Racing the Natchez?
A Congregation Broken: Up to Gallipolis and Back Again. Day 1: Part 2
[We got our first snowfall of the year yesterday. Louisville, Kentucky is one of those cities that doesn’t necessarily deal well with snow. I had no choice but to go to the store on Monday, the day before the snow. I immediately regretted my actions, but there was more bread on the shelves than I expected. Dealing with weather isn’t so much about the weather as much as it is mindset and planning. I don’t want to be unkind and state flatly that people don’t know how to plan and adapt, but it does sometimes look like at least a portion of the human race have lost the knack. Those who have the knack are forced to work at it more because they don’t have control of some key elements: primarily real estate and law enforcement. But that’s what you get when you let the capitalists run shit; luckily those who have the knack are account for this, whereas those who lost it have existential crises when the Starbucks shutters.
This time last year, I was on winter watch at the 4th Street Wharf. Regardless of the weather, someone has to be on the wharf to watch over the Belle, the Mary M. Miller, and the Mayor Andrew Broaddus. I’ve stood watch during winter and spring high water, and during blizzards. The north wind would sometimes wrap around the back of the paddle wheel and hit me with such force that it nearly picked me up and dropped me into the river while I was making rounds.
Now I’m in the basement, trying to avoid the interruptions of modern asynchronous communications, smoking my first pipe of the day, listening to Eric Satie’s “Five Nocturnes” on WUOL, and drinking coffee. When I decided to write this account of my trip up to America’s River Roots and to the shipyard at Gallipolis, I didn’t really have a plan. I still don’t. It will be more or less a chronological account with some inevitable side trips down the tributaries of memory. I will say that seeing the Natchez, both on the water while we were both underway and at the Cincinnati Landing was one of the highlights of the trip. It made me think of the 11 months I lived in New Orleans 25 years ago. I never had enough money to ride the boat, but I would watch her when I would walk down by the river. Which I did a lot. To be honest, it never occurred to me that I could actually get a job on the Natchez; I’ve thought a lot over the last few years about how different my life might have unfolded if the thought HAD crossed my mind. I mentioned this to Captain Pete O’Connell once, saying that I maybe would have ended up on the deck side, because I hadn’t turned 30 yet when I was living in New Orleans, and my back and hip were still in good shape. He simply shrugged and said I would have wandered into engineering, anyway. Rivermen end up where they belong.]
10.5.25, approx 0820 hrs.
Departure time 0810. We had to wait on a northbound tug to make her way out of MacAlpine Lock and pass us in order to leave. The Natchez out of New Orleans is behind us, just starting to make her way through the lock a little before 0800. Dan, the Chief Engineer, walked up to the firebox to tell me she’s making about 10 mph, which means they will probably overtake us at some point.
I wondered: will we race?
