Roller girls, scooting Elvi

By The Daily Progress

Published: July 19, 2008

The running of the bulls.
The running of the sheep.
The running of the roller girls.

Take your pick.

Pamplona, Spain, has its famous running of the bulls, immortalized by Ernest Hemingway, in which men testing their machismo race down narrow streets try to avoid the trampling hoofs and piercing horns of a herd of rampaging bulls.

It has become so famous it now engenders parodies.

One of the newest is an event held in New Orleans’ French Quarter.
There, hundreds of men, women and children — most in white, with red scarves or bandanas, a la Pamplona — gather to be chased down Bourbon Street.

The chasers are dozens of roller girls wearing horned helmets and shaking plastic bats. They came from clubs with names like “Crescent Wenches.”
Behind them, on motorized scooters, puttered a gaggle of Elvis impersonators.

“Roller skates and a stampede through the Quarter — what could possibly go wrong?” asked one runner.
As far as we know, nothing went wrong. It was just a bit of crazy fun, New Orleans style.

Among the runners this year was Russ Schlievert, who retired to the Crescent City from Montana.
He knows all about Pamplona parodies. Back in Montana, he founded an event featuring the running of the sheep.
Ah, America …