The River: An 80-year tradition continues as Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen rendezvous

The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.

By Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

Phillip Johnson, the Chief Engineer on my sternwheeler Rafter CLYDE and part-owner of the Steamer DELTA QUEEN, was the guest speaker at last weekend’s Sons and Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen annual rendezvous at Marietta, Ohio. Generations of loyal S&D members have trekked to that lovely college town each September for the past 80 years since Captain Fredrick Way, Jr. opened the first meeting near where the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers meet. 

Phillip fetched me at CLYDE’s dock in Aurora, Indiana for the long, traffic-choked drive to the mecca of steamboat buffs coming from wherever water flows to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi River System. With a new baby and two other youngsters at home, Phillip’s lovely wife Susan declined to make the arduous trip to hear her husband speak; so Phillip graciously extended an invitation to accompany him to the event. Gratefully, I accepted.

Usually, he would have found me at my house two miles from the Lighthouse Point Yacht Club, but I figured if we met at CLYDE’s dock, I could get Phillip down to the sternwheeler after we returned. It was a carefully laid plan, and as we shall later see, it worked as concocted, as the “Chief” had yet to be aboard the CLYDE, since he winterized the engine last November, for the same reasons Susan wasn’t traveling to Marietta. 

No matter how far wayfarers wander, Marietta seems a hard place to reach. Or, like another famous river town, Natchez, on the Lower Mississippi, it appears isolated and off the beaten path. But once arriving at either destination, the traveler is often overcome with the thought,

“Why would I ever want to leave?” 

Traveling with Phillip is akin to riding in the cockpit of a jetliner flying close to the ground complete with all the gauges and gadgets informing such facts as mileage, fuel used and gasoline remaining, miles averaged per gallon and even the air pressure in the tires. The latest and most advanced smartphone interfaces into the display console that gives not only GPS-guided instructions to the pilot but also accepts incoming hands-free telephone calls. Phillip knows how to safely scoot along a crowded highway as he is a frequent “flyer” and superb pilot. Before long, we crossed the Ohio River and landed in Marietta.

Ms. Jo Ann Schoen called a couple of times while we were en route to remind Phillip that he was to rendezvous with her and several other “River Rats” at the Marietta Shoney’s for the Friday night seafood buffet. The “Rats” are a pack of women river buffs who principally center around the venerable Steamer DELTA QUEEN, now in lay-up near Houma, Louisiana, west of New Orleans, awaiting a transformation to return to carrying “overnight” passengers on river cruises after an absence of more than a decade after her former owners deliberately allowed her exemption from the Safety-at-Sea Law to lapse. Phillip and the other principal owners of the steamboat worked long and hard to get the U. S. Congress to reinstate the exemption. Phillip was on a mission, this trip, to speak to the S & D membership to assure them that the DELTA QUEEN remains in safe-keeping and good shape while the owners pursue the financing needed to bring the QUEEN back to the river. The seafood buffet, by-the-way, was excellent! 

The first scheduled event of the weekend, a ride on the sternwheeler VALLEY GEM, was scheduled for soon after we checked into the Lafayette Hotel, the century-old hostelry named for whom locals call “the town’s first tourist,” the returning French hero of the American Revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette, who visited Marietta during his “Triumphant Tour” in 1825. 

The VALLEY GEM, a single-story paddlewheel-driven excursion boat was boarding at the riverfront by the time Phillip and I walked onto the cobblestone grade at the river’s edge. The boat isn’t a “looker,” as paddlewheelers go, but it soon proved to be a smooth running and efficient vessel. The small crowd of S&D’ers gathered on the canopy-covered roof; so I never got to see how the inside of the cabin below us appeared as the GEM sped down the Ohio to the lower end of Muskingham Island and back to the city front. The VALLEY GEM would be the first of four riverboats and one small ship I’d be involved with before the weekend was over.    

Before Phillip left home, his nearly-completed spiel on PowerPoint, a computer-driven program allowing a user to illustrate their talk in the same way slides once accompanied verbal presentations, developed a problem. Somehow, a computer glitch erased all his work, and he needed to redo everything.

