Can't believe I had to miss the Buddy D Parade

But sometimes you gotta go to work no matter how much you drank the night before. Yesterday was one of those days. So far that makes two parades this Carnival season where the story is more about what I missed than about what I saw. Hope that trend turns around.

I've been trolling the internets for national reaction to the parade. Predictably there's a lot of "Only in New Orleans" and "Look what Bobby Hebert did" but not enough explanation about the man who inspired it all. For that you have to read Peter Finney. We knew they were keeping him around for something.

Buddy D sailed through his sea of squirrels, with passion, with frustration, with optimism, always with a smile.

The day Iran took scores of U.S. hostages, he telephoned me with an immediate observation: "That would have never happened if Iran had an NFL franchise.''

At the time of the missile crisis involving Cuba, I told Buddy there was concern the U.S. and Russia might go to war. "I'm not worried about any war,'' he said. "They're talking about canceling the LSU-Ole Miss game. That's serious. If that happens, I'll never forgive that guy Khrushev.''

I don't know how many of these Robert Guthrie has sold but the answer is probably not enough.