Need a cure for those post Mardi Gras blues? Well then I can recommend nothing better than Saint Patrick's Day in New Orleans. The days immediately after Mardi Gras are always a little blue. The Lenten season has begun (always a bit of a downer) and after several weeks of almost nonstop celebration one inevitably feels a little depressed. But just when you think things are as dull and dreary as can be its St. Patrick’s Day!

Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in New Orleans consist of a mostly local crowd, and unlike other cities, New Orleans' St. Patrick's Day celebrations do not have the hooligans and violence that seem so prevalent in other cities. The citizens of New Orleans learn from an early age how to conduct themselves at these public events. The only time I have ever seen anyone engaged in a fight during any celebration in New Orleans has involved tourists that don't know how to act right.

There are two big parades for St. Patrick's Day in New Orleans. One goes up St. Charles Avenue and the other begins and ends at Molly's on the Market in the French Quarter. The uptown parade is family oriented with almost endless walking clubs and floats. Traditionally the walking clubs are made up of the men of New Orleans who are of Irish heritage or those with the honorary title for the day. As they stroll (or stagger, depending on how early they started to celebrate) up St. Charles Avenue they hand out roses, carnations, and lilies to the ladies along the parade route in exchange for kisses. Behind the walking clubs are the parade floats with riders who toss an assortment of beads, cups, cabbages, carrots, potatoes, and most importantly, MOONPIES to the crowd.

The Molly's parade occurs in the evening and is a very raucous, festive crowd of folks. In past years it was hosted by the owner of Molly's, Jim Monahan, and now by his son. The parade begins with the Storyville Stompers brass band playing as the parade starts its winding path through the French Quarter. After the parade dignitaries and local celebrities pass by, anyone can fall in behind the procession and second line through the Quarter. By the time the parade returns to Mollys (about an hour to two later) it is not quite the highly organized and timed entity it started out as. In fact the only way one can usually tell that the parade has ended is when the Stompers arrive back at the bar, knock back a few and then start playing again on Decatur Street.

Molly's remains my favorite bar in New Orleans. Many an afternoon has been spent (but not wasted) sitting in the window facing Decatur street, watching the tourists crowd into Margaritaville, or the local residents trying to mind their own business as they go about their day, gutter punks looking for spare change or a butt, and hipsters working hard to impress each other. At the bar, one can usually find any number of local news people, politicians, artists, writers, ner-do-wells etc. hanging out. Most importantly Molly's has one of the best jukeboxes in town. If Etta James or Dinah Washington is playing on the jukebox, it'll be all right baby.