TOO TIRED TO GREASE A POLE

Welcome to Bourbon Street!
(No Wonder We Were Moving Slow!)

The night before my big day with Morpheus my friend Aimee had driven from Jacksonville for her first Mardi Gras, bringing nephew Kyle who is in law school there. His girlfriend, Kelly, flew in from San Antonio where they’re all from (though she was born in Baltimore) and it was the couple’s first trip to New Orleans at all. Thus, I’d rushed them to the Muses parade and then took them for their first (and only of the trip) obligatory stroll down Bourbon Street as is legally required of first timers. I wanted their first night in town to be memorable—mission accomplished (more on this in future posts)—but we stayed out much later than was wise before such a monumental day, for I’d been warned that riding on a Mardi Gras float was the longest—though greatest—day ever.

Thus Friday morning we missed the ‘Greasing of the Poles.’

For 44 years now the Royal Sonesta Hotel on Bourbon Street has been greasing the poles supporting their balcony to discourage onlookers seeking a better view, and I wanted to take the gang to see this spectacle although I was skeptical before they arrived that we’d actually get moving in time. The Greasing of the Poles began when parades used to roll through the narrow streets of the French Quarter before they grew too big and moved Uptown, yet the ceremonial ‘greasing of the poles’ continues. (And, besides, there’s still plenty to see on Bourbon, per the much publicized flashing that is mostly contained to this area.) New Orleans loves an excuse to party, so the suggestiveness of [Read more…]