Ash Wednesday and the 40 Days of Lent / March 2019

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Mardi Gras Glossary February 2019

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LEJ's Louisiana,
a monthly e-column at www.LEJ.org 

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

Subscribe@LEJ.org 

Archives: www.LEJ.org

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March 2019

Ash Wednesday and the Forty Days of Lent 

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson 

© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

~ * ~    ~ * ~    ~ * ~

L. E. J. as the late Ernie K-Doe

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by

Leonard Earl Johnson

www.LEJ.org 

"Ain't nothing in the world time and money won't cure." 

~ Ernie K-Doe, New Orleans Musician and Emperor of The World 
(February 22, 1933 – July 5, 2001)

* * *

Ash Wednesday 
and the Forty Days of Lent

by Leonard Earl Johnson

Subscribe@LEJ.org 

Archives: www.LEJ.org

On Ash Wednesday (March 6), all over Louisiana, Carnival lifted its joyous mantle, leaving Lent's ashen smudge in its place. 

At New Orleans Saint Louis Cathedral, business suits stood cheek-by-jowl with crimson capes and smeared-lipstick ladies awaiting priests dressed in the Vestments of Sorrow, putting The Sign of The Cross on their foreheads, with thumbs dipped in the ashes of last year's Palm Sunday palms. 

Outside, spirited rains wash The City.  
Inside, I have many doubts about theological things, 
but none whatsoever about this ceremony. 
To ashes I am returning. 

Lent is the strangest holiday in all the Christian calendar.  It advances everything ~ suffering stuff ~ the King Cake Baby Jesus opposes, yet it is the longest holiday of the faith.  Should you need a reason to be suspicious of any religion's temporal powers consider this fact: Carnival's pleasurable time shrinks by measure of an inaccurate 
Papal Calendar.
↓

Lent, 

by those same inaccurate calculations is codified into Canon Law so as to never lose one penitent day of suffering.

"In this order of priority we find sad Truths,"
L. A. Norma.

* * *

Clearing the Liturgical Air

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the last day of Carnival's ever-changing season of joy. Next day, Ash Wednesday, is the first day of Lent's never-changing season of suffering.

"The Gregorian Calendar," L. A. Norma explains to a bewildered tourist from Minnesota sharing our pedicab, "the one by which we measure all this, is not too accurate, what with the date of Easter changing with the moon!"

Easter marks the end of Lent. It is also a ceremony welcoming Spring. Borrowed from religions that came before Christianity.  It may be the oldest human celebration, and it is calculated (or miscalculated), again by Canon Law, with instruments created with faith in suffering and suspicion of pleasure.

Suffering is not to be monkeyed with in these theological calculations. Carnival's pleasures, however, are reducible, by God (or His agents with their inaccurate stopwatches).

Lenten fasting repairs Winter's damage and Carnival's excess, and prepares us for Spring's rebirth. Like the jazz man says,

"Blow the roof off the sucker ..."

It has been a good Lent this year, with sunny mornings and a warm place in the kitchen to read Internet newspapers and sip coffee. The live oaks outside our dormer windows are a soft young green. Live oaks don't dump their leaves till Spring's new buds arrive (as followers of JFK conspiracies know). Then they change from old dark green to young soft green almost overnight. 

Today soft-green rules coastal Louisiana, and we old alligators lie on the banks in whatever sun we can find dreaming of Easter baskets and Spring.

(A lesser version of this story first appeared in 2004)
-----------

Copyright, 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson

all rights reserved

For more L. E. J.'s Yours Truly in a Swamp go to 
w w w . L E J . o r g

Your comments and corrections are welcome

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All Rights Reserved.

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Next Month
April 2019's column:
 "AUSSIES ON THE TRAIN"

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If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.org anytime. 

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 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp

is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org,

Hosted by GOOGLE BLOGGER,
and periodically at 

Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,

publication of the

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It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

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LEJ's Mardi Gras Glossary / February 2019

LEJ's Louisiana, 

Yours Truly in a Swamp

by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

Subscribe@LEJ.org 

Archives: www.LEJ.org

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February 2019

LEJ's Mardi Gras Glossary
and History

BY  Leonard Earl Johnson

www.LEJ.org

© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, All Rights Reserved

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

 "Carnival is coming / The Swamp is getting fat / Please put some beads in an old man's hat / Haven't any beads, then a half-crown will do / Haven't got a half-crown, Bacchus bless you."

