Carnival parades in New Orleans have been around since 1857. In the western 'burb of Metairie, it took an additional hundred years for them to arrive. Tonight, the Krewe of Caesar rolled through Metairie.
(More Mardi Gras below the fold)
Metairie parades began in 1958, when the Krewe of Zeus rolled down Metairie Road. As the suburbs grew in the 1960s, so did the area's Carnival celebration, and more krewes formed and paraded. By the late 1970s, the Jeffeson Parish Sheriff's Office had concerns about the original parade route on Metairie Road. This particular street is a heavily-traveled, two-lane road whose winding path corresponds to the old Bayou Metairie waterway. When a parade stretched out over its length, as Carnival parades do, it gave first responders of all types fits. The parish began to nudge the krewes to move a bit north, to the six-lane Veterans Blvd., and now that street is the standard suburban parade route.
I don't care for Carnival parades in Metairie. They don't have the soul and feel of a parade in the city. The parish made a minor change in the route this year, so now the parades pass literally three blocks from my house. But I've managed to pass on my dislike for Metairie parades to my son to the point where, when I suggested today that he could have a "parade party" on Lundi Gras here at the house, he had an absolute fit, because that would mean missing the parades Uptown that evening.
Not everyone shares my dislike for suburban Carnival, however, which is why the principal of my son's high school asked the band if they would march in a Metairie parade, namely Caesar. The pitch from the principal was recruiting; they're a Catholic school, and most of the students post-storm are from Metairie. So, Brother Martin High School's band marched in Metairie tonight, the first time in over 20 years.
One thing about Caesar, though--they're big-time in terms of the money they spend on floats, costumes, and throws. The krewe was formed in 1979, by businessmen from Metairie, several of whom were in the Kewe of Zeus, the premier suburban parade at the time. The founders of Caesar committed to putting on a top-level parade, and they deliver on that promise annually. Here's one of their "super floats" passing by:
The boys marched and played well tonight, even though they were behind one of their rival schools, Archbishop Rummel High, in the marching order of the parade. It's an understandable situation, however, since Rummel is a Metairie school and BMHS were slumming. :-)
Tomorrow is another suburban parade for the boys, the Krewe of Alla, on the west bank of the Mississippi. The name is an abbreviation for "Algiers, Louisiana," not some redneck slight at Islam, in case anybody wonders. Alla is a day parade in a very different neighborhood, so it's a totally different experience that I'll describe tomorrow.