Fr. Schneller: ‘The Piano Man’

Growing up in the Carrollton area of New Orleans, Father Schneller, the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Church on State Street, said his mom loved parades and insisted on dressing up her children in costumes for Mardi Gras.
    

In 1955, he rode as a page on the king’s float in the Krewe of Carrollton, the year his uncle, William Long, who owned Long’s Bakery on Freret Street, reigned as king.
    

A few years after he was ordained to the priesthood in 1972, one of his brothers organized an extended group of family and friends into the Joy Riders Carnival Club, which participated with distinction for more than a dozen years in the Krewe of Crescent City truck parade.
    

“We had to design and build our floats, and a number of our floats wound up being award winners,” Father Schneller said.
    

While serving as pastor of Resurrection of Our Lord Church in New Orleans East in the 1980s, he rode in the Krewe of Pontchartrain, and, later, as pastor of St. Ann Parish in Metairie, he joined his brother in the Krewe of Excalibur.
 

Prefers ground level
    

But Father Schneller says nothing has been more fun than the last several years, where he has preferred to watch the floats from below rather than mount the floats and throw things to the people down below.
    

The second-floor closet of the St. Francis of Assisi rectory is Father Schneller’s Mardi Gras world, containing the handmade costumes he and his family members have worn over the years as they celebrate both Thoth Sunday – the Krewe of Thoth passes within a block of the church – and Mardi Gras. On Mardi Gras day, he and his family stroll in the French Quarter, with little ones being pulled in wagons.
    

This year, courtesy of some brainstorming with his nephew, Father Schneller will dress as “The Piano Man,” a nod to Billy Joel’s hit single. The costume includes a jacket festooned with piano keyboards, trimmed in red, and a footlong, black, white and red hat in which the treble clef goes off on another Piano Man riff.
    

“I enjoy being on the street much more, especially living by St. Francis, where a lot of parades start,” Father Schneller said. “It’s a wonderful place to be.”
All that jazz
    

After realizing the “festive atmosphere” that infects the neighborhood on Thoth Sunday, Father Schneller inaugurated a “jazz” Mass a few years ago. Following the final blessing, a Dixieland jazz group will lead the congregation out of the church in a second line.
    

“I usually give the kids a Mardi Gras trinket at the Mass – something that makes noise,” Father Schneller said. “This year, I’m going to give them little trumpets, and we’ll second-line out of church.”
    

On Mardi Gras, when Father Schneller has costumed as everything from a snake charmer to the Phantom of the Opera wearing a red death mask to the mysterious El Niño meteorological force – “I had a Mexican hat with a weather pattern all around it” – Father Schneller tries his best to conceal his identity.
    

“I always run into parishioners, but sometimes my smile or my voice gives it away,” he said.
    

His love for Mardi Gras has created one problem, however.
 

“I have so many costumes, I’m trying to decide which one I want to be buried in,” he said.