For the 58th time, the people got their parade hours before the 57th Super Bowl took place.

The popular Joe Cain Day Procession marched through the damp streets of Mobile on Sunday, capping a weekend of Carnival revelry in Mobile as the season heads toward Fat Tuesday.

For the 50th time, the Merry Widows of Joe Cain participated in the Joe Cain Day Procession. The Widows, formed in 1974, gathered for their annual moment of mourning at the Church Street Graveyard before traveling to Cain’s house on Augusta Street for a toast.

“I’m Samantha and I was Joe’s favorite,” bickered one of the widows during their morning of weeping and griping with one another over who was his favorite.

The Widows are only part of the show. The procession features the Foot Marchers and an eclectic mix of groups that are traditional participants — the Wild Mauvillians, Mystic Squirrels of Bienville, the Order of Bums, Nevergreens, Forevergreens, Skeletons, and more.

The Joe Cain Parading Society follows with the Foot Marchers.

Leading the entire procession was historian Wayne Dean Sr., who has portrayed Chief Slacabamarinico since 1985. He was aboard the traditional coal wagon.

The Slacabamarinico character remains a part of Mobile’s Mardi Gras traditions and is embraced every year on Joe Cain Day, always celebrated on the Sunday before Fat Tuesday.

The day is the creative product from the late folklorist and artist Julian Rayford, whose 1962 retelling of Mobile Mardi Gras in ‘Chasin’ the Devil Round a Stump” and whose efforts to get Cain’s body disinterred from Bayou La Batre and relocated to Mobile, helped establish much of the modern-era Cain mythology.

Rayford was the second Chief Slac (behind Cain, hisself). Following Rayford was Red Foster before Dean became Slac IV. Dean is the longest-serving Slacabamarinico.

Joe Cain Day has long been a day-long community-wide festivity that has served for decades as the antithesis to the mystic societies and private, invite-only Carnival balls that are a staple of the city’s annual Carnival.

Since the first procession in 1967, the day has evolved into a kooky, but grand spectacle that can lure up to 150,000 or more people to downtown Mobile. It’s unclear how many people attended this year’s Joe Cain Day. Mobile police have not yet provided a crowd estimate.

Families and friends will stake out areas in downtown Mobile for picnics and social gatherings. Others will come to check out the annual bizarre happenings that don’t occur at any other time during Carnival and which are uniquely Mobile.

Yes, even Cain — at least the mythological Cain during Joe Cain Day — has Mistresses.

The craziness of the day is based on a lore rooted in Mobile history that dates back close to 160 years ago.

It’s a story that has been heavily debated. What is known is that in 1868, Cain dressed in a plaid skirt and a headdress and paraded through the city streets on Fat Tuesday celebrating the day in front of the citizens and the remaining occupying Union Army troops.

A story of rebellion was born because Cain claimed he was a Chickasaw chief – named Slacabamorinico – as a backhanded insult to the Union forces because the Chickasaw tribe had never been defeated during the war.

And from there, Mobile’s modern-day Mardi Gras evolved into its present incarnation of three-weeks of parades and balls.

It all concludes with festivities on Monday (Lundi Gras) and Tuesday (Fat Tuesday).