All Saints' Day

Halloween Words

The Stuff We Are Made Of

All We are Saying...

Easy to Find

Be Not Confused

In honor of the Americana Honors and Awards:

Artist of the Year: John Prine
And much more!

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Just a footnote: This is post 6,600 in the still ongoing blog of these wanderings of a post-modern pilgrim. Still moving and wandering, but remembering that:

not all that glitters is gold,

and not all who wander are lost.

In The Soul

Just 'Cause I Like the Quote

Hard Work If You Try It

Monday was a truly spectacular day on the Alabama Gulf Coast. We don't normally get big waves and heavy surf. But when it happens, it is amazing! About an hour before sunset I happened to glance out and saw what I thought was a kite, although it seemed quite large for normal kite-flying, I then noticed the guy in a wet suit holding on to the lower end of the kite. What a day for Kitesurfing! Winds up to 35 miles per hour! Needless to say I grabbed the camera and my wife watched an amazing display of athletic ability.

(Above) You get a good idea of the size of the kite- and the small size of the person. Amazing.

(Below) The waves were rolling and this guy was making the best of it, while holding on for dear life, I am sure.

I was never sure if the kite pulled him up off the water or whether he kind of jumped up. It didn't make much difference- he was doing somersaults while the kite just pulled him.

I don't know how long he had been playing in the surf when I first saw him, but there is 45 minutes between the first picture above and the one below. Needless to say he was pulled quite a way west on the beach. He was not walking very fast.

Earlier I got this picture of him as he surfed a few feet off shore. I cropped in close to show the Great Blue Heron sitting there calmly watching this crazy human.

Hey, when we don't have wings, we have to do with what we got.

Mardi Gras- Let the Good Times Roll

The final day is here. It is the day of

• Mardi Gras.
• Fat Tuesday.
• Shrove Tuesday.
• Fastnacht.
• Pancake Tuesday.
• Carnival.

Revelry must have an end. But before that, the thought has been let's gorge before the "fast" of Lent. Let's get into "fat eating" before the lean times of repentance show up.

Let's indulge. 

Sure, let's overdo it- 

for tomorrow we can repent.

Information from Wikipedia article:
Mardi Gras in Mobile.

In other words:

"Laissez les bons temps rouler"

Let the good times roll! 

See y'all tomorrow. When we will once again have to get serious. Well, sort of serious in some form or another.

Mardi Gras (-1)- Throws

 "Throw me something, Mister!"
-A common refrain heard at Mardi Gras Parades around Mobile.

Mobile, Alabama, was the capital of French Louisiana before New Orleans was less than a tiny village. Mardi Gras in Alabama is a BIG thing. It started in Mobile in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded.

 (Source for information: Wikipedia Article: Mardi Gras in Mobile.)

For many of the Mardi Gras parades in Mobile members of societies on floats toss gifts to the general public, known as throws, that include plastic beads, doubloon coins, decorated plastic cups, candy, wrapped cakes/snacks, stuffed animals, and small toys, footballs, frisbees, or whistles.

Mardi Gras throws have themselves evolved over the years. As little as 20 years ago, the beads thrown by Mobile maskers were small, cheap plastic pieces, and few maskers gave much thought to them. Today, the beads can be the most expensive items on a masker's throw list.

In 1956, the first Moon Pies were thrown by children on the Queen's float in the Comic Cowboys parade.[17] Moon Pies have since become a staple of Mardi Gras in Mobile.

And while talking about food (a very loose description of Moon Pies I realize!) let's not forget the King Cakes!

The first week of January starts the king cake season. The traditional king cake was associated with Epiphany, January 6, also known as Twelfth Night, when English and Europeans celebrated Christmas for twelve days up to this night. The current version is a coffee cake, and is oblong and braided. The cake is iced with a simple icing and covered with purple, green and gold sugar. Each cake contains a small hidden baby doll. According to custom, whoever finds the doll must either buy the next King Cake or throw the next King Cake party. In Mobile, people throw hundreds of King Cake parties every year, and thousands of cakes are made, bought and eaten.

Well worth it!

Mardi Gras is supposed to be fun. Lent is coming, a time when we are supposed to be penitent and introspective. Lent is not a time of joy, but one of repentance. The festivities come to an end at the stroke of midnight tomorrow.

So- throw them beads and let's continue for one more day!

Mardi Gras (-2)- Parades and Floats

Mobile, Alabama, was the capital of French Louisiana before New Orleans was less than a tiny village. Mardi Gras in Alabama is a BIG thing. It started in Mobile in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded.

I have gathered some facts and trivia about Mardi Gras along with some of my pictures to take us through Mardi Gras. (Wikipedia Article: Mardi Gras in Mobile.)


At the heart of the celebration in Mobile are the parades with floats and masked riders and mystic societies. It is far too complex to get into in these articles. One of these years I'm going to get to the museum in Mobile and get it all figured out. Until then I just sit back and enjoy.

Many of the local towns in Baldwin County, the east side of Mobile Bay, also have parades. Some start as early as three weeks before Mardi Gras Tuesday. Dauphin Island, in the western Mobile Bay, starts the whole thing off. Dauphin Island is where the first explorers entered what is now Alabama. For the last 17 days before Lent, there are daily parades in Mobile itself.

From Wikipedia, the information on the floats:

The design, construction and decoration of Mardi Gras floats is a year-round business in Mobile. Several companies along the Gulf Coast do no other work than building floats. The larger floats in Mobile's parades are designed to hold about 15 or 16 adults and their throws. City regulations stipulate length, width and height of floats, to ensure that the floats can safely navigate the narrow streets and tight turns of downtown.

