Why I Am Not Covering the Festival

the lineup, as pinned. the last line is not the same pen.

Everybody asks. The parade was two weekends ago and a third of the mailbag since then is people asking why there is no festival post, and I keep saying there is one, it is the parade night post, go read it, it is about the count. That is the festival post. And no, I am not going to Feu Follet Weekend either.

Here is the rest of it, and it is short because it is only a question.

The parade order is the same every year. It is on the committee's sheet and it has been the same since 1949 and I have the sheets, because I keep everything, and I will show you the sheets some day. This year the last boat was not the boat that is always last. The sheet pinned up at the landing had the usual boat on the last line, and the last line was crossed out and a different boat written in, in a different pen, and nobody will say whose pen.

I asked four people. Two said they did not notice. One said it was a captain's decision. One said, and I am quoting, "it goes last because it goes last," and walked off, which in this parish is a complete sentence.

I am not saying it means anything. I am saying the order has been the same for seventy-seven years and the one year it changes is the year the count came up odd twice. I relay. You decide.

In Truth and Terror.
— Beau