A tribute to so many cultures

Sunday was one of the first that truly felt like spring, and so a great day for a parade, and so the timing of Houma’s Irish and Italian Parade was flawless.

Brought to you by some of the same folks who handle Terrebonne’s biggest Mardi Gras free show, the Hercules parade, the Irish-Italian extravaganza wound its way from the Picadilly Parking lot on West Park Avenue to Hollywood Road, then down West Main to Barrow Street where it ended at Bond, in the parking lot of the old Town Hall.

I consider myself an expert on both of these cultures, having grown up in an Italian household, but born of Irish roots in Montreal, something that took on great significance when I learned that my birth name was Robert Eugene Kelly. But that is another story for another time, except to say that before I ever knew of this my ear was turned favorably to the sound of pipes, both the Highland and Irish variety.

On the way to this parade I listened to Tommy Makem at full blast in my Jeep, singing along a bit. Tolerating this display was Maurice Clement Frazier IV, who experienced his first Mardi Gras this year, and was about to experience his first Irish-Italian parade.

“I was expecting to see some leprechauns and Irish music,” said Maurice Clement Frazier IV, who accompanied me on the outing. “Yes, I was also expecting the vegetables.”

At West Main and St. Charles, after the obligatory passage of police motorcycles and a few other attractions, the floats began in earnest,

Men, women and children beseeched the riders, many with laundry baskets in their hands, some with big fish nets, along with brave souls with bare palms turned skyward.

Potatoes, cabbages, turnips and even pineapples were tossed by the riders.

“I felt like this should teach me to dodge the potatoes better, it was more like a dodgeball game,” said Maurice. “It was entertaining, not as greedy as Mardi Gras. .”

I shared that sentiment. I saw few people as willing to step on a child or cast away a fellow reveler as quickly for a carrot as they might for a string of beads.

The parade’s overseer, Hercules captain S.P, LaRussa, has a legitimately Italian heritage though there was not a lot of Italian presence on the floats or among the throws.

Grand Marshall Jerry Boudreaux, dressed as a leprechaun, brought a distinctively Irish flair to the festivities, which is a pretty good feat for a guy named Boudreaux.

That the event – which laid dormant for many years but has been resurrected – takes place at all in Cajun country is a testament to the resiliency of the Cajuns and the indefatigable spirit of the Irish, even in places where they don’t have a big presence.

There are Irish people who have made a mark in Terrebonne Parish and surrounding areas. Richard D’Alton Williams, Irish poet, physician and freedom fighter, was buried at St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Thibodaux, to which he had fled from English oppression, in 1862.

Ironically it was the Irish members of a New Hampshire federal army regiment then occupying Thibodaux who laid the patriot to rest.

It’s difficult to say if any of the people tossing the vegetables at the parade had ever heard of Williams.

When one woman handed me a potato I looked at her and in my best brogue said “I have ancestors who likely died for want of these,” mimicking a dear friend, James Flannery, who lived here for a time but has since returned to North Carolina. James would say that every time he cooked a potato.

I don’t know what the woman thought she heard, but I got a look as if I had been talking dirty. Nobody really expects you to make such a statement, even when being handed a potato on St. Patrick’s Day, and so it’s hard to figure out what they might have thought the words were or meant.

But the lack of true Irish men and women or bagpipes, or the absence of so much as a piped Tarantella to bring up the Italian end, is not the point here.

Rather, it is that people whose ancestors come from many different cultures and places, Africa, France, Canada and who knows where else, joined together to throw a party everyone could enjoy.

There was likely more jambalaya eaten at various homes last night than corned beef and cabbage.

But it was the willingness of the people to throw a party, to do homage to cultures they themselves do not necessarily have an attachment to, that for me marked the success of Houma’s Irish-Italian parade.

So I will attend next year with a proper basket. And Maurice will wear a catcher’s mask.

Erin Go Brah!