Posted on 02/19/2007 4:33:08 PM PST by blam
Hundreds mourn Joe Cain
Monday, February 19, 2007
By DAVID FERRARA
Staff Reporter
Covered from head to toe in funeral black and huddled in a corner against the Church Street Graveyard gates, Marilyn Harris and Abigail Reeves waited for the Merry Widows.
They were the first to arrive, around 8:30 a.m. Sunday, three hours before 20 anonymous women would slink into the cemetery to grieve.
Reeves had invited Harris, her friend of 50 years who lives in Houston, to experience Mobile's homage to Joe Cain.
"We're gonna have fun today," Reeves said. "And out of respect for Joe, we're gonna wear our black hats."
For a while, they were alone in the brisk morning cold, bundled in black trench coats and peering through the gates at Cain's grave.
Much of the rest of the crowd stumbled in a couple hours later, around 10:30, as the sun warmed the air.
Karen Saldivar, of Semmes, wore a black tux coat, encrusted with silver beads on the front and a Joe Cain tribute airbrushed on the back.
"Baby, I dress for any occasion, 365," she quipped when asked about her apparel.
Saldivar mingled with the crowd, had her picture taken with fellow revelers, and used her purple-gloved hands to tip a Bloody Mary to her lips.
"This is to start the day off," she said of the drink. Mardi Gras, particularly Joe Cain Day, she continued "is all about the friends. It's togetherness."
And then at 11:25 a.m., lead by a four-motorcycle police escort, the widows rolled up in a Gulf Coast Tour bus. The women stepped off the bus and children, women and grown men alike flailed their arms and cheered, in attempts to lure throws.
"Georgia, you were his favorite," someone shouted, as the widow shuffled across the pavement and through the cemetery entrance.
As they arrived at Cain's horizontal marble gravestone, each of the widows sobbed emphatically. Their faces shielded by dark veils, their arms wrapped in beads and black and silver garters, one by one, the widows lay white lillies across the stone.
"I'm so glad I was his favorite," Vivian Leigh Cain said.
"Hussy," the others snapped. "Oh you hussy."
But in a matter of minutes, the mourning was done. Announcing this as their 34th year of lament, the women, along with the crowd behind the gate, celebrated Cain's legendary revival of Mardi Gras in Mobile after the Civil War.
A tux-clad musician accompanying the group played "When the Saints Go Marching In" on a straight soprano sax.
The crowd jostled for views of the widows, restricted somewhat by construction in the parking lot at the Mobile Public Library nearby.
The widows were not stingy. Black beads, silver beads with black medallions, plastic black roses and black and silver garters flew from their gloved hands as they danced in the yard.
"The widows were in great form, but the construction limited your ability to see the total picture," said Devlin Wilson, a Mobile artist and Joe Cain Day veteran, walking away a few minutes later.
Harris, the first-time visitor, scooted through the crowd, hopped into her friend's Scion xB and, before the rest of the crowd could scatter, rode away from the cemetery.
"It was worth the wait," she said. "It was worth standing out in the cold."
Yup, they are. Mobile advertises their Mardi Gras as being 'family friendly.'
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