Mardi Gras Memories

Growing up in the South, Mardi Gras has always been a holiday to celebrate. Whether you got a full week off of school as the Louisianans do or you simply got to bring a King Cake to class on Fat Tuesday, it was a day (or week or month) to remember. I can remember when I was in second grade, the teacher let someone bring a King Cake to the cafeteria. Whoever found the baby got to bring the cake the next day. This went on for a full month as we rotated through every person in the class. It was delicious, glorious, and all of our eight-year-old selves were crashing from our sugar rush just in time for dismissal. Poor parents.

Us Southerners are always looking for a good reason to throw a party, and no one does it better than New Orleans. My first official Mardi Gras in New Orleans on Bourbon Street was completely unplanned and accidental. It was Spring Break of 2000, and a few friends of ours had convinced a couple of moms to take us to Cancun, Mexico, for our senior trip. It would be my first trip out of the country, and I was thrilled. Being that it was before 9/11, travel was much easier. We didn’t even have to bring a passport because a birth certificate would suffice. Can you imagine?

Our flights would leave on a Saturday morning out of New Orleans, so seven of us drove roughly three hours from Jackson, Mississippi, the Friday before. We would be staying with our friend’s cousins’ home, who were about our age- two girls and a boy. As we got settled, claimed our sleeping spots, and made ourselves at home, we began to discuss how we should have an early night since our flights would be leaving in the morning. About that time, the cousins let us know that it was officially the first day of Mardi Gras and suggested we walk around Bourbon Street for an hour or so to take it all in.

We all immediately agreed. When in Rome, right? After about an hour, we piled into a suburban and drove a few miles toward downtown New Orleans to see all the sights and sounds of a Bourbon Street blow out. As we started walking around, we gathered beads and accessories in order to fit in with the rambunctious crowd. It was a scene. The Dixieland Jazz blared from all angles. Masked men and women in royal purples and glittery golds danced drunkenly throughout the beer glazed streets. The overall atmosphere was happy and free. Our wide-eyed, eighteen-year-old selves were in heaven.

A few minutes after our arrival to the Bacchus, a random man approached me. He was not dressed in his Mardi Gras best and looked like a high-end bouncer of some sorts.

“Ma’am, would you like to come to a private party?”

I stopped and looked around, making sure he was speaking to me. “Me?” I innocently asked.

“Yes. It’s right up these stairs.” I looked to my right to see a dark, steep stairwell leading up to an old brick, creole building with a balcony overlooking the busy street. Most of my group was too busy observing the parade of people around them to notice what was happening.

Now, it was at this moment I knew I had to make a quick decision. On one hand, that stairwell could lead to a fun-filled party full of Mardi Gras madness, and on the other hand, it could potentially lead the beginning of a horror movie. I knew there would be strength in numbers if it were the latter. I sternly responded to the stranger, “Only if all of my friends can come, too.”

He looked around behind me. “How many?”

“Ten. Nine girls, one boy.”

“That’ll work. Follow me.”

I rounded up my friends and told them we were going into the near building to a party. They seemed to agree it was an alright idea since we were sticking together, so they eagerly followed me and our new, well-dressed bouncer friend up the dark stairwell. As we got closer to the top of the stairs, the light grew brighter and the noise grew louder. We entered a giant empty room with a deejay, a full bar, an enormous spread of catered Cajun delicacies, and a wrap-around balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. Somehow, we had stumbled upon the pot of gold at the end of the Mardi Gras rainbow.

Somewhere between 1986 and 1996, Louisiana had raised the drinking age from eighteen to twenty-one to avoid losing federal highway dollars. However, at this point in 2000, no one said a word if they saw an eighteen-year-old helping themselves to the open bar. Since we knew this was the case from the local cousins, we happily partook in the offerings. Besides, we didn’t want to seem rude.

Eventually other people trickled into the party. They all seemed very nice and normal, so we never felt unsafe. I still am unsure what kind of party it was, but if my memory serves correctly a business had rented out the building and needed “fillers” before the crowd arrived. And let me tell you, we were the most fun “fillers” that building has ever seen. Our senior spring break trip had started off with a bang. We quickly befriended the deejay, schmoozed the bartender, and got that party started off right. Clearly we had done the job the well-dressed security guard needed us to do.

A little after midnight, one of us remembered we had to catch a flight to Cancun early the next morning, so we all agreed it was time to go. We said goodbye to our new found friends and returned to the cousins’ house covered in beads of all kinds, sequined masks, and jambalaya bourbon breath. The rest of the night is a blur, but I know there was not much sleep happening. And our chaperones were not pleased with our behavior.

Instead of alarm clocks going off after a few hours of sleep, I awoke to our two chaperones telling us (or yelling for us) to get up. I’ll never forget waking up to our friends scattered throughout the house on couches, the floor, and any bed they could find.

“Leave me. I’m not going to Mexico. I’ve had enough Spring Break.” I heard Betsy say from an adjacent room. Kitty wasn’t budging either. She was the hardest to wake up- it always took a village.

At some point, one mother looked at me and said, “You are in charge. I’m taking the first group, and we will meet you at the airport.” I assume this happened because I have always been extremely type-A and usually seem very together, even when I am freaking out on the inside. The thought of getting the scraggler friends of the group to the New Orleans airport by myself had me reeling on the inside. The last time I had been on an airplane was when I was ten, so navigating a busy airport after our first true, hardcore Mardi Gras experience was going to be tough. But I knew I couldn’t let them down.

Eventually my friends either stopped hugging the toilet or got out of bed and pulled themselves together. I didn’t have time to think about how bad I felt and begged the boy cousin to drive us to the airport as fast as he could. I’m pretty sure Kitty slept-walked in her silk pajamas to the suburban.

After a whirlwind of effort, we found the rest of our group at our boarding gate. I’m surprised we didn’t have to get wheeled through the airport just because of how we looked. With how travel is now, we would have immediately been flagged for COVID then had to argue that we just looked like we were dying because of the Mardi Gras debauchery we had experienced a few hours earlier. Nonetheless, we made it to our flights from some type of Mardi Gras miracle.

Cancun came and went. We made many fun memories and laughed until our bellies hurt. Still, to this day, I believe most of us would say the best time of the trip was had at the top of that random dark stairwell off Bourbon Street in New Orleans. If you haven’t experienced a New Orleans Mardi Gras, it is something you must do. And if a random well-dressed security guard asks you to follow him up a dark stairwell, just make sure plenty of your friends can come…it just may lead to the pot of gold at the end of the Mardi Gras rainbow.

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