FAT TUESDAY

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

FAT TUESDAY

MARDI GRAS in New Orleans.  

According to Wikipedia:

The terms  "Mardi Gras season", and "Carnival season", in English, refer to events of the Carnival celebrations, beginning on or after Epiphany and culminating on the day before Ash Wednesday. Mardi gras is French for Fat Tuesday, referring to the practice of the last night of eating richer, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten season, which begins on Ash Wednesday

Almost everyone has read about the Fat Tuesday celebrations that occur in the most French of American cities. It certainly cannot compare to the festivities in Rio de Janeiro or perhaps in other cities around the world but for the United States once each year New Orleans becomes a city of fun, frivolity and outrageous behavior.

And it is tied to a very religious season!

New Orleans is known throughout the year as one of the best places anyone can visit in search of a good meal. The cooking, especially the creole cooking, is outstanding.

Folks line up for Breakfast at Brennans. They used to stand in line to hear Al Hirt play his trumpet or Pete Fountain his clarinet. Then there is the Preservation Hall Jazz  band. For those with thicker pocket books there was great dining at Antoines or Galatoires or Commander’s Palace.

But during Mardi Gras most activity is on the street, specifically Bourbon Street. The first time I went to Mardi Gras I wanted to be in the midst of it. I selected a hotel right on Bourbon Street and got a room with a balcony facing the street. Below my room the street was wall-to-wall people. They were loud, raucous and outrageous. I stayed out until 2AM and then returned to my room…but I could not sleep. Too much noise.

A friend rapped on my door at 3AM to suggest I return to the street for more of the fun but I demurred. I think I may have been the only person in New Orleans who actually was in his hotel room.

I finally retreated to the bathroom, which was closer to the hall of the hotel than to Bourbon Street windows, shut the door and climbed into the tub. This muffled the noise.

Slept like a baby.

On a second trip I selected a hotel two blocks off Bourbon Street. Much wiser decision. I was able to enjoy the many parades conducted by the various Krewes and still had a chance to retreat to peace and quiet whenever I wanted. The parades are really fabulous. Almost every native of New Orleans belongs to one Krewe or another. They spend an entire year getting ready, electing a King, and building their float. The Krewes have a pecking order with some more valued than others. Just another class system I guess.

Before a parade thousands of people line up on the street. As the parade passes the members of the Krewe throw plastic beads at you and part of the fun is to collect as many of these as you can.

The downside of Mardi Gras can be simply stated: people behaving badly. Almost anything that you could think of that people might do when law and order seems to have taken a holiday and people have had too much to drink occurs right on the sidewalks and streets. After an initial shock at seeing such things, you begin to be very aware of your surroundings when you are outside.

During Mardi Gras a great many crimes occur. The least of these “crimes” are the outrageous prices one pays for a hotel room or a meal. Those Louisiana folks understand a good thing and they sure have one in Mardi Gras. To them it is like having the Olympics, only they get the tourists every year, not occasionally in a century!

As you get older you begin to see Mardi Gras for what it really is: a very expensive vacation in a place where pickpockets abound, personal safety in not insured, and people act like out of control teenagers (regardless of their age) in order to gather a bag of plastic beads.

My advice: if you are under 35 make the trip once, just for the experience. Over 35-live vicariously and watch it on television.

The irony in all this is that the whole party atmosphere is tied to the religious season of Easter. It seems to suggest that since one is about to engage in a very holy celebration it would be best to get one’s bad behavior and unholy partying completed before the holiday begins.

Am I the only one who finds this thinking a little odd?

THE BOY INSIDE ME

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

The Boy Inside Me

Some people call it your “soul.” 

Others call it the “little voice” inside you.

Sometimes it is called your “conscience.”

Inside all of us is someone who speaks to us each day as we drive along highways alone, as we sit in our chairs in silence, as we go about our everyday activities. It is a constant conversation we have quietly with ourselves, or with the little person inside us.

I do not know what it is to be called but I think of it as the “boy inside.” I use the term “boy” because when he talks to me, or provides input into my thoughts, it the “young me” always. I have been wrestling with this concept for some time. I have especially wrestled with it as I aged.

When I looked at my father in his sixties I thought of him as an old man. Now that I am in my sixties the “boy inside” that speaks to me daily is not an old man. When I contemplate actions, evaluate circumstances, or think about things, I do so as a much younger man.

The voice inside me is not a contemporary one. It is one from many years ago. It is the boy I once was.

My experience has caused me to conclude that as any person’s body ages and others think of them as “old” primarily based on appearance, the way one thinks, and the voice within, is always young. I do not look at things as an older man. When I contemplate things I do so as a man much younger than I really am. This causes me to wonder if this explains why so many “old” people seem youthful, understand young people, seem to have more vitality than they should given their age and the deteriorating condition of their bodies.