The floats are typically multilevel, with a lower and upper level, and one or two mezzanine stations (typically near the back of the float). The float "captain" typically rides on the upper level, which lets him or her see everyone on the float. For floats in night-time parades, the structures are wired for lighting, and a portable generator is towed behind the float to provide power. Each float also contains some type of portable restroom facilities. Although from the street, a Mardi Gras float might look like a dainty, flimsy contraption, the reality is that they are quite sturdily built and are capable of withstanding a good rocking by the riders.

Different societies and organizations address the different themes each year. Since I have not yet been to a parade in Mobile (maybe next year?) I haven't seen any of their traditional floats in their home base and themes which include:

• Order of Myths Emblem: Folly chasing Death around the broken pillar of life.
• Knights of Revelry Emblem: Folly dancing in the goblet of life.
• Infant Mystics Emblem: A black cat atop a cotton bale, the foundation of Mobile's antebellum wealth
• Mystics of Time's Vernadean: A giant, rolling, fire and smoke-breathing dragon float
• Mystic Stripers Society: Two large 40-foot-long (12 m) emblem floats, one a ferocious and "strong" Tiger, another a sleek and "fast" Zebra.
• Crewe of Columbus' Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria: Three floats built to resemble Columbus' famed ships.
• Order of Polka Dots: Famed emblem featuring three winged sons of Pegasus bearing the Golden Chariot of the Gypsy Queen through rainbow enveloped clouds
• Order of Inca Messengers and Sun Worshippers: Some of Mobile's largest moving structures.
• Conde Cavaliers Emblem: Swashbuckler points his sword right at Mobile.
• Comic Cowboys: Series of satirical comments on current events, locally and nationally.
• Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association (MAMGA) The Mollies

Here are some pictures from a couple years ago in Orange Beach, Fairhope, and Gulf Shores:

[Note: It was VERY cold that Mardi Gras Tuesday in Gulf Shores. Air temp was 38 with a wind chill of 22. Even this Minnesotan was cold!]

One thing that has not yet been mentioned- throws.

With this last picture for today, we will hold onto the throws until tomorrow.

Mardi Gras (-3)- The Colors

Did you know that New Orleans is NOT the original home of Mardi Gras in the United States? Mobile, Alabama, was the capital of French Louisiana before New Orleans was less than a tiny village. Mardi Gras in Alabama is a BIG thing. It started in Mobile in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded. Tuesday is even a school holiday!

I have gathered some facts and trivia about Mardi Gras along with some of my pictures to take us through these next few days until Mardi Gras ends on Tuesday and Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. (Wikipedia Article: Mardi Gras in Mobile.)

Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, is the end of the Epiphany season in the church year. From January 6 until then developed as a season of joyful celebration- sometimes known as "Carnival." Over the years New Orleans has been the paradigm for Mardi Gras, the end of the celebration, but Mobile hasn't been exactly slacking. Parades started weeks ago around the Mobile area- on both sides of Mobile Bay. Mystic Societies, Masked Balls, parades and floats are happening everywhere.

  On the Wikipedia page linked above they tell us that the three colors for Mardi Gras mean:

	Justice (purple)
	Faith (green)
	Power (gold)

The traditional colors of Mardi Gras in Mobile have been purple and gold. Purple has been related to royal monarchies in Europe, and is the liturgical color used during Lent in Christianity. Many in Mobile now incorporate a third color, green. This is perhaps an influence from New Orleans' traditional colors of purple, green, and gold, which came from the Russian House of Romanov in 1872. They were adopted there when Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff Alexandrovitch, brother of the heir apparent to the throne of Russia, accepted New Orleans's invitation to attend Mardi Gras, with festivities in his honor.

More will be posted over the next few days.
I sure need Mardi Gras this year!

A Few Pictures to Brighten the Day

I haven't posted many pictures here in a while. I've been too busy doing nothing and then being too serious too often. Been slacking some on my writing and posting here. So, to keep it light as we head into Mardi Gras weekend, here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

Cormorants on Bridge Pier, Mobile Five Rivers Delta

Dancing Heron #1- On the Beach

Dancing Heron #2- Mobile Five Rivers Delta

An Amazing Sunset- On the Beach

A Big Log With Teeth- Here's Looking at You

Reliving a Bygone Era

I come from a line of railroaders. My grandfather and many of his male siblings worked for the railroad, either on the road or in the shops near their northern Pennsylvania homestead. Those were the shops of the New York Central Railroad. It was one of the iconic eastern railroads founded in the mid-1800s by men with the names Vanderbilt and Corning. In 1968 it merged with the other iconic road- the Pennsylvania RR- to form the Penn Central and then in 1972 they melded with others into Conrail. (His oldest son, my uncle, worked on the Erie Railroad.) I have always been a train lover. It takes me back to my grandfather's backyard where, but a quarter-mile away ran the New York Central tracks. If he was outside he always stopped and watched. I learned to do the same.

The New York Central has been gone for nearly half a century. It's status as one of the original great railroads (robber barons and all) has not diminished. Fortunately the city of Elkhart, Indiana, has kept that history alive in the National New York Central Museum. They located it there since the largest selection yard on the system was there in Elkhart, and it is still the site of over a hundred trains a day passing by.

We had the joy of going through the museum the other week. It was a step into a different world when riding trains- and their economic essential importance- was well-acknowledged.

Among all the memorabilia was a model train layout, Lionel gauge. Here is a short video I put together of the trains making their way from the steam era to modern Amtrak.

But there was more. Here are some of my pictures of the rolling stock, sitting, gathering years, and still sharing memories.