The River: Turning to old-fashioned journal in the footlocker to spur some rich memories

The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders shares the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This is a part of a long and continuing story. It is republished from August, 2021.

By Captain Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

With the recent loss of my young steamboat buddy, Madison Berry, I have no confidants “in the know” within the fluvial community to keep me posted with the latest goings-on around the river. I miss him in several ways. The river seems surprisingly quiet lately, or does it just seem that way with the evacuations going on at the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan and the Delta Variant rampage of the COVID-19 Pandemic dominating the news?

Without Madison’s latest ‘skinny” to keep me in the loop, I decided to hop aboard the rickety, home-built, steam-powered, time-traveling contraption stowed in my old footlocker beneath the bed for a trip back in time to recall what was happened around the river in Augusts of years past.

First Stop. The Rafter CLYDE. Saturday, 11 August 2012. Much Cooler. Partly Cloudy.

• Arrived aboard at 1300. Bailed rainwater from #3 compartment.
• Painted Chicken Coop and Samson Post – White. Peggy and Jonathan brought dinner from Wendy’s.
• As it was nearly 2245 hrs. when I cleaned my paintbrushes and all, I laid down on the Pilot’s Bunk. It felt so good I stayed all night and slept well. Awoke to a coolness I hadn’t felt on the boat since CLYDE left Wisconsin.

As I’m writing, again, nine years into the future, 26 August 2021, the outside ambient air temp hovers above 81 degrees. Factoring in the usual Middle Ohio River Valley humidity, it feels like a hot, muggy 85. What little refrigerated air seeps from the floor register of my second level room beneath the sun-baked roof eaves helps modify the temperature around the computer that sheds its share of heat, keeping the room warmer than most younger people might find comfortable. As a child born before air-conditioning was considered a household necessity, I prefer the moderated warmer air to the chilled atmosphere found downstairs. My sons Jesse and Jonathan are more recent in their ways than I.

Aboard the CLYDE. Tuesday, 14 August 2012. Cloudy, Cooler

• Jesse and I here around 1630 to check the condition of the boat. I scrubbed exposed filth off the paddlewheel, emptied the water in the cooler, and added treatment to the head.
• Jesse and I are leaving tomorrow for the SUN*FISH in Decatur, AL, on the Tennessee River.

• Jonathan said he’ll drop by and check on the CLYDE while we’re gone.

After I bought the CLYDE in May 2012, a 1,300-mile delivery trip from Alma, Wisconsin, on the Upper Mississippi River, to Aurora, Indiana, on the Middle Ohio River, lay ahead. The self-proclaimed “river rat,” Everett Dameron, and I safely paddled into Aurora on Wednesday, 11 July, after an exciting and eventful adventure that’s carefully documented elsewhere in the pages of my weekly NKY TRIBUNE column. Unfortunately, with the addition of the stern paddlewheeler CLYDE, and having the SUN*FISH at Decatur, nearly four hundred miles distant, one of the boats, regrettably, had to go. So naturally, the closest boat would stay, although the more distant of the two still required love and attention until a new owner assumed proprietary obligations.

Wednesday, 15 August through Tuesday, 21 August 2012.

• Jesse and I in Decatur aboard the SUN*FISH, where we prepped and painted the Main Deck with what we called BUSTER Skiff Grey — one coat.
• Jonathan called and reported that Buster, our seventeen-year-old feline is terminally ill.
• Departed early on Tuesday for home.

Wednesday, 22 August 2012. Dry, Sunny, and Warm.

• Our beloved Buster died. A tremendous loss to all of us who loved him for the past 17 years since he came to our door in Metropolis, IL as a tiny, yellow kitten and asked to become Jonathan’s and our friend and family member.
• Buster was buried around 1500 in the backyard on the hillside he loved, next to Hunter-the-dog.
• The terribly sad day was also the first anniversary of my mother Anna Margaret Sanders’ death.

• Aboard the CLYDE around 1345 to check the boat. All AGO. (Apparent Good Order)
• In mourning for Buster – No work to be done.

What a sorrowful setting to be time-tripping within, so after the steam-propelled contrivance returned to the leading edge of what I recognized as the “present,” I recalled that Dr. Albert Einstein reportedly remarked, “Time is an illusion that moves relative to an observer.” I strove to focus on the landing approach as the rickety apparatus banked into the final turn where I calculated my home coordinates lay running along the infinite space-time continuum. Fortunately, when I reopened my eyes, a stiff neck reminded me I was slumped in the soggy deck chair in front of the computer. After the neck pain subsided, I reset the dials on the space-time puddle-jumper to August 1970 to see what was happening aboard the DELTA QUEEN.

Wednesday, 26 August 1970. DELTA QUEEN. 5th Kentucky Lake Trip.

• Departed Cincinnati at 1230 with 192 Passengers. Captain Harry Louden and Harry Hamilton, Pilots. Captain Ernest E. Wagner, Master, and Donald J. Sanders, Mate.
• Landed at Boswell Oil Dock and took on # 6 fuel oil from 1400 to 1600.

