Weevil empire

Brandon's got some pictures up of Beale Street and St. Patrick's Day shenanigans. My favorite is of the little girl in the star shirt grooving with giant tassels on her feet.

(I forgot all about St. Patrick's Day, and somehow still managed to wear a green shirt Friday. Kinda sad, isn't it?)

I did some snooping Googling and found out that the dudes on the green bus are these guys — The Secret Order of Boll Weevils.

Today's Random Memphis History Lesson:

The Secret Order of Boll Weevils was chartered as a Non-Profit organization in 1966 by Dr. Charles R. Riggs. He and three other veteran Carnival participants, Percy Roberts, Albert Mallory, and Robert Mangum, were the original four Weevils that made quite a splash during the 1965 Cotton Carnival parade. Dressed in army fatigues, with paper sacks over their heads, our heroes drove up and down the parade route in an old Jeep with wanton disregard for the Parade Marshall’s directions. They would stop, jump out and assault the Carnival Royalty with brooms in an attempt to sweep them off of their floats. Naturally this caused much anger and consternation amongst the Royalty who pleaded for help from the police, who fortunately were unable to catch our daring founders to administer justice. Thus began a long and illustrious history of ridiculing the "High Society" of Memphis and their cohorts.

So in 1966 it was made official, we became the Secret Order of Boll Weevils, a permanent thorn in Cotton Carnival’s side. We were not initially welcomed by Carnival because we were, and still are, a separate and secret organization who will not disclose its members to their association. Everyone always suspects who might be members, but they never know for sure until a Weevil is "unmasked".