Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast
Speaker 1: I'm to Believe a chalk reboarding and I'm Sarah Dowdy.
Speaker 1: And we couldn't let Marty Gras pass without doing a
Speaker 1: podcast on it, especially because, as you know, Sarah, I
Speaker 1: used to live and work in Mobile, Alabama, which is
Speaker 1: said to be the site of America's first Marty Grass celebration.
Speaker 1: So just a little piece of trivia for you there.
Speaker 1: It may come as a surprise to a lot of
Speaker 1: people because although it may have been the first in Mobile,
Speaker 1: the holiday is most often associated with the city we're
Speaker 1: going to focus on today, which is New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: And that's yeah, that's the big one obviously. Yeah you've
Speaker 1: been to that one, right, I have been to that one.
Speaker 1: I went. I've been twice, but I went a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and I remember one of the funniest
Speaker 1: things was like checking flight information at the New Orleans
Speaker 1: Airport and seeing that Zulu coconut were acceptable for like
Speaker 1: that month only, Well they have to be. That's one
Speaker 1: of the best prizes to the best throws to get
Speaker 1: scary too, a little scarier, But that's a topic for
Speaker 1: another day. I think today we just want to focus
Speaker 1: a little bit on a different event that happened on
Speaker 1: a very specific Marty Gras many years ago. But back
Speaker 1: to New Orleans and it's Marty Gras celebration. It's been
Speaker 1: going on for so long, and it's such a big
Speaker 1: part of the city's cultural identity and its economy. I mean,
Speaker 1: it draws thousands of tourists every single year, like me,
Speaker 1: like you, It's really hard to imagine the city purposely
Speaker 1: canceling it for any reason at all. Yet that's exactly
Speaker 1: what happened in nineteen seventy nine, when a police strike
Speaker 1: of all things brought Mardi Gras festivities to a grinding halt,
Speaker 1: deterred tourists, and cast kind of a shadow over New
Speaker 1: orleans first Black mayor's first Marty Grown office. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna take a little look into why that
Speaker 1: happened in the first place, why a police strike at
Speaker 1: Mardy Gras of all times, and also take a look
Speaker 1: at it um what caused the strife between the city's
Speaker 1: administration in its police department in the first place, and
Speaker 1: how that led to the Marty Gras cancelation. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of an interesting part, but we're gonna look
Speaker 1: into why some locals still refer to the Marty Gras
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine as the best Marty Gras. Ever,
Speaker 1: we were not being ironic with the title of this episode.
Speaker 1: Some people think it really is the best. Yeah. But first,
Speaker 1: of course, as we always do, will give you a
Speaker 1: little background on New Orleans Marty Gras, which is widely
Speaker 1: known as the greatest free show on Earth. And now,
Speaker 1: if you're only familiar with Marty Grass this big, huge,
Speaker 1: raucous party, you may be surprised to learn that the
Speaker 1: celebration actually has its roots in Catholicism. Carnival Is. Marty
Speaker 1: Gras is sometimes known begins on Epiphany or Twelfth Night
Speaker 1: in early January and last until Lent, and Pope Gregory
Speaker 1: is the one who actually had it declared a holiday
Speaker 1: an official holiday in fifty two, and the actual Marty
Speaker 1: Gras Day, known as Fat Tuesday, is considered the one
Speaker 1: last day to kind of party, get your debauchery in
Speaker 1: before limp begins. Yeah, before Ash Wednesday. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: celebrated not just in New Orleans and Mobile too, Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's celebrated all over the world. Some of the big
Speaker 1: celebrations are in Rio, there's one in Sydney. Lots of
Speaker 1: people have fun Marty Gras parties, definitely, But how did
Speaker 1: it get to New Orleans. Well, historical counts about that
Speaker 1: are a little bit sketchy as to the exact year,
Speaker 1: but in general Marty Gras most people think it may
Speaker 1: have been celebrated in New Orleans as early at seventeen eighteen,
Speaker 1: which was the year that the city was founded. It
Speaker 1: was really small scale at that point though. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're talking only wealthy, high society folks in exclusive social
Speaker 1: clubs throwing exclusive but very elaborate and fancy society balls.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a party you're not invited to. Probably
Speaker 1: write a party we wouldn't be invited to. No editors allowed,
Speaker 1: none of the parades or anything like that that they
Speaker 1: have today. Little class people marked also marked this holiday,
Speaker 1: but they marked the beginning of Lent by attending church
Speaker 1: services and having more small and formal events. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: starting around the eighteen hundreds there was a new generation
Speaker 1: of wealthy people who weren't as interested in these really tiny,
Speaker 1: exclusive elite balls. And they started forming fraternal clubs, and
Speaker 1: these clubs did some of the parading that were that
Speaker 1: we associate with Marty Grass today. Um, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite like the parade. It wasn't the big floats and
Speaker 1: the costumes and all of that. It It was more
Speaker 1: like just s meandering around and getting reality, causing trouble
Speaker 1: in the streets, just taking the party outside essentially, right.
