Anyone remember parades going into the French quarter?

I want to remember my folks taking much-younger me to see the parade pass by where we lived on Royal street. All I really remember was it being crowded (think about those narrow streets), and that the flambeaux's were cool.

Yep, used to stage across from Brennan's, we'd run all around the courthouse or whatever it was at the time. No worries.

I caught my first pair of beads on the fly at a parade in the Quarter. I think it was Pegasus, but I'm not positive. I was about 4, maybe 5, years old and on my dad's shoulders. The beads got hung up on my outstretched fingers.

That was ~50 years ago and I still remember how excited I was!

Guys carrying flaming torch thingys in front of floats at night parades.

Ok those do actually look cool

Who downvotes this?

The old ones were much badder arse - dripping kerosene soaked rags or highway flares. As a child, I was fascinated, but slightly terrified as I sat TRAPPED in that ladder box while some guy waved that torch around a couple of feet away as he bent down to pick up pennies.

The new propane torches aren't nearly as exciting. Or dangerous!

My parents are both in their late 60's so that's how they remember most of the parades. They always told me about the kerosene and how the street would go up in flames around the brother. I remember my dad telling me until he was about 8 he was terrified of the float riders.

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Can someone explain to a dumb foreign Texan what a Flambeaux is?

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Back in the old days (before artificial lighting/electricity lit up night parade routes), the night parades were led by dudes carrying "flambeaux" self-igniting torches.

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Ok those do actually look cool

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They were actually hot last night... felt good as they passed since there was a cold wind blowing.