Why Uptown?

When I was a little girl, my grandparents took me to a Mardi Gras parade on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. My memories range from the family scene you still see today and yes, there was Popeyes chicken and biscuits, red beans and rice.

The beautiful live oaks trees and stately mansions were en plein air as I sat atop a ladder from the street car tracks. As the parades began, hearing the first marching band always made me sit tall, smile and start moving to the beat. The masked riders, artistically painted floats and the throws are my most powerful of all my childhood memories.

That's the reason I live Uptown.

An eight block walk from the Irish Channel and I'm on the parade route these days. It's good exercise to walk, but we bike and even drive sometimes at night. Living on what we call the Island during Mardi Gras season, we have no problem parking as everyone else is parking on the other side of St. Charles. Not a bad deal.

It's been about 10 years of this type of parading and with that has come house parties, standing with the same folks and meeting their visitors and seeing friends' kids grow up fast. I was from the sidewalk as an adult. Now I curse the ladders, but I understand. It really is for the kids uptown.

In deciding what part of town to move to or buy a house in, I'd suggest keeping the type of activities you like to do and how far it is to do them in mind for sure.

For a suburban child turned resident New Orleanian I'd recommend giving your children that experience at least once. It's permanently burned in my mind and still makes me smile.

We'll cover more of Mardi Gras as we get closer to the season which begins 12 days after Christmas. Christmas! Yet another reason to get excited. There is always something to do in New Orleans, just get off the couch.

Photo: Friends on the route!