Speaker 1: So the first really big change to that came in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven when the Mystic Crew of Comus appeared
Speaker 1: on the scene, and this was kind of the intro
Speaker 1: to Marty Grass as we know it. This was the
Speaker 1: first appearance of the more organized parade, the floats, the
Speaker 1: live music, the rev lers in costume, and the ball
Speaker 1: that went along with it. So it was sort of
Speaker 1: the prototype for all the crews that came after that.
Speaker 1: The Twelfth Night Revelers came soon after that in eighteen seventies,
Speaker 1: so you just started seeing more and more of The
Speaker 1: Rex debuted in eighteen seventy two, which was a big
Speaker 1: deal because it introduced the first day parade, which really
Speaker 1: increased participation from you know, various citizens, kids could take part,
Speaker 1: probably more because it was a little more respectable as
Speaker 1: opposed to that, you know, just meandering in the streets
Speaker 1: that you mentioned before, and introduced a new King of
Speaker 1: Carnival to the event. Um, it's a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: And then I think the same year, the Nights of
Speaker 1: Moments made their debut. So yeah, we're having all of
Speaker 1: these crews that we still know today, uh coming into
Speaker 1: existence and really forming Marty Girl like we know it.
Speaker 1: But around the time that our story is going to
Speaker 1: take place, there was another really big change, probably the
Speaker 1: first really big change about a hundred years here, and
Speaker 1: it came out of the New Orleans hospitality industry. They
Speaker 1: were looking for ways to start making a little bit
Speaker 1: more money off of Mardi Gras by having bigger parades
Speaker 1: and balls that were less exclusive and celebrities involved, you know,
Speaker 1: really really figure out ways to draw tourists to New Orleans, right,
Speaker 1: And so when they introduced Bacchus in nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: that's exactly the purpose that served. It took place the
Speaker 1: Sunday before Marty Grass, so it gave people a reason
Speaker 1: to kind of extend their stay in town, and it
Speaker 1: was the template for what would be known as the
Speaker 1: Super Crew. So it featured national celebrities. I think the
Speaker 1: first monarch was actor Danny Kay. Huge dinner dances and
Speaker 1: several parades followed suits. Several crews I should say followed
Speaker 1: suit after this. In Demion was one um. It used
Speaker 1: to be a small suburban parade and it became one
Speaker 1: of these super crews around nineteen seventy four. So this
Speaker 1: was kind of a state of New Orleans Marty gras
Speaker 1: around the time when Ernest Morial, who was also known
Speaker 1: as Dutch Morial, became mayor of the city in nineteen
Speaker 1: He was forty nine when he took office, and he
Speaker 1: was the city's first black mayor, so pretty big deal
Speaker 1: at the time. His resume was really impressive. He'd had
Speaker 1: I think previous careers as a local and double a
Speaker 1: c P president and assistant U S Attorney, a state
Speaker 1: legislature and a judge, and at the time he seemed
Speaker 1: kind of like a long shot to win the election
Speaker 1: when he entered the mayoral race, but he ended up
Speaker 1: winning of the black vote and twenty percent of the
Speaker 1: white vote, which made him the black elected official with
Speaker 1: the largest constituency in the South at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but obviously with only of the white vote. Things were
Speaker 1: kind of shaky for him when he took office, and
Speaker 1: according to New Orleans Magazine, he faced a lot of
Speaker 1: resentment from some whites who felt that they were losing
Speaker 1: their political power, and even the Carnival establishment, who you know,
Speaker 1: they're sort of the elite whites of the city, or
Speaker 1: some of them largely white. They were concerned earned how
Speaker 1: he would quote regard their social structure and tradition. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: a little tension coming into this Marti Gras, and that
Speaker 1: was just one aspect of it. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: he had an even more pressing problem that was coming up,
Speaker 1: and that was a situation with the New Orleans Police Department.
