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.