© LEJ.org

 ↓✍️

LEJ.org, dressed to ride,

 Parc Sans Souci, Lafayette

 photo:   Frank Parsley

~    ~    ~

LEJ.org in Faubourg Marigny, NOLa, with Mardi Gras Maidens  /  photo: Anson Trahan  
~ for high definition click image ~

*     *     *

The following 

are terms used by everyone from Rex to thee,

 during Carnival mindlessness ~ which goes on all year for some of us.

 Follow as you read and become one with the 

Greatest Free Show on Earth,

Carnival in Louisiana!

www.LEJ.org

Janis Turk  and  Karissa Kary                                         photo Janis Turk

~  *  ~        ~  *  ~        ~  *  ~

Many the Yankee trader will awaken after Mardi Gras, with moss-stuffed voodoo dolls staring at them from atop their desks and computers.

They came, danced with our musicians, dined with our chefs, envisioned Life with thoughts from our artists, captains, and dockside philosophers.  

Then they danced off home with our rhythms and slang bouncing in their ears, and a peptic re-flux marching in their stomachs.

We show them our "dis and dats," and they fill our hotels.  

We give them beads and they pay our rent and laugh at our jokes.

~       ~       ~

"Ever hear the one about the tourist who ate the paper bag at Antoine's?"

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

Be Advised: 

Carnival is like the Catholic Church,
  

the deeper you look the more there is to see.

Carnival celebrants /  NOLa

Carnival Season 
Begins every year on January 6, but ends at different days on the calendar ~ but always on Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent ~ a day that, by Canon Law, changes location in the month. 

This is done to keep Lent ever forty-suffering days long.  To achieve this wrongheaded end, joyful-Carnival must shrink some years. 

It Swells Others. 

2018 was one of Carnival's shortest seasons.
2019 is one of its longest.  

Shrovetide (les Jours Gras) is the last three days of every Carnival Season.  Sunday is for going to Mass; Monday and Tuesday are called Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras ~ Fat Monday and Fat Tuesday respectively ~ and they are for everything you probably think Carnival is about. 
~      ~      ~

LEJ.org and Alyce Morgan
Shopping for Mardi Gras

Rêve Coffee Shop

~ ~ ~   ~ ~ ~   ~ ~ ~

Mardi Gras dates for the next few years  

March 5, 2019; 

February 25, 2020; 

February 16, 2021; 

March 1, 2022; 

February 21, 2023; 

February 13, 2024; 

March 4, 2025; 

February 17, 2026; 

February 9, 2027.
~ www.LEJ.org  

"It moves," 
L. A. Norma says, 
"it's alive!"

~  *  ~     ~  *  ~     ~  *  ~

Ball (tableau ball) ~ A masked party featuring performances of scenes in still-life representing a specific theme.  Can be deadly dull.  Can be uproariously funny.  

Movable tableaux on Carnival Day (Mardi Gras) are the funniest.  Who can forget the Westbank Big Hair Emergency Repair Krewe marching along, stopping to fix misshapen bouffants along parade routes of yore?

Boeuf Gras ~ The fatted bull or ox ~ in the Rex parade ~ representing sweetly excessive death-to-the-fat, and the beginning of Lenten abstinence (true death).  Said by New Orleans journalists-emeriti and Mardi Gras overseers Arthur Hardy, and Errol Laborde to be the most photographed sight of Carnival.

Boeuf Gras ~ Rex parade ~ Mardi Gras ~ NOLa

Captain ~ Leader of each Mardi Gras organization.

Court ~ The king, queen, maids and dukes of each Mardi Gras organization.  There is a hierarchy here culminating in Rex.  However, no court or krewe is more important than the one you are in.

Rex Doubloon                                     Wikipedia

Rex ~ One of the "Big Four" ~ oldest four krewes of New Orleans Carnival ~ founded in 1872 by a group calling itself, The School of Design. Ponder such a krewe name ~ with its religious, mythological and historical resonance ~ and you will see dimly into the mysteries of Carnival.  

