A Tale of Two High Schools - New Orleans After Katrina

[Keseys Ghost]

The neatest thing we saw in New Orleans on Sunday was the interaction between two high school bands prior to the big night parade.

The St. Augustine High School Purple Knights Marching Band has, for generations, been a highlight of Mardi Gras parades. Nobody does it better than this program which has been consistently excellent for many years.

A Catholic School located in the flooded region of New Orleans, "St. Aug" is a traditionally black school.

Across the lake from New Orleans, here in Covington, is St. Paul's School, which caters to predominately white students. Annie and I live, literally, across the street from St. Paul's and, a while back when she was in high school, Annie was a dancer for the Marching Wolves Band, she having attended St. Paul's sister school. Because we live across the street from the practice field, we are well aquainted with the band. Our daughter has grown up to the beat of their drums.



Yesterday, in New Orleans, both bands marched in the Krewe of Bacchus. Prior to the parade, both bands were lined up on a side street preparing to enter the parade. Our family got to watch as the two began to warm up for the parade and got to see the two bands begin to communicate, through music and dance, with one another.

You really had to be there, and maybe even be from here, to fully appreciate the mutal respect and, dare I say it, "love", expressed by these two divergent groups for each other out on Prytania Avenue yesterday. St. Aug would put out a chant, take a huge dance step, and salute St. Paul's with drums banging and horns wailing. St. Paul's would return the gesture. Then the Purple Knights would attempt to increase the flourish followed by another expression by the Wolves. On and on it went, sending chills down our spines.

The faces on the kids said it all.

These kids...they are New Orleans.