Happy Ash Wednesday.

Mardi Gras is over. Lent begins. I wish you a hard Lent.

I have been bestowed a new Latin motto: Pergo et Perago. “I persevere and I prevail.” I will try to live up to it.

On that note, the Devil better be wary of any Lenten tussle with your humble narrator. I have been given a new motto for a reason. It’s like a middle name.

I said I was going to tell you about the Skull and Bones Gang waking up the neighborhood on Mardi Gras morning, but I’ve got something better….

The Mardi Gras Indians did not hatch out of an egg. They are the efflorescence that appears, unbidden, from the substance, the bedrock, that is New Orleans proper. New Orleans without Indians has always been unimaginable.

The original Indians in this part of Louisiana were the Choctaw and the Colapissa nations. They are naught but street names now. The Indian tribes in New Orleans today have names like, Wild Magnolias, Golden Feather Hunters, and Washitaw Nation. It is impossible to police a bird.

I was on the St Claude Bridge over the Industrial Canal on Mardi Gras morning, out on patrol. The Indians had blocked the bridge coming from the Lower 9th Ward into the Bywater. They were not doing it on purpose, or to make a statement. The Indians had someplace to go.

The Indians do not do things for our appreciation. They exist in both physical New Orleans, you can see and touch them, but they also exist in supernatural New Orleans in invisible and intangible ways. The Indians do what they do because that is what they do. They do not do anything for you except in the most general way. Their existence is reason enough.

The Indians persevere. The Indians prevail.

I wish you a hard Lent.

Now that Mardi Gras is over, I am going to start publishing an in depth investigation of one of my favorite parts of New Orleans. I am diving deep into Gert Town in the 17. There is so much that interesting in New Orleans. Gert Town is surreal.

Paid subscribers will get the full story, as usual. Free subscribers will get whatever dribs and drabs I feel like releasing by way of teaser. What would a Mardi Gras Indian do? They would get a paid subscription, at least for a month to see what they are missing.

As always, feel free to share any of these articles with someone you love. The world needs more New Orleans in it. The world needs more good memories.

Pergo et perago,
Baleanius Rex,
Your humble narrator,
With a handshake,
-WK.