 * * *

Doubloons ~ Coin-like objects bearing some 

Krewe insignia on one side and the parade theme on the obverse.  Doubloons were first introduced 1959-60 by New Orleans artist H. Alvin Sharpe.  They were gold colored aluminium and first thrown by Rex in 1960.  For a few years ~ even after being adopted by other krewes ~ they were generically called Rex Doubloons. Today doubloons are thrown by many krewes in various colors, themes and names. 

Favor ~ This is a personalized souvenir.  Given by organization members to friends.

Invitation ~ A non-transferable printed request for attendance at a Mardi Gras ball.

King Cake ~ This is an oval cake (traditionally brioche but today anything)

King Cake with Baby

  sugared, like a 'Brioche Royal'
 with Mardi Gras tri colored sugars, baked with a plastic baby doll hidden inside. 

It is called 'King Cake' because it commemorates the visit of the Three Kings to see the baby Jesus, literally a Christian epiphany.  

Epiphany meaning an appearance or manifestation of a divine being. The baby doll is loosely seen as the
 Epiphanous Baby Jesus, and concurrently 
all temporal joys-on-Earth. 

Songwriter/singer/musician Al Johnson's beloved Carnival Time opens with the line, "The Green Room is smokin' and the Plaza's burnin' down / Throw my Baby out the window, let those joints burn down..." An act of rescue or callous disregard?  Or, 
as we see it in Louisiana, both!

 The person who finds the doll is crowned "King."  A king without duties but buying the next colorful cake and giving the next King Cake Party.

In New Orleans, the first Carnival parade each year is organized by a happily knit group of swells on Twelfth Night, January 6 (King Cake Day, a.k.a. Epiphany). This krewe calls themselves the Phuny Phorty Phellows. 

Phunny Phorty Phellows  Street Car Parade / NOLA.com

They are made up of a 1981-incarnation of 1878 revelers ~ who  neither looked nor acted much like anyone today. 

   Originally parading on foot on Mardi Gras Day, behind Rex.  Today they ride the Saint Charles Streetcar in colorful costumes, on Epiphany night. Sometimes with brassy music. Around car stops and the Car Barn can be good spots to see this first-of-season show.

Krewe ~ a generic term for all Carnival organizations and clubs. Greek, Roman and Egyptian mythology are sources for half the krewe names.  Some clubs are named after neighborhoods, while others are named after historical figures or places.

Photos courtesy of Krewe of Rio en Lafayette 

Amid large parades in Acadiana's Hub City of Lafayette rolls the samba-swinging Krewe of Carnival en Rio.

~ * ~      ~ * ~      ~ * ~

Clubs are chartered by most cities as non-profit entities and are financed by dues, by sale of krewe-emblemed merchandise to members (who give them as favors) and by fund-raising projects.  Mardi Gras krewes are sometimes involved in charity work. But not much.

Lundi Gras ~ French for Fat Monday (Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday).  "Fat" is a broad term for prosperity and joy, the very things being done in Carnival-excess before somber Lent takes them all away.

The Day before Mardi Gras from 1897 to 1917 was celebrated by arrival of Rex aboard a steamboat on the Mississippi River.  In 1987, under the New Orleans Mayoralty of Sidney Barthelemy, a local

Courtesy of Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

  book-learned Creole Catholic-

seminarian turned Tulane trained master-of-sociology ~ with mild manners and movie star looks ~ revived the practice. Ultimately with the addition of King Zulu.  

Each year since ~ aboard separate vessels ~ and for the last few years, Rex has come on the streetcar,  

Zulu and Rex arrive at Spanish Plaza 
and greet each other, 
at the foot of Poydras Street. 

"One River Two Boats!"  ~  L. A. Norma wrote at the time in a letter to the old Times-Picayune daily.

~ * ~      ~ * ~      ~ * ~

Comus ~ One of the oldest krewes. First paraded in 1857 ~ four years before the Confederate Secession ~ with the parade theme: The Past, The Present, The Future. 

 Comus does not currently parade ~ a bitter hangover from political battles with former City Council Woman, Dorothy Mae Taylor, over race restrictions in luncheon clubs and Carnival krewes. 

