This is a picture of two biracial middle-aged males - strangers caught up in the moment - dancing in the graveyard while Martin Johnson, a local official with the social security administration speechifies, a White man dressed as The Chief in the background. If you know Mobile, you know the symbolism of that picture in the general sense and specifically as to the significance of Joe Cain Day.
Another picture - one of my fondest memories - is of my son Zack's first "real" Joe Cain day. We painted our faces; he rode on my back as we peddled through the procession. He couldn't contain himself. He was so thrilled, he shook. He hugged me; "I love this daddy."
But that wasn't his first Joe Cain. That's him as a toddler. He's in his stroller with me playing ground control to our "dragon". We proudly trotted it out having spent the weekend with a bunch of friends making it. Nothing fancy or carefully thought out. Chicken wire and hula hoops. It was a hoot. Creative and chaotic and for no other purpose than to have fun.
The Joe Cain Day I knew is so different from what it is today, changes wrought by its own success. Beginning with the move to protect the graveyard from its yearly mauling, to the imposition of controls over what once had been an unbridled contemporaneous ad-libbed people's party that grew too old for its britches. This event - now "structured" - is more like your father's old Mobile. Mardi Gras' character also changed when they took the parade route off Dauphin Street. Change can be colonic. That Joe Cain Day has somehow managed to maintain its quirky celebratory character is attributable to the advocacy of people like Wayne Dean.
Here's link to my Flickr Mardi Gras photos
