Mardi Gras 2006

The past weekend marked the annual Mardi Gras Celebrations for Pensacola in 2006. Today is Fat Tuesday. Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of the Lenten Fast.

What does this all mean?

New Orleans, Louisianna start their festivities on January 6, the anniversary of the Twelfth Night Feast of the Epiphany. For those unfamiliar with Catholic traditions, the 6th of January is exactly twelve days after Christmas and is the night upon which the Three Wise Men came to see the baby Jesus. Incidently, this is also where the Twelve Days of Christmas Tradition comes from.

Fat Tuesday is always the day before Ash Wednesday. The Venician version of this Festival is The Carnival and everyone wears masks because this festival allows every excess as the Lenten Fast starts the next day and continues for 40 days.

New Orleans has made Mardi Gras a legal festival lasting until midnight. The festival will always be 46 days before Easter. However, the date of Easter changes yearly, which means that Mardi Gras can fall on any Tuesday between March 3 and 9.

Pensacola does not go to these extremes, but also has a little Mardi Gras tradition. On the Friday night and Saturday afternoon before Fat Tuesday, Downtown Pensacola has parades. On the Sunday the parades are on Pensacola Beach.

My co-worker, Bridget, and I decided to go to the Saturday parade as we were already invited to a party on the Beach by my boss on Sunday. Neither of us have Mardi Gras where we are from.

On Saturday the weather was perfect until 1pm when it started spitting with little drops of rain. I told Bridget that it was a bad sign, because by 2pm when the parade starts, it would be pouring.

And so it did. It poured and poured some more. But, as is the tradition with Mardi Gras, all were desperate for beads.

The way it works is that as the floats go by, you shout and scream and get all excited so that someone would toss some beads at you. The Mardi Gras colours are green, purple and gold. In New Orleans, the tradition began that the more you flash the bigger the beads that they will throw at you. Luckily, in Pensacola it is more of a family event and we have the odd one that gets a little drunk here and there.

Nevertheless, Bridget and I were really excited and decided to brave most of the rain and ended up being soaked to the bone. We did go home with a bag full of beads, a t-shirt, plastic cups and some glow in the dark necklace thingy.

At one point - and most of my friends say that it would only be me - Bridget said "Look out!" and pointed to the sky where I saw a large string of beads coming out of nowhere right at me. Bridget didn't think it would really hit me, but they did, leaving me with little purple bruises and a finger that felt like it had been slammed in a door. No harm was done, though, so we continued to party.

Pensacola Beach is a barrier island, which means that at the moment (thanks to Hurricane Ivan) there is only one way on and off the island. So, although the parade only started at 2pm, we were advised to get on the island as soon as possible as they would close the bridge at 1pm. I got there at 9:59 am. Just in time to miss the mad rush of cars.

Larry had to work that day, so I went by myself and still had to be at church at 5pm. I was a little nervous about making it with such short time constraints but decided not to drink at all. That, and I had to drive through Gulf Breeze, which is notorious for cops pulling people over for speeding or driving under the influence. Not a chance I was willing to take.

Sunday was wonderful and sunny apart from the cold breeze that was blowing. I managed to get a little sunburnt on my face, but I caught a ton of beads. Probably because I was with Bridget and she wore a purple wig that caused her to stand out in the crowd. That will get you a ton of beads.

The parade lasted an hour and fifteen minutes and I spent the next twenty minutes in my car trying to get out of the parking lot. I not only made it to church on time, but got there with time to spare!

And, now it is Fat Tuesday, so Bridget and I are going to stick to the tradition and have some really good lunch.