Comus and Rex still hold an elaborate meeting-of-the-courts ball on Mardi Gras night.  But only Rex parades.

~ * ~      ~ * ~      ~ * ~

Henri Schindler, Carnival Artistic Designer  
(An unlikely job description in Minnesota!) 

In this video, Herr Schindler makes a  touching statement
 on the meaning of Mardi Gras among

 New Orleans old line artistic circles.

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

Lee Circle, Saint Charles Avenue, New Orleans
  from Confederate Memorial Hall Museum

Nineteen years after The War, in 1884, the first Queen of Comus was Mildred Lee, daughter of defeated Confederate General Robert E. Lee, subject of the monument once on Saint Charles Avenue at Lee Circle, by Alexander Doyle.  Targeted in 2015 and removed by Mayor Mitch Landrieu 

"You lose, you blues," 
a musician I know says.

New Orleans is a city built along a bend in The River, and organized around Carnival.  Old line comedians tempered with cheeky Carnival spirit have been seen feigning the Sign of The Cross  while saying, "Comus, Momus, Proteus and Rex," the big four of old line New Orleans krewes. 

Zulu ~ A black krewe formed some forty years after the Civil War, and the post-War 

click image to read caption

   

Battle of Liberty Place ~ a Reconstruction era battle that took place at the foot of Canal Street in front of today's Harrah's Casino. The battle's monument was in the news lately as it, too, was targeted by Mayor Landrieu for removal.  

Another Confederate memory banished to the land of out-of-sight-dom.  This one a particularly painful 

memory.

The obelisk commemorates the bloody battle of 14 September 1874.  It was part of a terrorist plot that removed the elected governor, William Pitt Kellogg. The inscription on the monument refers to the National Elections two years later ~ 1876 ~ as the moment that ended failed-Reconstruction, and united Louisiana White Supremacy with Yankee Jim Crow Laws.  Names of whites fallen in the battle were inscribed in the stone.  Names of fallen blacks, sworn policemen, were not.

"Then, de facto wage-slavery became the law of the land!"
our pedicab driver says. 

New Orleans Civil War Era 
US Custom House and Post Office
free  downloadable  poster

"At best," Norma chortled from inside a plume of cigarette smoke. 

Some think the insurrection should be sharply remembered.  In words like William Faulkner's, 
Our past is not forgotten, it is not even past. 

And Action!
Two out-of-town deconstruction companies hired to remove New Orleans' Confederate memorials asked out of their contracts because of death threats.  One, H and O Investments owner, David Mahler, had his $200,000 Lamborghini torched in the company's Baton Rouge parking lot.

Eventually down they came, 
and warehoused they are somewhere undisclosed.


~   ~   ~

For three days, in September of 1874, Governor Kellogg and his cronies (krewe?) took refuge in the recently built U. S. Custom House and Post Office, a handsome Union thumbprint first occupied in 1856 ~ as war clouds gathered ~ and serving through the Nineteenth Century (including all the years of War Between the States) as the U. S. Post Office and U. S. Custom House.  Remember NOLa spent The War occupied, having surrendered about one year to the day after New Orleanian, P. G. T. Beauregard fired The War's 'first shot' on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor (April 12, 1861).  The first Yankee reached the steps of Gallier Hall (then NOLa's City Hall) on April 29, 1862.  

The Old Custom House still stands, at 423 Canal Street, across North Peters Street from Brooks Brothers, and not more than a block away from the site of the Battle of Liberty Place.  Today the crestfallen edifice is home to the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium.  

"The Bug House," Norma calls it.

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

The following is  one of history's odder foot notes ~ a darkly clouded background to Louisiana's Devil-may-care Carnival ~ involving clueless white Louisianans sending a delegation to President Grant, offering help reopening the Port of New Orleans by establishment of a new confederacy.

~    ~    ~

The 1874 insurrection, commemorated by the Liberty Place Obelisk, was drummed up by the Crescent City White League, a group of Confederate sympathizers, planters, and World traders who wanted what everyone wanted.  At least everyone who was a World trader, planter, or Confederate sympathizer.  

