by Brooks HamakerI woke early, as I always do on that particular Sunday, and made a quick breakfast of juices, homemade pancakes and local strawberries. My boys and their friends crawled out of their beds, dressed, and ate like trenchermen -- all the while discussing last night’s valuable trinket acquisitions and opportunities for the same over the next twelve hours.
Once everyone was fed and the dishes were sort of done, we headed out the door towards St. Charles Ave, a block and a half away from my house. The Sunday before Mardi Gras on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans has, for a very long time, been pretty much the same. Families gather at nearby houses for early meals and relaxing early morning libations. Aromas of gumbo, grilling meats, red beans, chicken sauce piquant and other delicacies, easily transportable and even more easily fed to large number of revelers, fill the air up and down the seven or so miles of the parade route. Groups magically fill the Avenue in the early morning hours, staking out their spots and setting up for a very long day of fun and food. (Yesterday the first parades began at eleven and ended well after eleven, delayed by the inconvenient relationship between giant man-made floats and even larger, God-made, live oak trees.)
The scene when we arrived was pretty amazing. A block of St. Chuck that just seven hours before had been strewn with debris from the previous evening’s parades had been tidied up by magic cleaning gnomes and repopulated by families in the full swing of BBQ, Bloody Marys and the day’s first cool ones. Children of all ages threw foam footballs in the streets, generally acting like kids with a day off and only moderately attentive supervision. Groups of self-important and seriously preening teen girls roamed St. Charles in search of cute guys, who were making sure to ignore them until the microsecond that the girls passed by. Then the cute guys indulged in the age old sport of carefully paying attention while not paying attention to the members of the opposite sex.
Pickups were parked on the side streets, their beds filled with, variously, BBQ pits, couches, port o’ johns, prep tables, ice chests, crawfish boiling setups, and just about anything else one might possibly need during a long day of fun at the parades. These setups ranged from what, clearly, were last minute arrangements, to full-on catering operations that would put many, more professional, caterers to shame.
On the tailgate of one truck, there were two guys shucking fresh, very cold, very salty oysters. I stopped to chat with them and within, oh, let’s say, five seconds, I was invited to sample a few. These few turned into about twenty-four in pretty short order. Nice guys, those oyster guys. They invited me back for a few grilled oysters later in the day -- enticing me with the claim that their grilled oysters would make those poseurs at Drago’s wish they had their secret recipe. I promised I’d return later in the evening, knowing that the chances were slim that a) I would be on that part of the route later in the day b) that they would have any oysters left and c) that, if there were any oysters left I would likely be shucking them as those guys were already, at eleven a.m., fast approaching the coordination danger zone that often occurs when beer and oyster knives meet. But you can’t predict what a Carnival Sunday will bring so I didn’t turn them down.
My boys met up with some friends at 1st and St. Charles and I got them squared away with the friends’ parents, swapped cell phone numbers, the general plan for the next few hours, and sampled a few of the snacks they’d laid out on a couple of tables covered with garish LSU tablecloths -- Tulane logos are much more tasteful. The remains of a lovely brunch held earlier in the day at a nearby home had been duly delivered to the parade route: all kinds of good cheeses, some canapés consisting of very large shrimp and remoulade sauce, a nice gumbo z’herbes, and lots of French bread. There were also pitchers of fresh juice, milk punch (in a silver pitcher -- and being poured into silver beakers), Bloody Marys, soft drinks, and, if you were up to it, an entire bar set up. It might sound as if these people had gone a bit overboard, but there were probably 2000 folks with more or less the same setups along the parade route. It’s about sharing and having fun on the Avenue, and we are, if nothing else, pretty good at sharing and having fun. Gracious, effortless hospitality is what we do here and what we’ve always done. If you can’t find any friends anywhere in the world, come to New Orleans during Carnival week and you’ll probably make some for life.
Once the boys were squared away I walked uptown about fifteen blocks to meet some friends at General Taylor and St. Charles, just down the block from the Columns Hotel, and directly across from Rayne Episcopal Methodist Church. This Mardi Gras season the church is surrounded by a chain-link fence, necessitated by the fact that the very tall, very old, and very grand steeple on the sanctuary blew off during the storm and the church is only now beginning repairs.
My friends, who are, unlike me, very organized, had gone out in the middle of the night and secured the spot by placing a couple of tables, some chairs, a few ladders, and other parade accoutrement on the side of the street. The stuff was left there with the hope that it would still be there when they returned in the morning -- and it was.
Much like the gentlefolk up the street where I’d left the boys, my friends were enjoying a pretty elaborate spread, though this one was accompanied by decent champagne poured into plastic flutes. It was all very civilized.
