Well pigs are flying are all over New Orleans. Women are buying me drinks. Hell HAS frozen over. That’s right the Saints won the Super Bowl.
The day started as a fabulous celebration. Everyone in sight for blocks and blocks wearing black and gold. Smiling. High fiving. Who dating. Enjoying the day, the city, each other. It was a spectacular example of how a simple thing like a football game can cross all social and cultural boundaries and bring people together if only for a few hours to cheer their team, their city and each other.
Jimmy Buffet once said that the great thing about Mardi Gras is that the man in the mask next you might be the janitor at a bank or the president of a bank, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was next to you having fun.
Yesterday was like that …without the masks.
Well pretty much.
At 5PM Gayle and I were at the Crescent City Cigar Shop in the heart of the French Quarter. The shop was packed with regulars like Armando, Philly Joe, Disco Jack, Big Richard and Bama Jim & Wendy (they’re inseparable) At 5:10 you could hear the noise on Bourbon St simply stop as everyone…and I mean everyone…moved inside to watch the game.
Well you know the rest. Big game …big plays. And tears and hugs and dancing in the street as an entire city started streaming towards Bourbon St to celebrate. Crowds as big as any Mardi Gras I’ve ever seen but all happy and laughing and having fun. The streets were jammed with cars honking horns, people hanging out windows high fiving the crowds on the street.
Regular foks and celebrities all in one big smiling crowd of confusion.
And even tho the country thinks of us as Who Dat Nation the motto that the Saints embraced this year became the slogan of our city ….. not just today but every day ….