Hell, even President Grant wants this, they reckoned.  Because, an ill-functioning Port of New Orleans makes for an ill-functioning Western Expansion of the United States.  And if the Louisiana Purchase!  Hell, the very War Between the States, itself, were for anything ~ more than evil slavery ~  it was for this Western Expansion, and the newly discovered California gold!  Grant would be too!  So felt the White League-rs, anyway. 

It was, however, reestablishment of a Confederacy they were advocating, though this time allied more with Washington thinking, and less with London's.  London?

"Yes, London England," Norma explains.  
"Long in a tissy over Spain and Portugal getting all the New World gold, 
when all England ever got was stuffy Bostonians ~ and later T. S. Eliot."

London agitated for the war, built some of it, e. g., CSS Alabama, a sloop-of-war built in the River Mersey, opposite Liverpool.  London supported the South and would have been on the first train to the mine fields had things gone differently.

~    ~    ~

Louisiana White League masterminds earlier sent a delegation to plead their case before Ulysses S. Grant, recently home from The War,  and newly elected to steady the wheel of the U. S. ship of state. 

They told President Grant their Big Swamp City,  port of New Orleans would make a fine seat for a new Confederacy.    

Having personally just fought the Civil War to defeat Robert E. Lee and such a Confederacy, 
Grant reasoned he must now send in troops to free Governor Kellogg, imprisoned at the foot of Canal Street in New Orleans.  He said no, to the boys from Louisiana, and sent them safely home to moan and groan over their grillades and grits for the next two centuries. 

  One wonders if Grant might have hanged them ~ it was surely treason they were preaching.  Or if they were civil and polite at a sociable meeting that might have taken place at the Willard Hotel?  Grant is known to have favored the Willard.  Did they drink whiskey?  We figure Grant did.  Did any of the Louisiana boys visit the famous pleasure houses of the victorious capitol?  We figure they did.

Some of the men in the Louisiana delegation were from Grant Parish, founding site of the Louisiana White League.  Grant Parish was a 1869 "Reconstruction Parish" (there were eleven such parishes created from what had been Winn and Rapides Parishes before The War).  This is in an English part of Louisiana ~ around Alexandria and Pineville and where William Tecumseh Sherman once lived.
Here lies an even stranger story.

Sherman was from Ohio, and a recent graduate of West Point. 
He was not yet a Union general when he was hired, in 1859, as first president of the newly founded

 Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy, at Pineville. 

Known as "The Little Seminary," in its day.  Later it moved to Baton Rouge and changed its name to Louisiana State University. 

Yes, boys and girls, the first president of L. S. U. was 

William Tecumseh Sherman!

"That's why Governor Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal's Republican groomers . . ." 

Norma giggled at herself through 
a cloud of cigarette smoke,
 and went on:  

". . . thought they could starve L. S. U., 

during his foolhardy run for the White House!

 "Pleasing both his heartless D. C. handlers, 

and headless hometown Rome-burners."

We all laughed, tippled, and tossed beads to clueless tourists.

"Sherman burned Atlanta," 
our pedicab driver said, 
"Bobby Jindal burned Baton Rouge!  

"Both of them Republicans, too!" 
Norma laughed, from inside her cloud of smoke.

Courtesy of Louisiana State University Libraries

~   ~   ~

Originally Zulu poked heavy-handed fun at the white krewes, and would neither publish their parade route nor apply for City parade permits.  They prefered to catch up with Comus, Momus, Proteus, or Rex, and taunt them unannounced.

The old line krewes did not like this and had been working for some way to stop it ever since it started.

Courtesy of Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

"You can imagine the indignity of a float full of white-faced blacks coming up behind your Fatted Ox throwing coconuts!"  
Norma says this to visitors as she blows Camel Cigarette smoke in their faces ~ this time of year likely laced with medicinal Marijuana.

Mayor Barthelemy's 1987 solution softened the satire and Zulu now obtains a parade permit and publishes their route, usually following the Rex Parade.

~ * ~    ~ * ~    ~ * ~

Rex

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

Celebrant,  NOLa   /   Carlos Detres

Throws ~ These are inexpensive souvenirs tossed from floats (since around 1871) by costumed and masked Krewe members in response to traditional calls of "Throw me something, mister!" Sometimes heard in French Louisiana as, "Pour moi, m'sieur!   Mon ami, mon ami!" 