Just down the block, I saw a friend of a friend slaving over a couple of burners and some cast iron pots. I walked down to say hello and to scope out the food. He’d just hit the serving stage of an excellent duck and andouille gumbo that had been concocted, roux and all, right there on the spot. He’d been out since about seven in the morning and was pretty well as done as the gumbo. He offered me a bowl of the stuff and some really great bread from Boulangerie, the excellent French Bakery on Magazine Street. I looked around for a place to sit, spied an empty folding chair, and plopped down to eat. Inside of two minutes, an older woman, very tiny and very cute in her carnival finery, walked up and informed me that I was in her chair -- but that it would be okay to stay if I’d introduce her to “the gumbo man” and help her acquire a bowl for herself. I got her some gumbo and we both sat down and enjoyed the rich soup, chatting like old friends even though we’d just met. In the tradition here, it took her only three moves to figure out that she actually knew who my (long passed away) grandparents were and that her son had gone to Tulane with my Dad. I wasn’t surprised -- it happens here all the time. Instead of the usual, “What do you do for a living?” it’s “Tell me again, who are your Mama and Daddy?”
Once I’d completed old home week, the parade was in full swing and I rejoined my friends. This was a pretty typical Mardi Gras group -- old New Orleanians, out-of-towners there for their umpteenth carnival, and people visiting New Orleans for their first parade weekend. All of us had an equally good time, acting like fools and begging people riding by on the floats for tiny plastic trinkets and the occasional “big score.” The throws vary from cheap plastic beads to very valuable (at least for the next few days) stuffed animals, spears, cups, and toilet paper with the Krewe logo embossed on every super--absorbent sheet. Successful grabs were marked by the laughing recipient holding the prize high and showing it off triumphantly. This behavior went on, this particular Sunday, for more than twelve hours, thanks to an Endymion parade that had been rescheduled from the previous night because of inclement weather. This Sunday was one for the record books in New Orleans -- more floats rolled down St. Charles Avenue than on any other Sunday in history. In this post Katrina world, it seemed to make it a very important and historical event, even though it was caused by an unforeseen overnight rain shower
That evening, just as the last Bacchus float passed, there was a delay in the parades and I was feeling pretty worn out. I quietly said goodbye to my friends, new and old, and started the long trudge home. As I walked down St. Charles, I realized that I was feeling a bit peckish -- and remembered the oystermen at the corner of Thalia and St. Charles. I knew my chances were slim, but it had been a very lucky day. I decided to walk an extra block and see if there were some grilled oysters at the ready. I lucked out. The grill was smoking, and as I walked up the oysterguys (who by this point could also be known as the “going to be really hung over on Monday guys”) yelled out that they’d been waiting on me and to hurry up. They said that they were running out and didn’t want me to miss out on the planet’s best grilled oysters. Never one to disappoint a bragging chef, I sat down in the offered chair and scarfed up six on the half-shell, grilled with butter, chopped garlic, Worcestershire, and Crystal Hot Sauce. Now, I’m a lover of Drago’s finely grilled bivalves, but the guys were right -- their oysters were absolutely delicious. Oysters have rarely come to such a worthy end.
I made sure to find out if they were coming back (yes, on Tuesday, all day) and bade them a good night. As I walked the quiet side street back to my home, the only sounds to be heard were of a distant, soon to pass parade. I was full, happy, and feeling some hope for this place, my city that is so unlike anywhere else on the planet.
Sure -- absolutely -- the place is a mess. Just a two-block walk to the other side of St. Charles Avenue from my house will put you square into no-man’s land -- a place that is still, even six months later, largely uninhabited and shows few signs of recovery. Most of the city is like that, though the older parts, the parts built on the high ground, are coming along remarkably well. There are burned-out buildings, abandoned or closed businesses, cars that haven’t been moved in months, streetlights that don’t, and might never, work, and many, many other constant reminders of the disaster that happened here last August 29th. The parts of the city that are operating and habitable are coming back remarkably well -- though it’s only about a quarter of the city in terms of both land mass and population. There are parts of town that, no matter what your political stance on the issue, will probably have to be razed before any practical rebuilding effort can occur. It’s a mess, that’s the one thing here that’s for sure.
Much of the city will take years to repair, and much of it, in fact, may never be repaired. What that storm couldn’t kill, what ten Katrinas can’t kill, is us. We’re still here. More and more of us are coming back every day, and we’ll keep coming back as long as we can find a job and a place to live. This is our home. The Feds won’t send us the money because they don’t get it and we’re off of the front pages because the most of the media don’t get it -- but that’s OK. We get it. It’s the people, it’s the food, it’s the people and the food. It’s Mardi Gras, it’s Jazz Fest, it’s strong coffee, it’s red beans and rice, it’s Bloody Marys in the middle of the street at eight in the morning. It’s your mama and them’s house, and mostly, it’s everything that makes us what we are. We live in New Orleans and we don’t want to live anywhere else.
It might not be right, and it might not fit neatly into most people’s “normal” slot, but we’re good with it. We like us.
The rest of the stuff? The infrastructure? It’ll get fixed. Eventually. We’ll start next Wednesday morning. Just as soon as we wake up.
Brooks Hamaker (aka Mayhaw Man) is a freelance writer living in New Orleans. He hopes that all of his neighbors can come home soon.
Photo by Sara Roahen, whose untitled memoir about a Yankee discovering New Orleans' unique food culture will be published in 2007 (W.W. Norton).
