Mardi Gras in St. Louis is a moderate big deal. No, we're not New Orleans, but St. Louis likes to party almost as much. Saturday morning was the main Mardi Gras parade and even though the temp was hovering around 30, my husband Mike and I bundled up and headed downtown.
This was not our first Mardi Gras parade. We knew just where to park ($5) and just where to stand. The parade starts right across the street from Busch Stadium (home of the St. Louis Cardinals) and the first corner past is the best place to watch the festivities. We got there early and positioned ourselves behind a short man and his shorter daughter. Yes, begging for and catching beads is part of the main objective and you don't want to find yourself in the middle of a bunch of tall people. Across the street music was blasting and people were dancing. Most everyone was already wearing beads, boas, masks or hats. Across the way every time someone would walk by the crowd in any type of crown everyone would bow down. Some people were drinking and the beer and margarita tents were booming even though it was 10:30 in the morning. Even the various parade officials had beers in their hands. It was a fun crowd and everyone was happy and excited. About five minutes before the parade started a freight train came by on elevated tracks and when the engineer saw the crowd gathered he sounded the horn loud and long. The crowd cheered.
Then it was time. First up is always the motorcycles, a million of them, black leather clad people looking exactly like bikers should. They threw some beads and a baggie of beads landed right in my hand. I opened it up and there was a strand of green and a strand of gold and then a strand of purple with a medallion. Specialty beads...with medallions or made of peace signs or smiley faces or with any sort of liquor advertising are hot items. This biker thrown medallion was well-worn and for Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida. Odd. (The year before a woman walking the route put a real pearl and gold necklace around my neck and then vanished.) The bikers passed and then came the floats. The parade theme was Famous Threesomes and the first float held the local team mascots: Fredbird (Cardinals), Rampage (Rams) and Louie (Blues). The crowd went nuts. Louie is a blue bear and he was wearing a Mardi Gras mask. Good job, Blues!
There were two different floats of Three Blind Mice. There was Three's Company with all dude Chrissys. There was Rub-A-Dub-Dub Three Men in a Tub. There was Huey, Dewey and Louie. There was no Three Stooges which seemed like an obvious choice to me. There were also floats that went by that either I couldn't figure out what they were representing or I wasn't paying attention because I was too busy trying to catch beads. At some points the beads come so fast and furious that you have to be on your game or you can easily get smacked in the face with some line-drive speed beads. Last year I had fun watching a young Japanese couple standing sort of behind us who had clearly wandered into this scene not knowing what the hell was going on. At first they were ducking the beads that came flying at them. Then Mike gave the woman a string of red beads and she took them graciously but then stood there holding them awkwardly. Her husband took a pic and she held them in her hands awhile longer before she put them around her neck. By the end of that parade they were into and both were wearing multiple strings of beads.
Saturday no one was showing their boobs for beads. It was way too cold for that. In fact, two hours into the parade and despite all the excitement grabbing beads and bopping to the music I was frozen. There were still floats lined up to hit the parade route as we made our way back to the car. We stopped briefly at one of the portable bead stands set up on the street but didn't buy any. We had enough beads. We needed food and coffee. We drove to Uncle Bill's. Uncle Bill's Pancakes and Cocktails the sign says but we didn't have any cocktails, just pancakes and hot coffee. I had taken off all my beads except for one string of blue and one string of gold - Rams colors. As we were leaving the restaurant I took those off and put them around the neck of a small boy wearing a Cardinals cap turned sideways. I wished him a Happy Mardi Gras and we went on our way.
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