PORCH PONDERINGS

Mardi Gras remembered

Happy Mardi Gras! Fat Tuesday - King Cake - parades - all that rigamarole...

When hubby and I were doing our full-time RV gig, we spent some time managing a campground in New Orleans. As a result, we also got to go to a Mardi Gras parade. And this one was not that big deal you hear about. It was more a family affair. If I remember right, it was on St. Charles Avenue. I still have some memorabilia from that.

Groups, called 'krewes' get together, create the most wonderful, or sometimes, crude, floats. Quite the deal.

King Cake - brightly colored cake - traditionally with a plastic baby baked inside. Find the baby - good luck.

So all this frivolity is to get all your drinking and gluttonous eating done before Lent - which starts tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. Lent is the Christian time of penitence and fasting to remember Christ's crucifixion before the Christian holiday of Easter.

The day after Mardi Gras we drove all the way down as far south as we could to the end of pavement. Ground an inch or two above the gulf then the ocean.. A number of small towns along the way, each one poorer than the next.

Good memories...