to the thousands of us who packed the streets to watch the parade. The parades were lighted in those days by flambeaux, or torchlights fueled by oill or kerosene, and these flambeaux were carried by black men who frequently danced to the music of the high school bands that walked in the parade between the floats and kept up a spirited and sometimes frightening drum cadence as the parade moved along.
The end of the Mardi Gras season came with Mardi Gras Day itself, or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, which was the beginning of Lent.
For the vast majority of the people I knew - in fact, for all of them - Mardi Gras parades and celebrations and the convivial gathering on Fat Tuesday had nothing to do with debauchery or getting drunk. Families came to the parades; children dressed in costume on the big day itself. Our house, being on the parade route, was a family gathering place, and relatives came and went on various nights and on Mardi Gras Day.
My mother put out a big ham surrounded by crackers for the company on Mardi Gras Day. Vendors sold roasted peanuts in small brown bags, two for a nickel. Others sold cotton candy and trinkets which we couldn't afford.
Crowds began gathering every evening for the night parade, as soon as it got dark. The flicker of the flambeaux on the tree branches terrified me. The drums terrified me. Nevertheless the spectacle was seductive and dazzling, and ultimately great fun.
Mardi Gras was part of life as it was supposed to be lived - a deliberate making merry before the penitential season of Lent. Mardi Gras was firmly part of the Catholic world. Sometimes I fear people outside of New Orleans don't grasp this. And people outside of Catholicism don't grasp how most feast days and festal celebrations are part of our faith.
On Ash Wednesday we went to church to receive a thumbprint of ashes on our foreheads. This was the reminder of "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return." Lent was forty days, and adults fasted in Lent. They ate only part of what they ordinarily ate, though I don't remember the actual rules. We children all gave up something for Lent.
The forty days of Lent equaled the forty days that Jesus had fasted in the desert, when He'd been tempted by Satan.
Fasting, giving something up, doing penance, performing a prescribed penance, were part of the Catholic way to be good.
We were all keenly conscious of the progress of Lent towards Holy Week and the special celebrations involved.
The Stations of the Cross were said every Friday in Lent.
Palm Sunday began Holy Week with joy as this was the day that Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem to delirious crowds of people who cried, "Hosanna, blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord." People carried palm branches when they did this, and they laid down their palm branches for the donkey carrying the Lord on the road.
Then came Spy Wednesday when Judas had gone off to betray Our Lord, and Holy Thursday on which the Lord's Supper occurred. On that day, as I recall, we received only Holy Communion, and there was no Mass. Legions of people trooped into church, went directly to kneel at the Communion rail, and received the Host.
On Good Friday, the day of Our Lord's death on the cross, there was no Mass either. One could go to the Stations of the Cross on that day, or go to longer more complex three-hour services during which all the lights were put out in the church at the moment that Our Lord actually expired. On Good Friday, people came to church all day long simply "to kiss the cross." Again the multitudes made their way to the Communion rail and knelt there, and the priest with the altar boy came along, the priest holding out a crucifix for each person to kiss. The altar boy or the priest wiped off the crucifix after each kiss.
It was our custom to visit nine churches on Good Friday and kiss the cross in each. One of the pure delights of living in New Orleans was that one could easily walk to nine Catholic churches. Indeed one had choices. I remember loving this devotion, in part because of the singular beauty of each church, and the special experience of entering and encountering a distinct sanctuary and a unique crucifix, and I also loved the fun of