I began Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on a five-person team picking up a pickup truck. In other words, I became a man. The reason for moving the truck only upped the man-ante: It was in the way of a bigger truck. When I regained my senses -- I'm not trying to be funny -- I discovered my hand in my pants, involuntarily adjusting myself. As the bigger truck rolled in, insight struck like a sweaty thunderbolt: This is why two-handed high-fives exist.
It was my eighth day in Biloxi, Miss. volunteering with John Beardsley '08. Like all good stories, our adventure so far has been character-driven. After we put the truck down, I looked around: Everyone was busy carrying debris and avoiding tripping over a red-headed female volunteer who was squatting motionless, twisted yoga-style upside-down. Improbably, her name is Ruth.
Ruth's foil among the Hands On Gulf Coast volunteers is a computer geek nicknamed Google. Like good opposites, they attract, and appear to be on the make-out train. You'll know when we do.
After moving the truck, we walked to a choice stretch of road near the center of town. It was time for Biloxi's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Parade.
When we arrived, the parade had already started. First passed a truck carrying a banner reading "Keep the dream alive." Candy and Mardi Gras-style beads flew from it and from every vehicle to come, every salvo scrambled over by little girls. Next came a shining Mercedes with a license plate that read "4FREEDM," representing The Way Christian Ministries. The "I Have a Dream" address blared, full of static, from megaphones attached to the car.
Next passed a Lincoln Navigator dressed up in black and gold, accompanied Secret Service-style by striding black men in uniform: Alpha Phi Alpha, the first of several entries from black fraternities.
Tyrone's Barber + Beauty Salon came next, an elegant gray BMW. (It seemed as though the parade featured every expensive car in town.) A bus proclaimed "Jesus Is Lord!" Abundant Life Church was embodied by a maroon van.
Peals of roar announced the Down South Burners, a fluorescent herd of exotic motorcycles. The riders were forced to awkwardly plod the bikes at the parade's slow pace, but their expressions remained locked in slow-burning grimaces. Silliness prevailed: An old toothless black woman in a silver sequin shower cap sped through the bikes on a four-wheeled grocery-store scooter.
Next, a dance troupe led by a truck hauling a DJ and his turntables: the Soul Patrol. Their bass and their moves lived up to their name.
Then was the Hands On Gulf Coast truck, one of the few proper floats in the parade. It was full of white, college-aged volunteers in blue shirts, all of whom were motionless except Beardsley, who was performing a master's class -- his phrase -- in earnest goofy dancing.
The parade also featured Miss Black Mississippi U.S.A., as well as a Honda SUV adorned with a curious (self-appointed?) award: "Mother of the Year 2004."
The best part of the parade was the marching bands, one of them named The Sonic Boom of the South. Not everyone had instruments: Young black women in gold body suits led, dancing, practically afloat with pride of body and grace of movement.
The end of the parade spilled into a street festival. The air was smoky with the smell of barbecue and a constant hum of Deep South drawl. A man throwing an empty Heineken behind a bush; elaborate mocha-colored sunglasses; a girl with her hair done in upside-down minarets; a Bible and a flat-brimmed Cardinals cap in the back of a car; a man on a horse sending text messages. A t-shirt with an airbrushed 2Pac in a boxing pose. A rapper named DJ Stew hawked CDs from the back of his black SUV, his wares blasting. (I caught only a snippet: "Skeet, skeet, skeet like a garden hose...")
The day closed with a Battle of the (Marching) Bands. The crackling polyrhythm of the snares was thrilling, and the bright uniforms embodied the spirit of the day: exuberance and community, with no storm clouds in sight.
