, to get 2 hours of clear air space, before baseball practice or all day games start. But, it's enough for now, and it does have an unexpected benefit. I now get to "sleep in" Monday through Friday because I don't have to get up for work till 6 am on weekdays. God truly does work in mysterious ways.

Great Quotes

If there is light in the soul, there will be beauty in the person.
If there is beauty in the person, there will be harmony in the house.
If there is harmony in the house, there will be order in the nation.
If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.

Chinese Proverb

Great Quotes

Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?

-Sai Baba

The imperfect I.

No one can say for sure where the person that we call I goes when the body stops functioning. For the atheist, the I and the body are the same, so the I goes nowhere, it's just ceases to exist. But, why does any thing exist at all. Why is there a universe, an earth, life, and why am I aware of it?

The material realist, those who believe that only matter is real, would say I'm aware of these things because I have a brain. But, who or what is the I that is aware? The brain is basically a super computer, but what good is a computer if there is nothing or no thing that observes the results of the computers computations. If we were just bodies acting out the computations of the brain, what makes me have different likes, or tastes in food, music, art, sports, and colors, and why do I have different political and social ideas than members of my own family. It is this difference from others, this me, that is not you, which makes me aware of myself as an individual; an I, different from your individual I.

God is the Perfect or Ideal I. In order for this Perfect I to be aware of Itself, God created other, like I's, which were imperfect, in order for the Perfect I to know it's perfection. We are those imperfect I's.

Evening sky in Kailua
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