Throw me a Potato, Mister!

As a sometime frat boy attending a well-known Southern party school, my undergraduate degree was in journalism and alcohol. With that background, one might assume I was prepared for anything. But my first Mardi Gras, which I saw hazily through the fog of grog, escorted by one of the most unforgettable characters to cross my path, was one for the record books.

I came late to Louisiana. Except for trips to New Orleans now and then (you might think of those as “dress rehearsals”) I had never been there, and never saw Baton Rouge until the day I moved there in 1972. Mardi Gras was not a tradition in my life any more than etouffee, gumbo, or rice and gravy. As you can see, those three are now firmly established in the Doyle family. But to this day, I have never attended a Carnival parade on Fat Tuesday in New Orleans.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t celebrated it, though. When my first Mardi Gras approached in 1974, my friend J.C. Hatcher invited me to see it with a few friends of his in Lafayette. I thought it must be a family affair, so I made plans to take along my son Jamey, then just over two years old. We drove from Baton Rouge that morning with L. K. Herlong, a friend of mine from the Advocate, where we all worked at the time.

J.C. was from Kentwood before Britney Spears was born. For those of you who don’t know the place, Kentwood is . . .how shall I put this. . .well, “country” just doesn’t do it justice, but is the best I can come up with for now. J.C. was a faithful representative of Kentwood, but he was also a dyed-in-the-wool Cajun. He loved Lafayette, its university, and its sports programs.

One of his great friends was “Coach” Blanco, husband of our recent governor. I met both of them later that day. Others in our group were Bob “Rip” Henderson, who worked at Evangeline Downs for years; Charlie Lenox of the Lafayette Daily Advertiser, later editor of that publication; and assorted coaches and athletes from USL, as it then was.

This Mardi Gras was truly a red-letter day. I learned how to catch beads without getting my hand stepped on and ate crawfish for the first time. This was a big deal, since my last experience with mudbugs was in biology class in high school. We dissected one. I don’t like crawfish.

J.C. and his wife Flo escorted me through town on a steadily rising tide of food and adult beverages while the parade passed by. As it waned, talk shifted to the next venue, and the group decided to go to a place I’d never heard of called “Sunset.” Sounded interesting to me, so we all piled in our cars and took off up the highway. Lest you worry, I wasn’t driving. I was sleeping in the back seat.

Some indefinite time later, my son Jamey woke me up to bright sunlight and the distant echo of a strange, vaguely French song. We were in the town of Sunset for their Mardi Gras parade. I staggered the couple of blocks to the parade route and found my guests, who were transfixed by a fiddle and accordion ensemble riding in a partially-covered wagon drawn by horses, playing a song later identified to me as “Lache Pas La Patate.” In true Carnival tradition, others on the “float” were throwing things to bystanders. Not beads. Baked sweet potatoes wrapped in foil. Thus I discovered Sunset’s role as the “sweet potato capital of the world.”

That sweet potato was welcome. I was hungry, and wasn’t about to eat any more crawfish.

The queens of any parade, of course, ride on floats. Not in Sunset. They were on the back end of a series of Corvettes. The one I remember most was an ample girl who had been (ahem) well-raised. The car leaned a little to the rear, if you get my drift. As she passed by, I could see the name of the commercial enterprise sponsoring her on the side of the car, taped in place on a poster board: “CORMIER’S FEED AND SEED.” Hmmm.

Sunset is a small town. The parade was fun, but short. So, they ran it through town over and over, three times, so everybody could get a potato and a look at the queens.

In Sunset, I also got my first look at the Courir des Mardi Gras, cowboys on horseback chasing chickens. The chickens were long gone by this time of day and tempers were getting short. The cowboys were blocking our entrance to the four-lane highway between Opelousas and Lafayette, leading to an exchange of pleasantries between my host J.C. and the riders. And that was the first time I heard the phrase, “(BLEEP) YOU. AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON!”

My brother Thomas and his wife Nancy are fleeing the Chicago winter for Fat Tuesday, and I hope I can show them how we celebrate it here. Any of you guys who ride floats—throw me something!! I’ll be the fat guy with the Yankees.

So Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler, mon amis, and I’ll see you guys on the flip.