Dear Friends,

Dear, dear friends, I can only hope to convey to you my gratitude and joy this morning in knowing that each of you is still with us on this beautiful creation we call home. I awoke an hour ago, stepped outside, and immediately felt my golden locks wafting in the winds from the northeast breeze. How can anyone not break out in hymn song? For morning vespers, my hymn line up includes This is the Day, Jesus Remember Me, Ubi Caritas, Ah Holy Jesus, What Wondrous Love Is This, Ave Verum Corpus, and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. Every day should begin with three things: prayer, Bible and Psalm reading, and hymn. This is especially true for the high days and great feast days like today, Front Day.

We have prepared all year for Front Day, collecting some of the best drinking chocolates in America. Tonight we have a panoply of 25 different chocolates that you are cordially invited to try. I do not recommend that most try them all, as few can tolerate that much chocolate. But if you are like I am, you may still try! We will have the old regulars like Scharffen Berger, Saxon, Williams and Sonoma, Jacques Torres, Land of Lakes, Max Brenner, and last year’s favorite, Kakawa, a Sante Fe blend which was introduced to us by our dear friend, Coater. This year, we are adding to the menu Angelina of Paris, which we picked up last month at Bergdorf Goodman, MarieBelle, and L.A. Burdick.

We will be in the Quarters at some point today, giving out free hot chocolate samples with invitations to the party this evening, and Bibles. If you see us, please do not hesitate to tell us hello. I am putting the finishing touches on our hymn list for tonight. Classics like To God Be the Glory, How Great Thou Art, Blessed Assurance, Praise My Soul the King of Heaven, Love Divine All Loves Excelling, All People that on Earth Do Dwell, and ending the festivities, with Uncle on the organ, with a rounding rendition of Thine Be the Glory. That song always sends everyone out with strength and love. But if you have any requests, find us in the Quarters and we will try to add your hymn to the list.

There has been much confusion about the nature and history of Front Day. So I hope these words will clear it up.

Front Day is defined by the following conditions:

Sunny skies
Dew point in the 50s or below
A high below 80
A low below 60
A Saturday

Front Day only occurs in New Orleans and it is a celebration of the end of the tropical season. It is marked by the consumption of drinking chocolates. While outdoor celebrations may take place during the day, the merrymakings of chocolate and hymn singing occur at night, indoors. If you do not have an organ in your house, a piano will suffice. We sing at least ten classic hymns while Uncle plays the organ. Hymns, fellowship, and hot chocolate are a perfect pairing, and I cannot see how you can celebrate Front Day without them.

When I asked Mother the importance of keeping all the criteria of her definition of Front Day, she responded, “TulaneLSU, when you were a baby, there was a storm called Juan who bumped along the southern Louisiana coast for an entire week, spreading rain and wind, and ruining what is traditionally the best weather week of the year, the last week of October. Part of the reason we have Front Day is to celebrate the end of both summer and the end of tropical threats. Had I taken your and Great, Great Grandmother’s liberal stance on Front Day, it would have been celebrated on September 27 (74/58). But September 27, 1985 was not a Saturday, and thus, Front Day did not arrive until November 9 well after our soils had dried from Juan’s uninvited presence. Are you really willing to sacrifice the definition of the day to appease some of your friends on the OT?”

Front Day’s history, which extends to 1911:

The history of Front Day stretches all the way back to 1911. Mother claims to have invented Front Day in 1998, but Grandmother always corrects her when she makes that claim. Grandmother is happy to tell you the story of her grandmother minting the day in 1911 after that brutally hot summer, which was the standard for hot New Orleans summers for 69 years until 1980 reared its sun on us. Grandmother tells the story like this:

“My Grandmother, your Great, Great Grandmother was the first known New Orleanian to celebrate Front Day. Your Mother heard my bedtime stories about Front Day as a little girl, and she has done well to revive and cultivate the holiday. But she was acting on an idea my Grandmother created.

“Grandmother talked about the heat during the summer of 1911. She was part of a volunteer women’s auxiliary from Christ Cathedral and First Presbyterian Churches tasked with decorating the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art in City Park. This is the museum that later became NOMA, which I know you so love visiting. It opened during the Advent season, I believe December 15, of 1911.

“Anyway, Grandmother talked about how that summer was unrelenting. Three times each week, she took the St. Charles and Canal St. streetcars before fetching a horse drawn carriage from Canal St. to City Park. She talked about how hot working in the stone building was.

“September of 1911 was hotter than any month she had ever felt, and this was in a time when Septembers were usually closer weatherwise to what we think of as October or even early November weather.

“When the morning of October 18, 1911 broke, my Grandmother was up with the sun. She recalled until her last days how it was one of the most beautiful days of her life. The sunrise was perfect and a light northerly wind brushed her face with temperatures in the low 50s reminding her of the goodness of creation. She felt so wonderful that she left early that morning and walked the entire distance to the museum, which was a five mile jaunt.

“Once the women were finished with their duties that afternoon, my Grandmother invited them all back to her Prytania home. There she had a lovely spread which included hot chocolate from Switzerland she purchased from the Katz & Bestoff on Canal, which became the future site of the failed Hard Rock Hotel. Thomas, the church organist, was summoned, and quickly arrived to play their custom home organ. I can still picture her indelible, childlike smile when she reminisced about singing those hymns and drinking chocolate on that first Front Day.

“She and her friends gathered for years on each first sunny day of Autumn with highs below 80 and lows below 60. When Front Day came on October 21, 1929, celebrations were held as usual, but three days later, Black Thursday hit America. Some of her friends were ruined, and they associated Front Day with the stock market crash. And never again in her lifetime did the people of New Orleans celebrate that great day. It disappeared until your Mother revived it.

“Unlike your mother, the original Front Days did not have to be on Saturday. I wish your mother would change that requirement.”