Back in the room after the ride on the VALLEY GEM, Phillip asked, “I hope the lights won’t bother you, but I have to get this talk finished.”

“No, I answered, I’m used to sleeping with all the lights on as my freshman college roommate often hosted all-night poker parties in our dorm room.”

“Saturday morning found Phillip busily involved on his laptop while I slowly dressed for the nine am General Meeting of the Sons & Daughters. Our room was midway on what seemed to be a labyrinth of hallways. As I was already late for the meeting, I tried to find a shortcut to the hotel lobby using the stairs instead of searching for the elevator. Following the fire exit signs, I came to a massive, metal-sheathed door leading to the outside of the hotel. Instead of opening what I figured might set off the fire alarm, I backtracked and eventually discovered the elevator. When I entered the meeting room through a door at the front of the meeting room, thunderous applause arose. Although the ovation was meant for whatever was being discussed before my late entry into the room, I shamelessly acknowledged it as my own.   

At noon, some of us walked smartly from the hotel to rally with the group at the VALLEY GEM wharfboat on the Muskingham River for an excellent luncheon served buffet-style. As usual, I was amazed at how much food I could amass on one medium-sized plate! After the noon repast, several of us gathered on the one-hundred-and-one-year-old steam towboat W. P. SNYDER, JR. on display at the Ohio River Museum ahead of the VALLEY GEM complex. After a thorough visit to the engineroom, Phillip and I took the front steps to the pilothouse where I stayed longer than he after a couple of lady visitors and I struck up a discussion of all things – steamboats. The SNYDER was the second boat on my river weekend calendar.

At the Ohio River Museum at Campus Martius, the site of the first construction in Marietta by so-called “settlers” in 1788, the same year my fourth-great-grandfather, Nathaniel Sanders, moved to Kentucky from Virginia, I met-up William “Bill” Reynolds, long-associated with the museums and a builder of amazingly beautiful reproductions of Kentucky Longrifles my Grandpa Nathaniel would cherish could he return through a time portal. I especially enjoyed reminiscing about the small wooden craft the museum collected and had on display. Once, these small, but significant, arks played a daily role as private transportation serving the everyday needs of people living along the rivers in much the same way private automobiles meet the needs of individuals, today. Sadly, however, the small wooden boat traditions of the Mississippi River System, after aluminum and fiberglass replaced the natural materials for small boat construction, have all but died-out. While on the eastern seaboard, those traditions still thrive and are encouraged. 

By four o’clock, Phillip announced that he best be getting back to the Lafayette and get ready for the night’s annual banquet where he was to deliver the keynote address. Bill asked if we needed a ride, and I quickly confirmed the need before Phillip said we could walk the nearly one-mile path back to the hotel. Once was enough for this old, overweight man for one day.  

At the appointed hour of the annual convocation, I arrived late just as the invocation began while I was the only one standing in the room other than the serving staff. As the rich voice of the speaker filled the room, I glanced at the podium expecting to find an old-time country preacher behind the rostrum. Instead, I discovered long-time S&D treasurer and friend from the DELTA QUEEN, Cincinnatian R. Dale Flick.

“Dale,” I thought, “you missed your calling.” 

The year before, I learned not to order the gray meat passed off as “prime rib,” but chose the salmon, instead. Though not a large portion, the fish was tasty. After dinner and a ten-minute break, it was Phillip’s turn to talk about the condition and the future of the DELTA QUEEN.

Various wags have falsely speculated upon the fate of the DELTA QUEEN after the esteemed steamboat received a Congressional exemption from the SOLAS, or “Safety at Sea Law,” so Phillip was asked, as an owner of the vessel, to bring the public up to date on the status of the boat. Speaking for an hour about the present physical condition of the QUEEN moored in a slip near Houma, as well as divulging financing attempts, fire loads, and other facts and figures which could be terribly boring for a audience accustomed to hearing about the romance and excitement of the beloved steamboat, Phillip made the presentation lively and exciting with interjections of humor at the right places. 

