I joined the first St. Patrick's Day Parade because Inez said I could. You'd be surprised how many of my stories start that way. She was Merlin, and I was Wart in the peculiar Camelot of Millsaps in the 80s. At nineteen, I wore a suit to work because I was trying to impress upon my father and grandfather that I could make something of myself, despite myself.
I didn't change clothes after work because I was in a bad mood. The plan was to buy twelve beers, kept cold in the ice chest in my trunk that had been there since the ninth grade, for just this purpose, get an Inez Burger and Cheese Fries to go and drink myself into oblivion, listening to U2 on the porch of the KA house. I was in a bad mood because a pretty blonde girl, with a french name, from the delta told me we couldn't do again what we had done before because her heart belonged to another, and she wanted to be free in case he noticed her. While I respected her position, I was in a sour mood because I was tired of being confused by women, but burgers and beer and music were never confusing, so I had my agenda set.
Only, when I got to CS's to place my order, it was already packed. Packed by an unusual crowd and surrounded by cars and trucks and convertibles, who weren't parked, but in line for something.
"It's a parade, baby. Get in!"
That's all the invitation I needed. I suspect Inez meant for me to get in one of the convertibles or pickup trucks lined up for the parade. I had other ideas. "Boyd's in the tree, again." Was a pretty common phrase in those days. Something about alcohol (and similar devices) inspired a desire in me to rise above the common man, usually by way of a tree, a wall, or a ladder. It may have been related to my watching King Kong over 100 times by then, but it more likely began with the massive magnolia tree in front of my Bubba's house on St Ann Street. Sometimes I would take a co-conspirator with me. William Douglass Mann was the perfect companion on these missions, but he wasn't there that day.
Not having many actual floats or other parade accouterments, Malcolm and Pat arranged for two or three beer delivery trucks to be in the parade. I'm not sure why they don't have beer delivery trucks in every parade. It seems like a natural choice. Inez wanted me to get in one of the convertibles, but I noticed the nice wide, flat roof of the beer truck, then I noticed that its bumper led to some nicely arranged footholds leading to the roof. I knew what I had to do.
The Roof! Despite wearing my Allen Edmonds oxfords and my navy, chalk-striped suit, I made short work of ascending the back of the beer truck, and I did it holding a Budwiser long-neck. Beat that, King Kong.
"Boyd!" My friend Bonehead shouted from below. "How did you get up there?" I pointed to the rear bumper, and soon there were two. "Boyd!" It was my brother this time. Somehow he had gotten prior word of the parade and wore appropriate green attire. I pointed to the bumper, and then there were three.
Whoever designed beer trucks knew that streetlights and powerlines hung at a certain height above the street, and they had to design their trucks to go safely under them. What they didn't account for was three drunk boys standing on top of the truck. Fortunately, my brother was alert enough to shout "Duck" in time to prevent Bonehead or me from getting our heads knocked off by a street light as the parade got underway.
A few cars ahead of us were a bunch of girls I knew dressed as floozies, throwing what looked like actual sweet potatoes to the crowd on the sidewalk watching our spectacle. They would soon realize that throwing quarter-pound sweet potatoes out of a moving car into an unsuspecting audience might carry some danger and liability, so actual sweet potatoes didn't make another appearance in what would become the yearly St. Patricks Day parade.
The Sweet Potato Queens were always fascinating to me. In any other capitol city, they would have become an icon of the gay and drag culture, but in Jackson, Mississippi, they became a model for girls on the rubicon of turning thirty, who were Sorority girls and Debutantes, and trying not to become their mother, while becoming their mother. Having known some of their actual mothers, that wouldn't have been such a bad thing, but these women wanted to have a more unique experience in our culture.
Some of them were actually the older sisters of boys I knew. I recognized them from CS's, Poets, Cherokee, and Scrooge's, which pretty much summed up the under-forty social world of Jackson at the time, unless you were wearing cowboy boots. In those days, there wasn't that much to offer young women besides the Junior League, The Garden Club, and motherhood. Most of these girls would go on to participate in each of these roles, but every one of them would also make their mark in some new and unusual way that enriched Mississippi and Jackson. I cannot think of one I do not love and admire.
In the years that followed, I would design and build and paint many St. Paddy's day floats, whether I rode in them or not. Even in my years in self-prescribed exile, I watched the parade from my window, remembering the parades of the past. It's not often you get to witness the birth of a cultural touchstone, but I was there the day the Sweet Potato Queens stepped out into the world.
The parade ended at the parking lot by George Street Grocery. Having not planned to be in the parade, we hadn't arranged for a ride home, so Bonehead, my Brother, and I hoofed it back down West Street to Millsaps, despite our less-than-sober condition. "That was cool! Let's do it again!" And we did.
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