Should they or shouldn’t they

It’s been almost six months since Hurricane Katrina ravaged through New Orleans, leaving the city’s air with a foul stench of mold and death. Since the storm’s impact, many questions have arisen about the crescent city’s future: Where would the Bayou Classic be played now? Where would the Saint’s hold their games? But one of the most important questions looming in everyone’s mind was: Would there be a Mardi Gras in 2006?
Many people said no. Why would there be? The city was in disarray. Its citizens were scattered across the nation like the smoldering ashes of a flame that once burned hot and bright. The city’s economy was submerged in deeper waters than the houses of the ninth ward. No, there was no way there could be a Mardi Gras in 2006. What was there left to even celebrate?
When Mayor Ray Nagin announced that the city would host its annual Mardi Gras celebration regardless of the damage the storm had done, I was troubled that he and city councilmen saw it fit to celebrate a frivolous festival when the storm’s destruction had just shot the nation’s homeless numbers up in just a few destructive hours. Clearly Mardi Gras wasn’t as important as re-building Louisiana’s crowned jewel of culture and southern heritage. Shouldn’t they be concentrating more on how to rebuild stronger levees than whether or not the city would be ready to welcome hundreds of drunken tourist just itching to show flesh for plastic beads?
Supporters for this year’s Mardi Gras celebration argued that New Orleans had to go on with its annual street party mayhem to help keep up the city’s morale. They weren’t ready to let Mother Nature, who had already robbed them of their homes, rob them of their Fat Tuesday delights also! They had been robbed of enough, and for them, the buck stopped with Mardi Gras.
Apparently they weren’t the only ones who felt that way because when cooperate sponsorships began to look as desolate as the city’s neighborhoods, the city council allocated nearly 3 million dollars to cover the rest of the festival’s expenses.
Now that the parades have begun to float down the city’s chewed up streets, I’m starting to juggle the question: Should they, or shouldn’t they have had Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year?
If you’re a Louisiana native like me, the hoopla that is Mardi Gras has become vanilla and stale. Plastic bobbles and Zulu spears aren’t as valuable as they once were when you were a kid, hoisted on your father’s shoulders with out stretched arms, pleading to be noticed by one of the costumed “bead-throwers”. Who wants to shuffle down a congested Bourbon St., nearly hacking from the stench of vomit and urine? Once you’ve seen one intoxicated, naked tourist you’ve seen them all. There was no special tie I had with the holiday, I feel because I’ve been around it all my life, and year after year, been subjected to its craziness. So when the idea of having it this year was floating around like dead bodies down a drenched Canal St., I thought, who cares! Who needs Mardi Gras? It’s not that big a deal! There are far more pressing matters, like rebuilding hundreds of homes for the city’s displaced citizens, that needed tending to.
But since then, I’ve had a little change of heart.
After having been to the fallen city and seeing some of the devastation for myself, I realize that the Crescent City is hurting. There are things there that would make a grown man cry. As you drive down once vibrant streets that were rich with history and legacy, you long again for the days when New Orleans was the weekend getaway that gave you and your friends a reason to pile up in one car and let loose your frustrations on a city that was willing to accept them just so you could leave happier.
Maybe its’ supporters were right. New Orleans does need Mardi Gras. Because without it, the city would be accepting defeat in the wake of the storm. Isn’t it really ok to forget the troubles of the world for just one weekend in order for the city, and its people, to heal with a little merriment? Besides, Katrina’s wrath will never really be out of mind anyway, because as each majestic float passes by a group of eager onlookers, there’s a regurgitated pile of debris, that was once some family’s home, to remind everyone that Mother Nature is still running THIS show!