Speaker 1: They'd been unhappy with their salaries and their whole benefits
Speaker 1: package for a while before Morial came to office, but
Speaker 1: he made matters worse in a couple of ways. One
Speaker 1: of those ways is that his first one of his
Speaker 1: first official acts as mayor, i should say, was tax reform,
Speaker 1: which kind of sent a message to the police that,
Speaker 1: whether it was true or not, it sent the message
Speaker 1: that he didn't really care so much about their economic
Speaker 1: plight at the time. The other thing that he did
Speaker 1: was that he chose a guy named James C. Parsons
Speaker 1: who was formerly police chief in Birmingham, Alabama, as his
Speaker 1: superintendent of police. Now, Parsons was really qualified for his job,
Speaker 1: but the local police they took this as kind of
Speaker 1: an affront because then it kind of looked like the
Speaker 1: mayor had passed up other qualified people within their department.
Speaker 1: None of them were good enough, right, And I think
Speaker 1: that's sort of how promotions had been done before in
Speaker 1: the department, someone from within had been promoted up. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of a slap in the face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he's obviously dealing with some problems in the police department.
Speaker 1: And one really important thing to keep in mind before
Speaker 1: we we get into the later issues in this episode
Speaker 1: is that at this point the city was definitely more
Speaker 1: on the side of the cops, more sympathetic to their
Speaker 1: plight than to the new guy, the new mayor. So
Speaker 1: the situation escalated and talks of strikes started actually mid
Speaker 1: to late ninety eight, since the police unions were having
Speaker 1: trouble bringing the city to the table to even talk
Speaker 1: about the things they were concerned about. So just to
Speaker 1: give you a little background before we go too much
Speaker 1: into the whole strike discussion. There were two unions at
Speaker 1: the time to police unions. One was the Fraternal Order
Speaker 1: of Police the FOP. This was made mostly a veteran
Speaker 1: police and retirees. And then on the other hand, there
Speaker 1: was the Policeman's Association of New Orleans p a n O.
Speaker 1: And the Piano had more members in the FOP, and
Speaker 1: those numbers kind of continued to grow as the situation progressed.
Speaker 1: And they were led by a patrolman named Vincent Bruno,
Speaker 1: who had recently been a part of getting the Piano
Speaker 1: affiliated with the Teamsters, and this is one reason that
Speaker 1: Moril really didn't want to negotiate with them. He didn't
Speaker 1: like that association with the Teamsters very much. The Piano
Speaker 1: basically their goal was they wanted to win soul bargaining
Speaker 1: agent status with the city, so they wanted to be
Speaker 1: the ones that the city was bargaining with making decisions with,
Speaker 1: rather than the FOP. So they kind of had the
Speaker 1: same goals in mind, I guess both unions, but it
Speaker 1: was sort of a little struggle between them as to
Speaker 1: who was actually the one coming to the table and
Speaker 1: a different kind of membership to UM. But by the
Speaker 1: beginning of nineteen seventy nine, the city was conceding to
Speaker 1: some of their requests. They approved a fifteen percent pay
Speaker 1: raise for the department, but the police weren't satisfied with that,
Speaker 1: and part of the reason was because their benefits, including
Speaker 1: thickly vacation time, had been slashed at the same time,
Speaker 1: so it was it was essentially just canceling out what
Speaker 1: they had lost. Um So p a n O started
Speaker 1: to seriously plan a walk out at that point because
Speaker 1: they weren't happy with the situation, and it took place
Speaker 1: on February eighth, nineteen seventy nine, and it lasted for
Speaker 1: thirty hours and was considered pretty successful. There were more
Speaker 1: than one thousand policemen out of fifteen hundred who participated,
Speaker 1: so a pretty big crowd and a lot of the
Speaker 1: more T shirts that had the slogan had the police
Speaker 1: seal with the slogan take this job and shove it,
Speaker 1: so you can imagine that made a big impression on
Speaker 1: the city. Yeah, they were not messing around, and they
Speaker 1: continued to get support. Many FOP members actually switched over
Speaker 1: and joined the p a n O side, And in
Speaker 1: addition to that, there were some commanding officers including Parsons
Speaker 1: who refused to take discipline reaction on the strikers, so
