Offenburg: Part Quatre - Someday the Lawyers Will Ruin It

The whole concept behind the Narrentreffen is that the witches, fools, and ogres are taking over the town. Anyone standing along the parade route is fair game for either a gift or a little playful abuse.

The gifts are simple enough. For the children, there is candy. The Hexenzunft carry bags of the stuff to give to the little folks along the way. What is really cool is that for the adults, there is wine or schnapps. Some of the marchers carry little kegs and will pour you a glass if you are lucky. We got some white wine. No schnapps though.

The playful abuse is what sets this apart from an American parade. (Well, that and the alcoholic beverages.) The Hexenzunft have a lot of tricks up their sleeves. They carry bags of confetti to throw at you. If you are unlucky enough to have long hair, then they will make sure to rub the confetti into it.

If you are really unlucky, you will get picked up and thrown onto a cart or a gurney and get confetti stuffed into your shirt and pants. This treatment seems to be reserved for girls between the age of 15 and 25.

Heaven forbid you should be wearing a hat. The dude at the top of the page, with the big scissors, was grabbing every hat he saw. The poor man below had his hat taken 5 or 6 times.

Gabi was a favorite target because of her headband. You can see this in the following two pictures.No one seemed to get too worked up about the fun and games. Even the poor man who had his hat stolen over and over seemed to be O.K. with the whole thing. Even the 15 - 25 year old girls who were borderline molested seemed O.K. with it. There is something about surrendering yourself to harassment that is good for the soul.

I have to think that, back in the U.S., the lawyers would kill off such a celebration after one year. Think of the pain and mental suffering is associated with having your hat stolen.

FOOTNOTE: The Fasent celebrations are not just confined to parades or one day. There seem to be dances and balls and wine-gardens all the way up to Fat Tuesday. The German channel on the TV has been running live broadcasts of events from several villages. Today, they broadcast from Messkirch a similar parade to the one we saw in Offenburg. Tonight, as I type, they are broadcasting a Hexenball... which is like the old Ed Sullivan show in beer-barrel nightmare. There are lots of men dressed up as women - singing songs and doing the Macarena. Young girls in cowboy hats doing the can-can to polka music. And stand-up comedy as only the Germans can do it.

We are sheduled to fly back to the U.S. on April 1 - Ash Wednesday. Perhaps if we're lucky we can sneak over the day before for one last peek on the evening of Fasnacht.