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Wheelbarrow parade Uptown could be the last
Eighteen painted wheelbarrows lined the corner of Magazine and Soniat streets Sunday afternoon as Norby's Tulane-LSU Wheelbarrow Club honored a southeast Louisiana tradition in New Orleans style -- with a second line and plenty of spirits.
And this year, just like the past 16 gridiron meetings between the Tigers and Green Wave, LSU fans settled into the wheelbarrows as Tulane fans pushed the victors around the corner with several rest stops for families to share a laugh and for fans to consume an adult beverage or two.
Grand Marshal Ronnie Virgets said this year's parade, which marks what could be the last football meeting between the two teams, was bittersweet.
"Without sounding too serious, I'm bitterly disappointed that it should have come to this," Virgets said about the series' looming end.
The event started in 1973 as a bet between LSU fan Norby Keenan, who owned a bar on the corner of Laurel and Webster streets, and Norby's bar patron Roland Burst, a Greenie fan. The two agreed the fan of the losing team would push the winner around in a wheelbarrow, and several others joined in on the wager. That year, Tulane won 14-0, and the tradition has endured every year since, with the exception of the football series' break in the mid-1990s.
Little has changed with time, said club captain and unofficial historian Mickey Dessauer.
"The problem, like it still is today, is that there were potholes, so every block, there were beer stops," he said.
The first grand marshal was Milton "Moon" Mullen, who died in 1996. When Keenan died in 2002, the parade moved to Henry's Uptown Bar on Magazine Street.
"We brought it here because this is your typical Uptown neighborhood bar," Dessauer said. "Even though the football game is going to end this year, we want to continue this tradition. The Greenies can't wait until next year."
Dessauer said the club hopes to center the parade around the baseball series in the future, the Greenie fan said, adding that his team might have a bit of an advantage.
