Well, the big day is almost upon us. Brenda's family is starting to trickle in, and everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous.

If you're at all wondering, yes the picture to your left is the actual location of the wedding at the Celtic monument on the median between West End and Ponchatrain Blvd. I don't know if it has a more formal name other than "that Irish monument thingy," but if it does I sure has hell don't know it.

Now for a bit of back story. There have been a few discrepancies between many things I've heard and read about the spot, but here's the basic gist.

Where West End and Ponchatrain Blvd run now used to be the New Basin Canal, which was apparently extremely useful for getting from the city to the lake during the late 1800's, seeing as the city didn't extend all the way to the lake at the time. It was mainly dug by Irish immigrants, of which around 8k of em got killed off by yellow fever, cholera, and the assorted grab bag of goodies you get from standing waist deep in stagnant water while digging a canal in a mosquito infested swamp.

Anyway, apparently many of them were just sort of buried where they fell, or in the vicinity, I would guess because they were immigrants with no family, but that just my deduction. Around the 1950's the city proper had sprawled all the way to the lake, and cars were getting pretty common so they just filled the damn thing in and built the roads that stand there now.

If I've heard right, at some point in recent history, a Sav-a-Center (or something more local at the time, like Schwegmann's) bought the land up to build a grocery store on. When they went to break ground, lo, they found quite a plethora of grinning skeletons. I'm sure they instantly identified them all as micks what with their boney little fingers clutching whiskey bottles and the like, but this is pure speculation.

From there I gather the land was bought back by the city or whatever civic body owned it, and the monument was erected. This is the story as I know it, and I can't really vouch for its veracity.

In conclusion, come and join us in a good Irish celebration of love and togetherness as we all stand mere feet above the decaying corpses of men who died digging holes in the ground.

(For more info and pictures from the era of the canal's existence, the most informative link I've found would be this one: clickity.)