Speaker 1: presumably he's like the mayor's own guy exactly, So again
Speaker 1: a lot of support coming in here. Another problem that
Speaker 1: presented itself for the mayor was that Marti Gras, which
Speaker 1: is typically celebrated for two weeks prior to fat Tuesday,
Speaker 1: was fast approaching, so his hand was kind of forced
Speaker 1: in the situation, and he ended up agreeing to a
Speaker 1: few things, including the following recognition of p A and
Speaker 1: O as the exclusive bargaining agent with the police, the
Speaker 1: commencement of immediate negotiations for the things that the police wanted,
Speaker 1: amnesty for all the strikers, restoration of leave benefits, and
Speaker 1: double time and half pay for six holidays. So that's
Speaker 1: just a few of the things. I think there were
Speaker 1: a few more, but the police, suffice to say, considered
Speaker 1: this a pretty big victory. Yeah, this was a huge
Speaker 1: coup for them. But the problem was that there wasn't
Speaker 1: an official contract made at this point, and they really
Speaker 1: needed to get something in writing to make sure that
Speaker 1: it wasn't just going to be all smoke and mirrors
Speaker 1: well and to make sure that the mayor actually had
Speaker 1: the power to promise them these things, right. That was
Speaker 1: also something that was in question. Did the mayor actually
Speaker 1: have the power to promise things like pay increases? They
Speaker 1: weren't sure, so they wanted to get it all down
Speaker 1: and make it official, so they gave the city a
Speaker 1: week deadline. Made the deadline February six, which was a Friday,
Speaker 1: or they would strike again. As kind of a backup,
Speaker 1: the Teamsters flew in a guy named Joseph Valenti from Detroit,
Speaker 1: and this just stirred the pot even more because for
Speaker 1: one thing, he was an outsider and for another thing,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is kind of stereotyping, we know, but
Speaker 1: at the time, people thought, Okay, he's got an Italian name,
Speaker 1: and the Teamsters they have these sort of mob affiliation,
Speaker 1: so it just it didn't look good. And more than that,
Speaker 1: I think it just gave the city administration some more
Speaker 1: fuel to not really cooperate with their requests. Yeah that
Speaker 1: they thought bringing in this outsider was even necessary. Um,
Speaker 1: but the negotiations didn't speed up with this Valenti guy present.
Speaker 1: In fact, they go really really slowly and Marty Gras
Speaker 1: celebrations were set to kick off that weekend, So Mariel
Speaker 1: asked for a quote cooling down period until after Marti Gras,
Speaker 1: like please, can we all just put our differences aside
Speaker 1: us and like get through Marty Gras and then get
Speaker 1: back to the table. But P A n O wouldn't
Speaker 1: agree to that cooling off period. They wanted all their
Speaker 1: issues to be resolved before the festival, before the big
Speaker 1: weekend began, and they wanted the unresolved issues to be
Speaker 1: submitted to binding arbitration, which basically meant that if the
Speaker 1: two sides couldn't come to an agreement together, there would
Speaker 1: be a third party who would decide the issues, decide
Speaker 1: the outcome of the issues, and each of the other
Speaker 1: sides would be legally bound to honor that decision. And
Speaker 1: of course Mariel was not going to have that. Um
Speaker 1: I mean, who would this third party be in the
Speaker 1: first place. It just seemed like too big of a
Speaker 1: risk for the city to take. Yeah, so Mariel kind
Speaker 1: of drew the line in the sand there, and the
Speaker 1: second strike did in fact begin that Saturday, February, and
Speaker 1: Moril ended up having to cancel that first big weekend
Speaker 1: of Marty Gross celebrations. That first weekend of parades that
Speaker 1: everyone was so looking forward to. He's still at that
Speaker 1: point had hoped so that the next week of celebrations
Speaker 1: would continue. But they had a lot of things to
Speaker 1: work out. Yeah, and the Piano was still slow to negotiate,
Speaker 1: even though it was the group that originally wanted to
Speaker 1: speed this whole process up. So um Memorial had to
Speaker 1: call in the National Guard about one thousand, one hundred
Speaker 1: troops and some of the state police to to supplement
Speaker 1: the non striking police force, because obviously, you can't even
Speaker 1: have a canceled Marty Gras with no police. There's still
Speaker 1: gonna be people in New Orleans milling about. You still
Speaker 1: need police around. And I think that they canceled time off.
