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Cigars For Your Mardi Gras?

Folks disagree about when Mardi Gras begins--as they disagree about how it originated. It's been a part of life since at least the Middle Ages, since it forms a part of what for Christians worldwide is an important part of the year: Lent, the season of abstention and fasting in which the sufferings of Christ are recalled.

In any case, Mardi Gras offered, and still offers, a last hurrah before the forty days of self-imposed suffering and sobriety. Since its name is French ("Fat Tuesday"), you won't be surprised to know that the holiday arrived in the United States in the seventeenth century, via two French soldiers who'd been sent by King Louis XIV to watch over three of what would later be Southern states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) ... Louis was afraid those territories, then collectively known as Louisiane, would be stolen by the encroaching English. Part of the soldiers' expedition involved a stop by modern-day New Orleans (which then consisted of a bunch of trees and mosquitoes), which coincided with the Tuesday of the French Catholic observance of Mardi Gras that year. Thus a tradition was born, and Mardi Gras was forever linked, on these shores, to New Orleans.

It's no surprise, then, that some of the most off-the-hook Mardi Gras celebrations tend to be held in the South, down to today. Aside from New Orleans, there's Alabama and its parades and other functions mounted by mystic societies, the membership of which is kept secret; Pensacola with its safe (well, safer-) for-the-whole-family parties; Detroit with its Polish-influenced Paczki Days; and Galveston with its night parades, among many others.

But for passionate smokers of premium cigars, these are days to be careful when traveling. Many cities have passed smoking bans ensuring their citizens a smoke-free Mardi Gras--and if you're a person for whom no celebration is complete without a good stogie, that's a prescription for an unhappy Fat Tuesday.

If you're considering travelling for Mardi Gras, you might consider spending your time in St. Louis, Missouri, which topped a recent list of the smoke-friendliest cities in America. The home of the Gateway Arch does offer its own celebration. You might also consider Gulfport-Biloxi, Mississippi, which is cited on the same list, and which offers Vegas-style gambling and a tradition of wild Fat Tuesdays. With its Gulf Coast location, this small city is also quite a catch for those who love Mississippi catfish. If you visit, be sure to try to pass through Oxford, Mississippi, on the way there, to see the birthplace of William Faulkner. (Mississippi, an overall smoking-friendly state, is also quite rich culturally and artistically Delta blues originate at the Mississippi delta, of course, and the state's given us Bo Diddley, Jim Henson, James Earl Jones, B.B. King, Elvis, cigar-smoker John Grisham, and Oprah, not to mention a near-embarrassment of great American writers: Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and others.)

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a big Spring Break destination for students at Clemson University and the University of South Carolina-Columbia (otherwise known as the Fightin' Gamecocks), is a beach resort town with smoke-friendly policies and a Mardi Gras tradition as well.

Wherever you go, if you're worried about encountering roadblocks to smoking, call ahead to your hotel or visit the city's web page. After all, local ordinances can be as restrictive as any statewide ban. Do research first. Caveat emptor.

Seed Newsvine

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