Maybe as our bodies show the number of years we have lived, the “soul,” the “little voice inside,” the voice that talks to us throughout our lives, keeps us young at heart,

It is a difficult topic to wrap oneself around. It is not easy to write about it. But I have an appreciation today of how my father must have felt in his sixties. It is an appreciation that would have been difficult to understand before I was in my sixties myself. And had I enjoyed such an understanding then the communications between us would have been so different.

This understanding brings happiness. I realize that although my father looked old, and perhaps acted old, and certainly was old, inside himself he did not think of himself as old. His outlook, his views, his perceptions were much as they were when he was younger. He really lived as a younger man all his life.

Perhaps we are all “young at heart” until death comes to us. It comforts me to think that is the case.

So I am comfortable with the thought that there is a “boy inside” me, a boy who talks to me and informs me each and every day from a point of view more accurately described as “young” even though by all outward signs I am “old.”

I know this "boy" and he knows me and we have walked through life side by side for six decades. We are comfortable with one another and especially when I am alone I cherish his companionship. He is my youth and continually fills me with a young perspective on life.

This inner voice provides each aging person the opportunity to accept that visually to others they are “elderly” while knowing deep inside themselves they are eternally young.

What a blessing.

SCOTT BROWN WENT TO WASHINGTON

Notes of Concern…

                               …Jackson Blair

SCOTT BROWN WENT TO WASHINGTON

                                   U.S. Senator Scott Brown & Jackson Blair

Recently I attended the annual meeting of the MMA (Massachusetts Municipal Association) in Boston. The entire program was very rewarding but I was especially pleased to learn that Massachusetts United States Senators John Kerry and Scott Brown were scheduled to speak.

When the time for the Senators arrived we learned that Senator Kerry would not be coming and that Congressman Markey would “stand in” for him.  That was OK for me. I knew a good bit about Kerry from his presidential campaign but I knew very little about Scott Brown.

I must admit that I was surprised when Brown won the seat previously held by Ted Kennedy in Democrat leaning Massachusetts. I wasn’t sure how to read that election. It was obvious from the news coverage at that time that Brown utilized, among other things, his old pickup truck and a barn jacket. Everywhere he went, those two things went, too.

I am pretty jaded when it comes to politics.

Well, I not only heard Senator Brown but I met him and had a brief conversation. He was warm and welcoming. He did not brush me off. His handshake was firm and real. He was wearing the barn jacket, and it sure looked like he loved the jacket and it did not look like a “prop.”  In fact, he had on a nice business suit, under the barn jacket.  I have no idea if he arrived at the conference in his pickup but after meeting him and hearing him it would have seemed quite natural to me.

Congressman Markey is a longtime member of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation. He has a great deal of experience in Washington, DC.  If I heard him correctly, he is ninth in seniority in the U.S. House of Representatives. His presentation was smooth. He was deft at handling tough questions. He articulated his answers like the pro he is. I was sure impressed with him. But this column isn’t about Congressman Markey.

Senator Brown, instead of insisting on taking charge of the presentation, told the man planning to introduce Markey that he, Brown, wanted to introduce Markey. And he paid great compliments to his Democrat colleague from DC.

A U.S. Senator introducing a U.S. Congressman. Not exactly the usual order of things in the hierarchy of government.

Brown’s comments seemed quite sincere. He did not have the polish or the experience in speaking that Markey brought with him. But it didn’t matter because Brown came across as a citizen politician. Those of you who read my column know that I believe the Founding Fathers always intended that average citizens would rise to national positions and then return to their regular careers after contributing their time and talent to the government.

Scott Brown was a Selectman in his town. He served in the State Senate. He is now a U.S. Senator, but that hasn’t changed him much yet. So at the moment, he is very likeable.

Brown faces a tough election. The conservatives in Massachusetts feel he didn’t turn out to be conservative enough for them. The liberals in Massachusetts feel he was never liberal enough to hold a seat once occupied by the liberal “Lion of the Senate,” Ted Kennedy.

At the same time, Brown talks a lot about representing all the people of Massachusetts, both Republicans and Democrats. I have no reason not to believe him. Everything he said at the conference would indicate his positions and plans are not based on conservative or liberal ideology but rather on what he thinks might be best for those of us living in Massachusetts.

I have to say that appeals to me.  However, it sure isn’t a free-from-difficult path to re-election.

This column is not an endorsement of Senator Scott Brown’s re-election campaign. I know very little about the lady running against Brown and, like a good citizen, I will learn a great deal more about both of them between now and election day.

For now, meeting Scott Brown reminded me of that wonderful old film with Jimmy Stewart titled: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Of course, in that film an honest citizen gets sucked into corruption but eventually rights himself. Hopefully, Senator Brown has seen the film and can avoid the pitfalls that befell Stewart.

I do know that we are represented in Washington, in the U.S. Senate, at this point-in-time by a down-to-earth man who earned his spurs living amongst us in Massachusetts; a man who as yet has not been sucked into “the Washington scene,” isn’t as polished as he might one day become, and just comes across as a common man with an uncommon ability for public service.

It was refreshing.