Or, in the words of “Reverend” Flick: 

“Phil did a fine job speaking and held no punches in telling it like it is with him correcting a number of rumors and stories about the DQ from 2nd and 3rd parties not involved first-hand.”   

Breakfast before leaving Marietta Sunday morning was from the buffet, but after seeing the poached eggs ordered off the menu by board member Taylor Abbot, Phillip and I, both, wished we’d known the breakfast menu was available as well.   

Jennifer Lemmon, one of the DELTA QUEEN’s hardest-working crew left for her home in Tennessee before I could bid her farewell, but she had a long drive ahead and departed soon after dawn to get ahead of the traffic that seemed to clog every road.   

In true-Phillip-fashion, the more than three-hour path back to Aurora was over before I realized we were pulling off the expressway at Lawrenceburg. Soon, back above CLYDE’s dock, the two of us walked down to the boat where Phillip prepared to start the mighty thirty-five horsepower Kubota diesel engine he winterized late last fall. With the first crank, the sleeping miniature powerhouse sprang to life, and it didn’t take long to give the third boat of my busy weekend a spin. CLYDE performed as superbly as expected, so we decided to take a run up the Ohio to visit the BELLE of CINCINNATI tied alongside LST 325 at the old Aurora ferry landing.

Built at Evansville, Indiana in 1943 and a veteran of the beaches of Normandy and the invasion of Sicily and Salerno, LST 325 is restored and billed as the “only operational in WWII configuration afloat in US waters. For one month of the year, the Landing Ship Tank makes a pilgrimage to various river cities. Aurora was on the ship’s agenda as its last port of call for this year.

After the CLYDE buzzed the BELLE of CINCINNATI, we turned back and headed for Laughery Creek and Lighthouse Point. No sooner had the paddlewheeler landed, Phillip received a text from young Captain Alex Schuchter inviting us to dine as a guest aboard the BELLE. Phillip declined, as he had miles to go before his trip was through. I, on the other hand, accepted the invitation as was aboard before the 7:30 pm departure. 

Chief Engineer Christopher Wirtjes met me on the BELLE shortly after I stepped aboard what had been the EMERALD LADY casino boat I captained in Biloxi, Mississippi on August 1992 while Hurricane Andrew wrecked much of Central Florida, but skirted west of the State of Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Following the BELLE’s Chief Engineer and veteran of the Steamer NATCHEZ and the Argosy Casino Boat, I met face-to-face with BB Riverboat’s recently-hired skipper, Captain Rand Attaway who invited me to ride the trip with him on the “Lazy Bench” behind where he stood to steer the boat. 

Alongside the BELLE, LST 325 was quiet after a long day of hosting people eager to tour the venerable veteran of the Second World War. These two boats were numbers four and five in my list of marine vessels on my whirlwind, weekend tour of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. 

Cap’n Rand and I found we had similar backgrounds. He was a Mate on the Argosy, now Hollywood, casino boat. Plus, we both spent time on OSVs (Offshore Supply Vessels). Though we looked forward to swapping “sea stories” during the trip, soon after the BELLE was downbound above Rising Sun, a boisterous rockabilly band on the roof behind the pilothouse drowned out all other sounds. Whatever was unsaid would wait until our next rendezvous “somewhere on the river.”    

I’m here to tell you, though, Captain Rand is one “mighty-fine boatman,” as the old-timers liked to say if the recipient deserved the honor. BB Riverboats is blessed to have him complimenting their capable staff that includes long-time BB veteran Captain Kerry Snowden, Captain Terri Bernstein, and Chief Engineer Bill Crouse; plus many other crewmembers and personnel. Did I mention Cap’n Alex and lady pirate Missie Landers Schweikart?   

By the end of the boat ride, a relatively short walk home lay ahead, but it was up the steep incline where I live. Though I dreaded the prospect of climbing the hill, the experience did me good, but four riverboats and one ship were enough for one weekend.

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.