Mardi Gras: Thibodaux and Golden Meadow

We may not have been riding with Kevin Costner or the Doobie Brothers on the Endymion parade, but we did get to experience the other side of the coin in beautful Cut Off, Louisiana. The Holla staff was escorted to Louisiana by a Native Guide, who comes from a family of entertainers and ne'er-do-wells in the bayous southwest of the Big Easy. Her grandfather is local institution Pott Folse (pictured below), who has his own float in a local parade; with various other relations playing in the backing band, he delights the crowd with Cajun-flavored songs and a few bawdy jokes.


Our Native Guide managed to get us highly prized spots on Pott's Band Wagon for the Sunday parade in Thibodaux, LA. We scooped up the pounds of plastic trinkets we had caught in New Orleans the previous day, purchased many small suitcases of additional plastic necklaces, and got ready to roll. It was fantastic. The crowd loves Pott, but maybe not quite as much as they love plastic trinkets. The plastic trinkets, in turn, were not quite as popular as the stuffed animals tossed out by more experienced companions on our float.


The reactions of various members of the trinket-chasing crowd could serve as the foundation for a graduate dissertation in game theory and/or sociology. They will be explored in further detail (but not at dissertation length, we assure you) in this space shortly. The picture at the top of this entry is from a parade we watched that evening in Golden Meadow, also near our Native Guide's ancestral homeland, and was added as a teasing splash of color. We sadly did not get to/have to wear such get-ups while throwing beads. Immediately above, The Lovely Katherine demonstrates a more measured bead-throwing style.