“Beads! Beads! Me! Me!” shout throngs of kids, already colorfully bedecked in strings of purple, green, and gold beads.
“Throw me some beads for my kids”, yell a group of teenage boys. (Well, now?!)
“Throw me beads. It’s my birthday”, screeches another.
Every year the streets of Soulard in St Louis ring with similar calls, as the annual Mardi Gras Parade winds from the huge downtown parking area next to Busch Stadium. It’s colorful, noisy, fun, and amazingly well-attended. The St Louis Mardi Gras Parade is the second largest in USA, after those in the New Orleans area, and every year it seems to get bigger and better.
To experience raw, sheer exhuberance this is a choice parade to either attend or take part in.
The Grand Parade is the highlight of two days of activities, such as beer tasting (offered by Schlafly’s Krewe of Brew), an Elvis Mardi Gras Party, and soul music at the South Broadway Athletic Club (free).
People line both sides of the street along the parade route, about three miles. One year (2002), I was fortunate to be part of the parade, seeing it from a different perspective. My daughter and I marched with the Planned Parenthood “float”, actually a brightly painted VW Beetle car called the “Love Bug”, stuffed full of huge bags of beads. Long strings, short strings, big beads, round beads, square beads, glass beads, sparkly beads, you name it. Purple, green, silver, gold.
There’s a sea of faces as we walk along the road, everyone is yelling, hands held out. We feel bad, as everyone is saying, “Please”. We want to give mostly to the kids but there are so many of them. We discover early on not to make eye contact, just to walk and throw. All the floats have beads and other goodies, so everyone will get something, we reason.
Some of the watchers have butterfly nets with long handles for catching beads, kids are in trees, people stand on the roof of sheds, all hoping for a better vantage (and catching) point. Even the firefighters on the top of a fire truck, and a policeman on the roof of his car, are asking for beads.
Police control is definitely needed, as kids often run past the cordon on to the street in search of dropped beads. The police shoo them back behind the barrier so they won’t get trampled.
“Beads! Beads!” It becomes a mantra, which flows around us. Strange to be on the giving end. One young boy told me proudly at the end that he got 205 strings.
Girls, especially, screech, as apparently it’s a tradition: you have to scream louder to be noticed. Some young girls throw candy back to the floats in return for beads. Later we throw it back to other kids.
There are more than 100 floats, led by many marching bands, including the Scottish bagpipes contingent, and various school marching bands. Then the motor-bike brigade follows, hundreds of bikes revving. People dolled up like animals pedal on regular bikes, a Roman in a white toga pushes a supermarket trolley. Many of the floats have their own music, some even their own bands, a popular theme being Elvis and Blues. It gets very loud and the sounds begin to reverberate in our heads.
All floats have a theme, many related to some social or political issue. Floats run the gamut from gorgeous to garish. We see Rocky Horror Picture Show, “Eat Me” (a huge white cake), Boogie Nights, Little Shop of Flowers/Horrors, which is like a large Venus Fly-Trap, the Procrastinators’ Society, and a float to honor POWs. There are clowns, dancers, and live animals (one float sports a live camel, llama, and donkey, suitably kitted out in colorful flower garlands and beads).
There are an amazing number of dogs in the crowds too. People bring their pets and drape beads around their necks. It seemed a bit of a problem, as we saw a couple of small dogs getting bumped underfoot, and almost stepped on.
Parade walkers and watchers alike are having a good time. This is a chance to be flashy, gaudy, garish, with faces painted, sporting daring or outrageous costumes and sparkles in the hair. People relax and inhibitions are down. For a short while you really can be someone else, behave in ways you wouldn’t normally. Guys wander around with flasks of beer strapped around their necks, drinking it with a long straw. Some wear a clunky necklace, the huge pendant a naked woman’s torso. Some young people shout at us. “Throw us condoms. We promise we’ll use condoms”, or “Thank goodness for the pill”. Another has a placard saying, “Thanks goodness for Roe v. Wade”.