Deep South Discoveries

The parade arrived with a few deep tuba blasts as the band crested the hill on Louisiana Ave. The sun bounced between the brass instruments as they played “Sweetest Taboo.” A hundred people or more trailed behind the band, everyone dancing their own march-stepping samba.

I joined the crowd as they rolled down Magnolia Street, bodies gliding back and forth to the trombone slides. When a trumpet piped in, the two instruments sounded like laughter.

The word “parade” is misleading. No one stands on the sidelines; there are no wallflowers. It’s a traveling block party where people dance their way through an afternoon. For the last few days, I’d been eating beignets and listening to jazz in the Marigny. But this parade had cast me out of the pages of my guide book and into the soul of the city.

Second line parades are rooted deep in New Orleans culture. They celebrate weddings and funerals, and bring a community together. The first parade after Hurricane Katrina let the city know it was OK to laugh. Now they happen almost every Sunday. The routes change weekly and are posted widely online.

We followed the band through the residential streets of Mid-City, a neighborhood that still showed Katrina’s scars. Some homes were rotting, their porches sagging under a decade of weight. More people joined us every block we passed. The band got farther ahead until I could only see their tubas towering above the growing crowd, but the music was loud and clear.

People danced in unison, dipping their shoulders low and then snapping upright again. Others twirled to their own beat. I moved my hips from side to side, but couldn’t walk and dance at the same time, so I shrugged my shoulders up and down and snapped my fingers. A dozen little boys dropped to their stomachs and did the caterpillar. One guy scurried onto someone’s roof, dancing a one-man show. Suddenly everyone began to sing a jazz chant in unison; I wanted to ask what it meant, but was afraid to ruin the moment.

At the next intersection, a grill sitting atop a flatbed truck looked big enough to roast a pig. The band lowered their instruments and mopped their foreheads, signaling a break. The smell of barbecued meat wound its way through conversations and laughter. I wished I was hungry. Instead, I bought a gin and tonic from someone selling drinks out of the back of their truck and drank it feeling sunburned and happy, wondering when I could do this again. When I did, I decided, I would know how to dance.