Super Sunday

So, it turns out I did FOUR parades at Gallier Hall today including the rescheduled Krewe of Babylon. I started the day meeting the Queen and the Royal Court of the Krewe of Okeanos at the Queen's Breakfast at the Le Pavilion Hotel. Around 10:15 a.m., the ladies of the Royal Court, their mothers and other family members entered three large stretch limousines and headed uptown to the beginning of the parade route. Already at that point historic St. Charles Avenue was bristling with families camped out for a day of parading. We made the turn at the starting point and headed back along the route on St. Charles Avenue. Wow! Everyone was waving at us as we had two motorcycles escorting us downtown to historic Gallier Hall. It was hot outside today, so we kept the Royal Court inside until I was able to get them egress into the building. They kept cool inside the building while the parade approached the reviewing stand. As the parade was just about on top of us, I announced the maids and lovely queen as well as the king's wife and the captain's wife and president's wife of Okeanos. It was a great day to start. Following Okeanos, I was surprised when a representative of the Krewe of Babylon handed me the script for his parade and informed the officials on the reviewing stand that I was going to announce his parade as well. Following the very short Babylon parade came the 75th anniversary parade of the Krewe of Mid City, whose foil floats were celebrated with the theme "75 Years in Foil" and then came the 38-float extravaganza, the 61st annual Krewe of Thoth parade. My son David paraded on float #14 along with a cousin who flew in from Vanderbilt University and a Tulane roommate. They had a blast! My mom joined me on the stands at Gallier Hall, so it was truly a Smason family affair until after 5:30 p.m. this evening. The Superbowl had already started and was well into the first quarter when I left Gallier Hall. While others were lining up to gain entry into Gallier Hall for the celebrated Krewe of Bacchus parade, i was heading back uptown to watch the Superbowl featuring my hometown hero, Eli Manning of the New York Giants. Eli proved to be as exceptional an athlete as his brother Peyton was at last year's Superbowl when he won the national championship ring with his Indianapolis Colts. I watched Cooper, Peyton and Eli play football at Newman High School for many years while my son attended lower school and middle school. To see the incredible success Peyton and Eli have garnered for themselves in the NFL is truly wonderful and a testament to Olivia and Archie, their parents. While the New England Patriots were not able to enjoy a perfect season, they still bested the previous record set by the 1972 Miami Dolphins and have raised the bar very high for another team to repeat. They have nothing to be ashamed of other than they got beaten by a superior team on the field today. Congratulations to the New York Giants and our hometown hero Eli Manning! I say to heck with perfection. Just concentrate on execution.