Not long after I started teaching in Marrero, Louisiana, one of the kids spotted a
garishly-colored comb I had and said it looked like a "throw". Add another to my
growing list of New Orleans area words. A "throw" is something thrown from a
Mardi Gras float. Usually these are beads or doubloons, but various other cheap
gewgaws could be thrown as well.
Doubloon? They throw pirate plunder? Not quite. A doubloon is a souvenir coin
with the emblem of the parade's krewe on one side and a picture based on the
parade's theme on the other. And a krewe is a social club which sponsors and
organizes a parade and the ball which follows. There are many krewes and thus
many parades in the area. Each parade needs bands and as a teacher, you
pretty much wrote off the band members during carnival season.