DESPITE PULL OF FRENCH, MARDI GRAS NEVER TOOK

Lent, a season of reflection and repentance for Christians, begins today with Ash Wednesday observances.

But before it is time to buckle down and be good, some people just have to get all that rowdiness out of their systems. That's what Mardi Gras, also known as Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday, is for.

"It's time for one last fling, in secular terms," said the Rev. Edward Eftink, pastor of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Jackson.

Churches throughout the area will be observing Ash Wednesday with special services -- with and without marking believers' foreheads with ashes -- but there's no carnival.

Mardi Gras ended Tuesday night in New Orleans, giving plenty of revelers something to repent starting today.

Where's the party in Cape Girardeau?

"With our French tradition, it would be a great idea," said Mary Miller, executive director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau. "I don't know why somebody didn't think of it sooner."

Apparently, nobody's ever seriously proposed a communitywide celebration.

"I don't recall it ever being a topic of discussion," said Linda Minner, marketing and special-projects director for the Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce. "I think there's so many other things going on the rest of the year, that could be one reason it hasn't been brought up."

Chris Hutson, president of the Downtown Merchants Association, also said he'd never heard such a thing proposed for Cape Girardeau.

"It sounds like a pretty viable idea," Hutson said.

Dr. Frank Nickell, a history professor at Southeast Missouri State University, said Cape Girardeau may have a French name, but there's little French influence in the city's history.

"People ask, why don't we celebrate the French holidays? My answer has always been that although we have a little bit of French heritage, this is not much of a French community," Nickell said. "We never were really French."

The French oversaw government and trading in the region, Nickell said, but never established extensive settlements. When the Spanish took control of the area in 1763, they hired the French bureaucrats already in office to run things.

"They were young men and they came and they were stationed here for six years and then they went home to Paris," he said.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries when the Mardi Gras tradition was taking hold in New Orleans, the English colonists, and then the Americans and then the German immigrants, began moving into the region. They brought their traditions with them, and it's those traditions that have shaped the community, Nickell said.

"The English came and stayed as families and as units. It takes a person who has a sense of belonging and staying there to develop the sense of tradition," he said.

Spanish and German influences can be seen in the local architecture, but except for a few place names, there's not much of a French flavor in Cape Girardeau, Nickell said.

He pointed out that many of the family names common in the area are German -- evidence of their strong influence on local culture. The same is true, he said, of Ste. Genevieve.

"We have a French name, but we have a German work ethic and tradition," said Evelyn Boardman of the Downtown Merchants Association.

There's no carnival, but one Shrove Tuesday tradition is being practiced: Christ Episcopal Church hosted a pancake supper Tuesday night.

"It's really kind of a last day of celebration before moving into the season of penance," said the Rev. Brant Hazlett, pastor at Christ Episcopal.

Pancakes are made with lots of fat and butter, all no-nos during Lent. Liberal, Kan., and Olney, England, celebrated Shrove Tuesday with pancake races as a kickoff to the Lenten season.

During Lent, many Christians will be practicing special disciplines -- fasting, giving up a favorite food or habit -- or devoting extra time to prayer and meditation.

"It commemorates the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert before he started his public ministry," Eftink said. "It's also a way for each Christian to renew their commitment to be a disciple."

Incidentally, Sundays don't count when calculating the Lenten season and the "countdown" toward Easter, Eftink said.

The ashes "are from the biblical image of sitting in sackcloth and ashes, which is the symbolism of penitence," said the Rev. David Johnson, pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in Jackson.