Upwardly Mobile

credit: Peter Frank Edwards

Mobile moves. It’s a port city sprawling over a delta of rivers flowing into Mobile Bay, and everything about it is so alive with color or so twisting in shape that it either moves or has the animated appearance of movement. Rarely swift, the movement is generally slow and soothing, as though a sailboat or a Mobilian’s drawl were being gently nudged by nothing stronger than a bay breeze.

What I love about Mobile are the antebellum mansions, ornate churches, old buildings with cast-iron balconies, palm trees, streets lined with majestic live oaks and Spanish moss, and flowers and bushes with bright-colored blooms, most famously the azaleas. Mobile is known as the Azalea City.

Steeped in history, Mobile began as the first capital of French colonial Louisiana in 1702, and during the past three hundred years, French, British, Spanish, Confederate, and American flags have all officially flown over the city. An easy walking or driving tour of downtown will quickly illustrate these interwoven eclectic influences. Government Street is my favorite for historic mansions and churches of varying styles — Greek revival, Italianate, Queen Anne, neoclassical, Spanish revival, and Tudor revival — and all along the way, on either side of the street, live oaks tower in awesome contortions, almost reaching to hold each other close, as if to keep what’s in their shade a secret.

Dauphin Street might be the most eclectic street of all. It once had such a reputation for quality that there was a slang phrase “Like walkin’ down Dauphin Street.” Today, it’s still commercial and chic, but it’s also unique and hip. You can go from antique shop to art gallery to body-piercing and tattoo parlor to peanut shop, walking off ales and oysters while admiring the street’s lacy cast-iron balconies, an identifying characteristic of Mobile. Nineteenth-century cast iron, due to its resilience in semitropical climates, weaves through the city’s landscape as commonly as Spanish moss. When you’re ready for a rest, you can sit and gaze at the beautiful iron fountain in shady Bienville Square.

The first time I met someone from Mobile, I was a college student and in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. A very polite, genteel young man surveyed my beads, which apparently weren’t that good, and told me that American celebrations of Mardi Gras had actually started in Mobile. He took down my address and said that he’d mail me some real beads. The next week I got his package, draped the colorful necklaces on my mirror, and didn’t think about Mobile again until ten years later when I moved just across the bay.

I now know that Mardi Gras started in Mobile in 1703, its colors are purple, green, and gold, and my neighbors start putting up decorations as early as January. There are a king and queen of Mardi Gras, and they visit various balls held by mystic societies. The society members dress in costumes, and their guests dress in the costume de rigueur — white tie and tails, and ball gowns at least ankle length or floor length. I’ve spotted a few of these ball goers at night on parade routes, sometimes in the crowd, dressed in their formalwear, or masked and in costume, standing on flamboyant floats and tossing Moon Pies, coins, cups, stuffed animals, and beads. I’ve learned to chant, “Moon Pie! Moon Pie!” and wave my arms and scream, “Give me some beads!”