Speaker 1: They made him work twelve hour shifts. So it was
Speaker 1: a lot to take on for those who weren't part
Speaker 1: of the strike. As they were negotiating, Moril had to
Speaker 1: start announcing parade cancelations one day at a time, which
Speaker 1: was sort of torturous for the city. In fact, in
Speaker 1: a New Orleans magazine story, writer Liz Scott refers to it,
Speaker 1: I think in a really interesting way. She says, to
Speaker 1: the parade loving citizenry, it was like Chinese water torture.
Speaker 1: Every one at a time, one falls and thanks God.
Speaker 1: Dramatic too, I guess because the police side was trying
Speaker 1: to escalate the situation to hopefully resolve it before Marty Gras.
Speaker 1: But Valenti and Bruno started going on TV and showing
Speaker 1: up on the front pages of the newspapers, and they
Speaker 1: did some stuff that really took things too far. Um,
Speaker 1: the union bowed to stay off work, quote until doomsday
Speaker 1: if necessary. They made it clear that they didn't give
Speaker 1: a hoot about Marty Gras. Um. They were looking to
Speaker 1: resolve these issues, and they passed out one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: leaflets to tourists that some of the big points of
Speaker 1: entry to the city up, saying that New Orleans was unsafe.
Speaker 1: You know, turned back, don't bother going to Marty Gras
Speaker 1: because we're not here to protect you. So now not
Speaker 1: only were there negotiations just incidentally preventing Marty grow from
Speaker 1: taking place, they were actively going out and discouraging tourists,
Speaker 1: discouraging dollars from coming into the city, and actively going
Speaker 1: out there and preventing Marty Garraw from happening. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: Baruno then took it to the next level for real,
Speaker 1: and the heat of the moment, he told reporter that
Speaker 1: if the police didn't get their way, they would quote
Speaker 1: wreck the city. So nobody likes to hear that from
Speaker 1: the guy representing the police group. And he apologized later,
Speaker 1: but it was it was really too late, and by
Speaker 1: this point public sentiment did a complete one eighty. They
Speaker 1: were no longer on the side of the police and
Speaker 1: and trying to support their requests. They turned against the
Speaker 1: police because everyone was affected by what was going on,
Speaker 1: either financially, you know, you have people running hotels and
Speaker 1: restaurants and they're expecting all those tourists to come in,
Speaker 1: or personally because Marty gross fun and people who live
Speaker 1: in New Orleans often work long and hard to get
Speaker 1: ready for these parades, planning their costumes and and working
Speaker 1: on it. So for all of those people who were
Speaker 1: planning on attending, and for celebs. Two celebrities were involved.
Speaker 1: Don't forget about that Ron Howard Ron Howard, Yes, he
Speaker 1: was apparently inconvenienced by the strike. Ron Howard, Frankie Avalon
Speaker 1: the rock group Kiss. All these people were supposed to
Speaker 1: be raining over various parades that year, and they didn't
Speaker 1: get to come. So yeah, people are understandably not very
Speaker 1: happy about what the police is doing at this point,
Speaker 1: and so Marty Graw organizers do something that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: They decide that they weren't going to take this lying
Speaker 1: down anymore. No. It was actually in a really famous
Speaker 1: gesture the carnival captains, they literally all got up and
Speaker 1: stood behind the mayor as he announced on Tuesday, February
Speaker 1: twentie that all remaining Marty Gras parades would be canceled,
Speaker 1: the entire thing, the entire celebration. One of the crew
Speaker 1: captains said, We're not going to let Marty Gras be
Speaker 1: held hostage by the teamsters. It is wrong to use
Speaker 1: Marty grass blackmail in this dispute. The same procedure can
Speaker 1: be used every year, and we're not going to let
Speaker 1: our organizations be puppets in such a plan. So with that,
Speaker 1: the police were out of their bargaining chip. Marty Gras
Speaker 1: was not going to be used by anyone, and the
Speaker 1: mayor and the administration really got the upper hand and
Speaker 1: the strike lasted for about sixteen days total, but the
Speaker 1: anti strike sentiment remained really high, and once Marty Gras
Speaker 1: was over and the police didn't have that leverage anymore.
