A Mardi Gras memory...I lived in New Orleans, part-time, ...

A Mardi Gras memory...
I lived in New Orleans, part-time, for about three years with husband George Alec Effinger.
One Mardi Gras, we went down to the French Quarter (reminder: let's not do that again - jammed mobs of drunk college kids throwing up in the gutters), and George said, "It's almost midnight. You've got to come see this." We went to the corner of Bourbon and Iberville, a block from the edge of the Quarter, and as the clock struck midnight on Mardi Gras, I got to see the Last Mardi Gras parade: a wall-to-wall line of New Orleans cops (like a walking krewe), followed by a wall-to-wall line of MOUNTED New Orleans cops (like Riding Dukes, except without the purple satin robes and hoods), blaring grimly into megaphones: "Mardi Gras is over. Get off the streets. Mardi Gras is over."

All the drunk college kids just looked baffled and confused. The lines of cops advanced inexorably, sweeping all before them, and behind them came - like floats - a wall-to-wall line of street-sweeper trucks.

After every Mardi Gras, they weigh the trash, to tell how successful it's been.

I'm going for the Tennessee Williams Festival in about 4 weeks. It'll be nice to see the place again.