As I cannot often interact within the web site the following is a Post card
from Mobile and my preservation Journal......

Mardis Gras morning


In the morning light
The purple beads shimmer and lay broken  in puddles of beer
and ballyhoo ballast
from the Mardi Gras hoo-hah

Like wreckage from the storm
The masons disheveled and unkempt
 nurse hangovers under hooded parkas  nuzzling coffees
while a fresh offshore breeze numbs their brain in sleepless contemplation
waiting for the sun

tired and grizzled they silently watch  torn carnival masques
of glitter dance in devilish updrafts under the scaffold

The masques laugh at them and show no mercy
 .....as the day after...
becomes the day before....
a series of endless bacchanal of
costume and parade. Teetering on madness

When
The great red ball of the sun rises from the Gulf
song birds revel under a cascading light  in a blue azure sky.
 as shore birds glide soundless overhead

The men warm to the day and shed clothes   as Pinks and golds   of intense
morning light  stream tru the  filter of green canopy of the old live oaks of
 under which the men labor  with their  rock

Children leave for school  on old cobble paths  as
The block and tackle  sing with their load of stone

In the hanging moss of the oaks  wild parrot  and black squirrel  chatter in
unison with the rhythm and cadence of the  cutters  hammer and chisels

A bright  sun scurries young  Mardis Gras lovers behind old wooden shutters
where in the intimacy of slanted light on   darkened  beds
cries and whispers  in  sweet moans blend with the whir of a  sleepy ceiling
fan
as a radio drones from nowhere the men  call for mud and stone

Below the scaffold in the cobble streets
Creole call girls en route home
call out merrily to the men who answer
back gaily in mock rhendevous
tapping their chisels and waving hammers
in salutation.

The compressor chortles and hisses
and competes with the din of  foot  and road traffic
as robust Negro maids in African kerchiefs
sweep stoops

"Goodmawing" they call out as they make for market
past the sweet talk of the mud man who scrapes his pan with his hoe
and turns on his Mardis Gras charm like an old rooster in kaki.

Tonight; the streets will come alive in outlandish costume
and revelry, by Monday the port city will be closed to all commerce
except the magic and mystique of Mardis Gras
...
Morality will be suspended as young women will bare their breasts
for colored beads
atop pretty  party  boys in drag  holding  hands
ass they  dance in the streets past drunks in  torn tuxes
 vying for curb space with   lost souls

 Tap dancers work outside overflowing bars;
 as shrimp the size of cucumbers are served spicy hot and sizzling with 99
cent drafts of iced larger flowing non stop to would be adults and adults who
would be teenage.

 Crowds swinging to Dixieland and Cajun rhythm as impromptu quartets take
over stage left and right on all corners catch trinkets from mermaids and
beach maidens riding beauty queen floats  with pasty covered attendants.

On and on for 48 hours The bacchanal rages under gas lit street lamps past
gumbo bars and tattoo parlors with every walk of humanity engaging in the
illusion  of  what is and what isn't..
There is an old part of America captured here
 that celebrates its catholic  Cajun- Afro-American Spanish heritage amid 200
year old architecture; culinary delights; in the  colorful quarters of 19
century port decay.

For the most part I do not expect to see the men again until the weeks end
(unless the bondsmen calls me )
by then  they will be  useless  and most likely in need of a bath no ... we
will most likely finish next week.If they survive...God Willing

Then I have  3 weeks  before I will be in New York and Dred the return  of
winter
a prospect that fails to warm me
Best Michael    /all rts 2001