• Markland Lock and Dam came and went from 2125 to 2135.
• Landed at Six Mile Island, above Louisville, for fog from 0410 to 0500.
• Landed at Louisville from 0540 to 1215.
• McAlpine Lock. 1245 to 1310. Picked up two newsmen off a Coast Guard boat.
• Fire and Boat Drills. 1630 to 1645. Four sections of hose run out. Emergency Squad met on Sun Deck. Breathing apparatus checked. All equipment in order. Sprinkler System checked -OK. Lifeboat No. 1 swung out. Workboat and Life Rafts checked. All alright. Signed: Captain E. E. Wagner, Master.

A full load of passengers aboard the DELTA QUEEN was 192, with 72 crew and staff catering to them. A filled boat was quite the norm in 1970, the historic “Save the DELTA QUEEN Year,” which was believed to be the last year the venerable steamboat would be carrying more than 49 passengers in the overnight cruise trade. Everyone who could book a trip packed the QUEEN during most of the season.

The fuel oil burned by boat beneath the boilers to generate steam was heavy, # 6, Bunker-C; available at only a few stops along the river. Departure from the Cincinnati Public Landing was always a festive occasion. Still, no sooner than the hoopla ended and the guests settled down for a long ride before another landing, the QUEEN put into Boswell’s dock for two hours of fueling. However, the short trip was a favorite hop for friends and family members of the crew who frequently slipped aboard and enjoyed a short steamboat ride.

Over a half-century later, I distinctly remember landing in the fog at Six Mile Island, especially as the colossal steamboat slipped close to the island, the fog thinned enough to see that we narrowly missed running over an anchored houseboat with people surely sleeping splendidly within. However, the slumbering boat showed no telltale warning lights that interlopers like the DELTA QUEEN pilothouse crew could see. It was sheer dumb luck that the QUEEN missed crushing the tiny ark. When we backed off as the morning sky brightened, those inside the anchored, dark vessel still had no idea that the Grim Reaper narrowly missed visiting them as they soundly slept. That was enough of 1970. What was happening a year into the future?

Sunday, 29 August 1971

• Departed Kentucky Dam village at 1620 with 183 passengers. Captains Arthur “Art” Zimmer and Harry Louden, Pilots. Captain Harry Louden, Master, and Donald J. Sanders, Mate.
• Entered Barkley Lake -1655. Departed Barkley Lake at 1710. Entered Kentucky Lake – 1720.
• Kentucky Dam Lock: Entered, 1740; departed at 1800.
• Landed, Paducah. Picked up Car – 2015. Departed – 1830.

The week-long Kentucky Lake trips aboard the DELTA QUEEN were always a hit with folks desiring a vacation excursion on the celebrated steamboat. The seven-day rides were affordable-enough that most of the guests were younger, generally speaking, than those, mostly retirees, who could manage the time and dollars to take longer jaunts. After the QUEEN departed Kentucky Dam Village, her usual midway stop, Captain Louden, seeing he had enough spare time to give the folks onboard an extra treat, took the DELTA QUEEN through the Barkley Canal joining Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley. The passengers could later boast they went steamboating on the Cumberland River as well as the Tennessee; all at no extra cost. Paddling betwixt the Land-Between-the-Lakes was fun and interesting as well for the crew who were also paid to transit the passage.

Passing through Kentucky Dam Lock is always an awesome experience. The lock raises and lowers vessels to nearly 75 feet in height between Kentucky Lake and the Tennesse River, on the downstream side of the colossal concrete structure. Paducah, Kentucky, lies just over 20 miles from Kentucky Dam. At least once during every lake trip, the DELTA QUEEN finds time to land at the Western Kentucky river town of some 25,000 souls where the Tennessee River empties into the Ohio only 46 miles above its juncture with the Mississippi River.

After buzzing Paducah a time or two, I returned to the present and reset the controls to August 1972. However, as the awkward inter-eon, space-time conveyance was about to lower the landing gear, I lurched back hard on the guidance control bar as I surveyed the scene below. The terrain surrounding the DELTA QUEEN seemed rough and ragged while the atmosphere bristled with changed, high-energy particles. There was no way I would set the rickety, home-built, steam-powered, time-traveling contraption onto what awaited below until the machine received a general overhaul and I rested sufficiently to return. No sooner had the contrivance landed safely in the present, I carefully folded its wings and stowed it back among the papers residing in the dusty foot locker beneath the bed.

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.

Purchase Captain Don Sanders’ The River book here

ORDER YOUR RIVER BOOK HERE

Capt. Don Sanders The River: River Rat to steamboatman, riding ‘magic river spell’ to 65-year adventure is now available for $29.95 plus handling and applicable taxes. This beautiful, hardback, published by the NKyTribune, is 264-pages of riveting storytellings, replete with hundreds of pictures from Capt. Don’s collection — and reflects his meticulous journaling, unmatched storytelling, and his appreciation for detail. This historically significant book is perfect for the collections of every devotee of the river.

You may purchase your book by mail from the Northern Kentucky Tribune — or you may find the book for sale at all Roebling Books locations and at the Behringer Crawford Museum and the St. Elizabeth Healthcare gift shops.

Order your Captain Don Sanders’ ‘The River’ book here .

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