“Times are not good here. The city has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. Its condition is so bad that when I write about it, as I intend to do soon, nobody will believe I am telling the truth. But I would rather live here in sackcloth and ashes than own the whole state of Ohio.” – Lafcadio Hearn on New Orleans, 1877
It is almost 150 years old, but Lafcadio Hearn’s famous 1877 description of New Orleans – captured in a letter he penned to a friend in his former hometown of Cincinnati – so perfectly captures the sentiments of so many in the Crescent City that it could have been written yesterday.
Wedged between a river, a lake, a swamp and more swamp, this place is still as dysfunctional as Grand Isle is wet. And, yet, then as now, ain’t no better place on Earth to live.
Working as a correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper, Hearn had come to the New Orleans in a fit of municipal ennui, declaring, “It is time for a fellow to get out of Cincinnati when they begin to call it the Paris of America.”
Needless to say, what he found here changed him as profoundly as if he had traded the monochromatic fields of Kansas for the technicolor pageant of the Emerald City.
If New Orleanians of the day were turning potholes into jacuzzis or making celebrities of nutrias, the papers weren’t covering it. Still, it’s safe to say Hearn got an education in things that make sense only at 29.9 degrees latitude.
Now, all these beers later, New Orleanians of today still blissfully eschew hard-and-fast rules in favor of what this city really runs on: simple manners, basic etiquette and a reverence for tradition.
To the extent that rules are necessary, they exist mostly as guardrails for tourists, teenagers and meatheads. Nowhere is that more evident than during the annual pre-Lenten whirlwind known as Carnival.
Yes, you should feel free to do watcha’ wanna’ at Mardi Gras time. That’s the New Orleans way. But there are still manners to be minded.
To edify the masses, the New Orleans Police Department in 1998 distributed a placard listing six “Mardi Gras guidelines” for which a person could be arrested during Carnival.
Not rules. Not laws. “Guidelines.”
It is an admittedly incomplete list, but it remains such a good starting place for good manners that I have a framed copy hanging in my house. (You know. To educate the kids.)
Coming in at No. 1: No public urination.
Consider it the Golden Rule.
True, the difficulty in finding a public pissoir on Fat Tuesday is so legendary that at least one song has been written about it. Regardless, your expression of personal freedom should never involve a splash zone.
It says something that the NOPD ranks that one above guidelines No. 2 and 3 – which, respectively, nix “Nudity below the waist” and “Lewd or obscene behavior” – which are really variations on the same theme when you think about it.
Admittedly, there’s something of a Bourbon Street exemption to that one. Really, you just have to remember where y’at.
That’s because – and this can’t be stressed enough – New Orleans is more than Bourbon Street. Despite what the internet insists, the vast majority of parade routes are populated by families. So keep your private business private. The only coconuts anybody wants to see at Carnival are Zulu’s.
Guideline No. 4 is an exception to the no-rules concept: No grabbing or groping another person. Even in New Orleans, that’s assault. Or worse. That this one did not top the NOPD’s 1998 list is an illustration of how times and attitudes have (thankfully) changed.
Guidelines No. 5 and 6 are less controversial, dealing with glass containers (don’t) and an 11 o’clock curfew for minors (do).
In truth, though, there are more than just six Mardi Grass guidelines to keep in mind. The key: Just remember that it’s not your party. It belongs to all of us. So as you let off a year’s worth of pent-up steam, simply make sure it’s not at the expense of others.
Don’t cordon off swaths of neutral ground. Don’t throw beads back at floats. Don’t move other people’s stuff. Don’t be “That Moron.”
Rex forbid, people might think you’re from Cincinnati.