Throws include doubloons, plastic cups and beads with and without krewe emblems. 

Ash Wednesday ~ The day after Mardi Gras, and the beginning of the Lenten fasting season.

Hangover ~ This one you may already know.  It is most appropriate for Ash Wednesday.

Carnival is celebrated in most towns in Coastal Louisiana.  One town most famously not celebrating Carnival is Abbeville.  I do not know why. When you ask locals they say it is because they host the yearly Louisiana Cattle Festival, a large effort. 

"And the Giant Omelet Celebration," L. A. Norma adds.

LEJ.org T-shirt

 It should be noted that in New Orleans one often hears it said, 
The City lacks civic energy to do anything but Carnival!

  This is a typically self-deprecating humor spoken with love and open pride among the natives, Down in the Land of Dreamy Dreams.

You see, it is not unheard of in Louisiana to shepherd civic business and still entertain more than one festival.  Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans have them almost weekly. 

"Daily in Baton Rouge," Norma says, "when the legislature is in session." 

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 The most notable of Louisiana's Carnivals outside of New Orleans massive effort is the Courir de Mardi Gras. These are events where participants ride horseback from house to house asking for contributions to the communal gumbo pot.

Among the items given will be a live chicken or two.  A grand drunken chase ensues.  Hardly anyone is injured ~ if you do not count the chicken.

Courir de Mardi Gras

~ * ~     ~ * ~     ~ * ~

LEJ.org, Royal at Kerlerec, NOLa  /  photo Janis Turk

~ * ~    ~ * ~    ~ * ~

This Saga of Carnival is a perfect example of a kind of Louisiana social studies practiced by those poorer souls who come to "watch" Carnival.
  

We who know better know Carnival as a participatory thing, more better done than studied.
  So take another turn round the dancefloor, Louisiana, them smart folks are here watching us again.

  Aimer la différence!

And if you happen to be one of those 'smart and glum' watchers, perhaps you should consider Mobile, Alabama ~ New Orleans' Carnival Mother ~ their Carnival is boredom-friendly. 

 Louisiana rode off on another horse, grew grander than hoped, and now parties harder than Mama Mobile expected.

 "Until the Purple Vestments come out on Ash Wednesday," Norma says.

"And a 'moon pie' here is an entirely different thing in Mobile."  ~ LEJ.org

Your comments and corrections are welcome

*    *    *

© 2019, Leonard Earl Johnson, 

All Rights Reserved.

* * *

T-Shirts, Koozies, LEJ.org icebox magnets and such falderal ...

Contact me Subscribe@LEJ.org if you want on the list that may get e-mailed.  
If you wish to read any month's column go to www.LEJ.org anytime. 
They are posted on the first of each month and polished for the next few years.

Lagniappe du Jour

NOLa.com Carnival Video

~ ~ ~   ~ ~ ~   ~ ~ ~

Al Johnson's

Carnival Time / You Tube 

Original Recording ~ 1960

at

Cosimo Matassa's Recording Studio 

New Orleans

~ * ~    ~ * ~    ~ * ~

Courir de Mardi Gras


~     ~     ~

Iko Iko 

old Carnival song 

Dixie Cups / You Tube

*   *   *

Let Me Take You to the Mardi Gras

New Carnival Song

Paul Simon / You Tube

~  ~  ~

Old Line New Orleans Comedian
Chris Champagne
Facebook

Royal at Kerlerec, Faubourg Marigny, NOLa    /   photo by Janis Turk
click image for high definition

~   ~   ~

 LEJ's Louisiana, Yours Truly in a Swamp

is a monthly e-column @ www.LEJ.org,

and periodically at 

Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans,

publication of the

Faubourg Marigny Improvement Association

It is written by Leonard Earl Johnson

of Lafayette and New Orleans, Louisiana

Subscribe@LEJ.org 

Archives: www.LEJ.org

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© 2019 Leonard Earl Johnson, 

All Rights Reserved.
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LEJ's Louisiana 

Yours Truly in a Swamp

March 2019 Column: 

ASH WEDNESDAY,

FORTY DAYS OF LENT