IT'S "FATS TUESDAY"WEEK LETS GO PARTY

by Dwight L. Quinn

With thousands of visitors celebrating the Mardi Gras in New Orlean, this week is the Big One Fat Tuesday it's the climax of this entire good time party that has turned into one of the biggest street-party in the world.

“Fat Tuesday,” which refers to the practice of eating and indulging in rich,
fatty foods before beginning the fasting season of Lent on the next day, Ash
Wednesday. It’s also called Shrove Tuesday in some places, which comes from the word shrive, which means “to confess.Mardi Gras, is a Frence word that means,"fat Tuesday".

Traditionally accepted as a Christian tradition, Mardi Gras actually began
as a pagan fertility celebration thousands of years ago.
When Rome accepted Christianity, church leaders decided to adopt the traditional Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia into the church calendar as a prelude to the 40 days of fasting that lead up to Easter.
The first Mardi Gras in the United States is thought to have taken place in 1699 in Louisiana, just south of what would become New Orleans.
The ritual was celebrated for several decades until the debauchery was banned when the Spanish took control of the city. Bans were lifted when Louisiana became a U.S. state in 1812, and Mardi Gras lives on.

Hundreds of thousands visit New Orleans for Mardi Gras and the buildup to the Fat Tuesday celebration each year, and estimates of the economic impact go as high as $500 million in a given year.

The Mardi Gras season is marked by parades every day through the French Quarter and other areas in and around New Orleans, as well as the expected food and drink for which the region is famous. It all ends, though, the minute the calendar says that Fat Tuesday is over. At midnight on the morning of Ash Wednesday, A line of New Orleans police officers on horseback start at one end of the French
Quarter and move through the area announcing that the party is over and everyone must clear the streets.
The season of fasting and repentance has begun. And the worlds biggest street-party  has come to a close,until next year.
 Those who readied for Fat Tuesday now see Mardi Gras end and the cleanup begin. The line of police officers is immediately followed by street cleaners, and life in New Orleans fast-track back normal.

By Dwight L. Quinn

Sources:
History
St. Louis Post-Dispatch