NOLA Notes

Last year, I posted about my annual St. Patrick’s parade excursion in Metairie. This Sunday, the parade will be celebrating its 37th year, and I will be returning to the same spot to watch the same parade to catch the same vegetables to make my traditional cabbage rolls.

Katie challenged me to write about the history of NOLA’s St. Patrick’s Day activities. Now, I loooove a good challenge. But this one proved a bit rough. Alls I could learn was that only a handful of cities in the country have a St. Patrick’s parade (and of course that means New Orleans will have at least two) but that we are the only city that throws cabbages from the floats of said parades. We here in NOLA do love our food. So although I could not locate the history behind this tradition (throwing the cabbages, not eating them), its logic is easy enough to follow.

You can click here to read about the history of the Irish settling in New Orleans. Instead of repeating that information, I will give a bit of history about two marching krewes, one of which will be in the parade this Sunday. Katie, I hope this suffices.

First, the Jefferson City Buzzards. Jefferson City was once a part of New Orleans. Jefferson City ran along Mississippi River from Toledano to Joseph Street. This part of town, back in the mid- and late-1800s, was heavily inhabited by immigrants. Many of these immigrants were German and many of these Germans were butchers. These butchers slaughtered meat to be consumed in the city. And with slaughterhouses and butchers came . . . buzzards.

So, 20 years after Jefferson City became part of New Orleans proper, in 1890, the Jefferson City Buzzards began marching. They began marching when it was popular to dress as women; some of the marchers still do this today. They have been marching now for over 115 years. So when one of the marchers drops to the ground and starts doings his famous “cockroach dance,” enjoy a bit of history in the living.

The second marching band is far less famous: The Mysterious Babies. This group started in 1910 and, like many of the marching bands of the day, lasted until the onset of World War I (1914). I learned of this group in a, well, mysterious way. In my grandmother’s photographs was a clipping from the old Dixie Magazine pull-out of the Sunday Times-Picayune. It was a write-up about the Mysterious Babies in the “Picture out of Our Past” section. This article has a picture of the marchers in 1910, and among the faces are several of my ancestors. Further research shows that my great- great-uncles were some of the original officers. They had several write-ups in the Times Picayune over the few short years of their existence. On their second anniversary (they dressed up like baby dolls and marched during Mardi Gras), the Times Picayune had this to say about them:

The Babies gave one parade, which was a scream, and they promise that their showing of Tuesday will not only cause laughter, but excite admiration and wonderment.

Their clubhouse was just a few doors down from the house CS and I now own in uptown New Orleans. This house is located in the part of New Orleans that was once part of Jefferson City. My ancestors were German. And they were also butchers.

In New Orleans, everything has meaning. Everything has a history. Even when that history is butchery and buzzards and men dressing like women and babies, it’s a rich history of which we are proud.

So why do New Orleanians throw cabbages and carrots and potatoes from floats? And why do we chase those floats half a block to catch the vegetables? Well, for me the answer is, because it’s what my family has been doing for as long as any of us can remember.