A passing parade

I fell in love with New Orleans while there on a business trip in the early ‘80s. It was still January, but the Mardi Gras parades had already begun. After a long dinner with clients in the uptown section of the city, I found myself in the middle of one.

As a native New Yorker, I knew enough to be cautious of a raucous crowd—especially one escorted by police. The frenzy of this crowd was clearly fueled by alcohol, another reason for caution. People were twirling in the streets, catching trinkets and beads being thrown from huge colorful floats that were decked out in paper bunting. Huge papier-mache puppets on broomsticks danced overhead.

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Prophets and losses

By SKIP MENDLER

The ringbearer slept through his parents’ wedding. Cute as the proverbial button in his miniature tux, he lay slumped across his caretaker’s shoulder in one of the rear pews, not a care in the world. He was not quite two, after all—one would hardly expect him to understand what all the fuss was about. He would have had, at best, fuzzy memories of the ceremony anyway, and he would have pictures to remind him, bookloads of them, and the stories that his large extended family would tell him over and over again.

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Ailing kids benefit from charity poker run

ELDRED, NY—There seems to be no shortage of heart-rending stories. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the high tide of human tragedy flooded the world with stark television images of devastation and death. In response to that calamity, Americans have rallied.

When it comes to helping out those in need, it is safe to say that people can be immensely generous and giving. But you don’t have to go all the way to New Orleans to witness people’s empathy or their capacity to give unto others who are in need.

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