Speaker 1: The whole thing really fizzled out. I mean the city,
Speaker 1: the city had the control. Yeah, if there was a winner,
Speaker 1: the city certainly turned out to be the winner in
Speaker 1: the situation, which I don't know, we're kind of talking
Speaker 1: about it before. It was sort of unfortunate because the
Speaker 1: police did there what they wanted was valid, had legitimate complaints,
Speaker 1: they really did. But then the way that things turned
Speaker 1: out once they made Marty Gras part of their plan
Speaker 1: for leverage their bargaining chip, as you said, it sort
Speaker 1: of all fell apart definitely. And as for Marty Gras itself,
Speaker 1: I mean officially canceled. That means it's ruined, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people estimate that the city lost six million dollars
Speaker 1: because of the cancelation. And again this is nineteen nine,
Speaker 1: so it's a lot. But the Marty Grass spirit and
Speaker 1: celebrations somehow managed to live on, which is really interesting me.
Speaker 1: The old line cruise on one hand, Comus Rex Momus proteus.
Speaker 1: They didn't parade. They said, if they couldn't pray in
Speaker 1: the city, they didn't want to parade at all. But
Speaker 1: there were a few others like Endymion that moved their
Speaker 1: parades to the suburbs. But also on Fat Tuesday, while
Speaker 1: there weren't any official praise in the city, it was
Speaker 1: just this gorgeous, warm day, and it turned out that
Speaker 1: a lot of locals really did just throw on costumes
Speaker 1: and head down to the French Quarter and they partied anyway,
Speaker 1: extra hard, apparently extra hard dancing, second lining in the streets,
Speaker 1: and it was almost sort of like some people describe
Speaker 1: it as an active defiance towards the strikers. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: probably just letting loose, cutting some of those tensions that
Speaker 1: had been so high in the city for the past
Speaker 1: few weeks. And um, incidentally, there were a few other
Speaker 1: acts of defiance. Um there's a rumor that in a
Speaker 1: voodoo shop on Bourbon Joe Valenti hex dollies were for sale.
Speaker 1: Um already stuck full of hat pins so I could
Speaker 1: get your revenge, I guess on the team stir. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we giggled a little bit, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's really funny. Actually it's kind of frightening. Maybe not
Speaker 1: so funny after all. So because of all the fun
Speaker 1: that they had partying in the streets, texting people, um,
Speaker 1: and of course the lack of tourists in there, that
Speaker 1: was another aspect of it. Some did call it the
Speaker 1: best Marty Gras ever. In the Scott article she actually
Speaker 1: describes it, and again I really love the way she
Speaker 1: says this one of those. She describes it as one
Speaker 1: of those arming little weddings with just immediate family and
Speaker 1: close friends. So yeah, I mean, it sounds like a
Speaker 1: good time, and I can see how it would be
Speaker 1: a drag to lose all your money if you were
Speaker 1: maybe in the hotel business, but it also does still
Speaker 1: sound like a really great party. It does. And as
Speaker 1: for whether it was the best Marty Grab or not,
Speaker 1: I think maybe a lot of people now would call
Speaker 1: the two thousand six Marty Grout the US one of
Speaker 1: the best ones ever because that was the one that
Speaker 1: happened just a few months after Katrina, and it was
Speaker 1: sort of, you know, proof that the city was alive
Speaker 1: and kitching. Yeah, resurgence and restoration, and both of these
Speaker 1: situations though, seemed to kind of really reflect the enduring spirit,
Speaker 1: you know, not to sound hokey, but the enduring spirit
Speaker 1: of natives of New Orleans. Definitely Okay, well that's the
Speaker 1: end of this Marty Gross story. But if you have
Speaker 1: your own Marty Gross story g rated of course, that
Speaker 1: you would like to share with us, please feel free
Speaker 1: to email us at History Podcast at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also look us up on Facebook
Speaker 1: and where it Twitter at Myston History. And we also
Speaker 1: have an article on Marty Grawl conveniently enough, if you're
Speaker 1: looking to do a little bit of light reading before
Speaker 1: you get in the car, or board a plane, or
Speaker 1: just go outside your door and enjoy the celebrations. It's
Speaker 1: called how Marty Gral Works, and you can find it
Speaker 1: by searching for Marty Gral on our homepage at www
Speaker 1: dot how stuff works dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the podcast, click on the podcast
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