An Anniversary...

 Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans are shut down due to concerns it will be a Covid super spreader event. That does not mean Mardi Gras is shut down it just means it will be different this year. With a polar vortex event headed for our East Texas area it looks like things will be shut down around here. We will still have Valentine's day but due to the current climate, weather wise and virus aware it will be a bit different also. That does not keep us from taking note of an important anniversary. 

One night in December 1987 I was in Houston, Tx visiting a friend.  We decided to go out to the old Club Hey Hey to see blues band Anson Funderbrug and the Rockets with Sam Myers. Cathy, we were acquaintances but did not know each other well made arrangements to meet us there. Needless to say we spent the night dancing and although she was busy with nursing school in Houston we decided to stay in contact. Sometime in the next month or so she let me in on plans to visit her friend Nancy in New Orleans for Mardi Gras and as I had been to the Crescent City for Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest I was always looking for an excuse to go. It only seemed natural that I should go with her. Technically it was our second date.  

I don't remember a lot of the travel arrangements. We flew and sat on the plane by a salesman headed to the city for a convention. Who has a business convention during Mardi Gras? He had a name tag that identified him as William Stanberry. He reached into his suit jacket for something and accidently pulled out a baggie of a green organic substance. Nervously replacing this in his jacket he settled into reading a magazine with pictures of nude women. I always wonder what kind of Mardi Gras William had. 

I think we stayed at a motel on the West Bank of the Mississippi River. Darwin and his late wife Debbie were also there and I can't recall if that was by plan or accident. Darwin probably made these earliest photos of us together. 

This photo of Cathy has been cropped a couple of times. She does not like an old picture of her holding a beer but since she has been sober almost 30 years I think it might be ok. I cropped it again today because I noticed an offensive flag in the background. 

We had to have this shot on the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse Streets. It's around here somewhere blown up to poster size. I don't know when the last time I have visited this part of the French Quarter and I always wonder what happened to the guy in the photos passing behind us. 

This trip took place on the weekend before the big Fat Tuesday Weekend. I really don't know why the date was picked but I have found that it's usually a bit less crowded and in recent years I have enjoyed the parades that take place a couple of weekends after Epiphany (seems like more tuba players) or the ones on St. Patrick's or St. Joseph's Day. 

I used the old internets to check what the actual date of Mardi Gras 1988 was and I discovered that for that year and this year, 2021 all the days are the same. Valentine's Day hit on a Sunday and it does this year also. That means we were in New Orleans the weekend of Feb. 6, 1988. I don't know how often that happens but maybe it's significant. 

If I tried to figure out all the times I had been to New Orleans it's probably going to sound like bragging. I know it's a significant place to us in our love for each other and the fun we have had there.