Catching beads and sucking crawfish

I had a blast at the Krewe of Centaur parade last Saturday. Well…I had as much fun as one possibly can while working.

My job was to report all parade happenings from Shreve City. I thought it would be easy since I live there but Saturday’s Shreve City was a different experience for me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many inebriated people in one place here before.

And people, for some reason, really wanted to talk to me. As we all waited for the parade to get to Shreve City (it took two hours), people yelled things to me like, “What station are you from?”; “Can you put me on the front page?”; “Interview me!”; “Take my picture!”. It was all very hilarious.

Since this was my first Shreveport Mardi Gras parade (I caught the end of the one in New Orleans in 2005—that’s a different kind of parade), I tried to do all the things the natives did. I tried to yell and scream when the floats came but my voice grew tired. I tried to jump to catch beads, but I failed miserably. Every time a float passed with beads, shirts, cups, and other goodies flying overboard I stuck my arm up to catch whatever was coming my way but I always ducked when the came near me. One parade-goer told me that if I wanted to leave Shreve City with lots of beads I had to be fearful. I failed at that too.

At one point, a strand of purple beads slapped me across the face. I screamed because I saw them coming for me and I couldn’t duck in time. And as the beads slapped my face a man was removing them from my person. I screamed when he touched me and then he said, “Since they hit you I guess you can keep them.”

Darn right. I earned those beads. But why he was trying to take them from my face is another issue…

What was even more funny (at least funny to Louisiana natives) was the fact that I had never eaten crawfish. That was, until I met Allen Rhodes. He was absolutely determined to be the one to expose me to the critters. And he did.

Luckily, fellow blogger Adam Causey was on hand to video my experience. Click on the link below to watch it. Don’t laugh though, I look really crazy.

http://wm.thetimesshreveport.gannett.edgestreams.net/news/021907_crawfish_shreveporttimes.wmv