The River: Youngsters do find their way to a good life on the river, as the ‘whispers of the water’ call out

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

The first boat I completely commanded was the P. A. DENNY Sternwheeler on the Great Kanawha River in Charleston, West “By God” Virginia. Earlier, I shared command of the DELTA QUEEN with my long-time master and mentor, Capt. Ernest E. Wagner, but the DENNY was the first boat that was “all mine.”

It was the Bicentennial Year of the country, 1976, when an invitation reached me at home in Covington to come to Charleston to decide if I was interested in taking over the paddlewheel excursion boat that was yet unfinished at Port Amherst, above the city. Though the all-steel, two-decker was no DELTA QUEEN, I felt the love that went into the boat and decided to give it a go. Cappy Lawson Hamilton, the sternwheeler owner and having much to do with coal mining operations in the state, hired me for more than I asked while we stood beneath a coal tipple on the banks of the Kanawha overlooking workers putting preliminary touches on the boat.

The first trip of the P. A. DENNY was on the 4th of July 1976, Bicentennial Day. The DENNY was not the easier boat to handle at first. Still, I cautiously landed it alongside a cement wall at Marmet Lock and Dam, where the passengers hurried ashore for a patriotic ceremony in the park alongside the lock. At noon, I found myself sitting at a parkside table eating a chicken box lunch with a red-coated colonel in His Majesty, King George III’s, militia. After everyone was off the DENNY except for the crew, Ross and Sandy Tuckwiller from the office, and a couple they’d invited for the ride back to Port Amherst, I attempted several miss-approaches to the dock before I got the DENNY landed without any bumps or bruises to the boat or those aboard. With time, I became reasonably proficient in handling the punctilious paddlewheeler.

Perhaps the best time I had with the DENNY was working with the crew. At first, the boat boasted an all-star ensemble of young men who had grown up on the river and, though just college fellows, they were as seasoned as any boatmen their age on the river. Nelson Jones was already a legend on the length and breadth of the river system. His family owned Amherst affiliated Industries. When he was just twelve, Nelson brainstormed an idea for an extravagant river celebration called the Charleston Sternwheel Regatta that became quite a regional celebration attracting hundreds of thousands of revelers to the city during the Labor Day holidays.

Tom Cook, another DENNY college-age deckhand, was the scion of his family’s sand and gravel business boasting of enterprises on the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers. Bill Barr was also one of the college boys of that group. In time, young Jones and Barr would be honored to have a towboat named for them. But at that time, the towboat M/V TOM COOK passed the DENNY on regular trips carrying on the family commerce. Whenever Tom yelled, “Here comes my boat,” we would stop what we were about and wave at the TOM COOK passing by.

Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley once revealed he was reluctant to hire college students as summer crewmen. As Doc explained, “Once the school bell rings in the fall, you lose your crew.” Such was the case with the DENNY’s All-Stars that first year. Their departures, though, opened their slots for some outstanding fellows whose names will long be associated with the P. A. DENNY.

Tony Harrison, originally from Toledo, was the brother of Jim Harrison, a likable and capable member of the Covington Housing Department. Jim and I met in a Mt. Adams pub on the Cincinnati side of the Ohio River. After the amiable Northern Kentucky innkeeper Mick Noll opened the Tap Room in Covington, many of the Mt. Adams crowd began patronizing Mick’s establishment as well as those “on the hill.” Days before I left home for the DENNY, Jim introduced me to his brother Tony. Over the past couple of years, I’d been off the river and restoring historic homes in town.

“Tony’s a good drywall man,” Jim said of his brother. “Ya got any work for him?”

I replied that I was leaving for Charleston to take over the DENNY, but the DELTA QUEEN was at the Cincinnati Public Landing laying over until the next day.

“Go talk to Captain Gabe Chengery,” I advised. “If Cap’n Gabe has any openings on the QUEEN, he’ll find a place for you.”

Before the Harrison brothers and I departed company, Tony asked if any positions came open on the DENNY, he’d like to be given a chance on the smaller boat. I promised.

During the 1976 Sternwheel Regatta, Tony was on days-off from the DELTA QUEEN and enjoyed being our guest aboard the P. A. DENNY. He was surely impressed with the regatta, and when he was offered a job at twice his DELTA QUEEN salary, he grabbed the opportunity. By the end of the 1977 Season, I grew tired of the Kanawha’s small excursion boat. At the company Christmas party in mid-December, I presented Tony, who’d just gotten his 100-ton Master’s license, his holiday gift

“Cap’n Tony,” I said loudly so that all present could hear, “You’re standing on your Christmas present. You’re now the Captain of the DENNY. I won’t be returning next season.”

Those two years I spent as the first master of the Charleston sternwheeler, I met, as I said before, some very outstanding youngsters who found their own river way of life. Besides the ones previously mentioned, there were several more:

Twelve-year-old Tommy Price, the brother of deckhand Bradley Price, cleverly wrangled a place in the DENNY pilothouse. At first, I was reluctant to allow a preteen to hang around the boat, but upon Brad’s assurance his little brother would stay out of the way and not become a pest, I gave my cautious approval. It turned out that young Tom was a smart, helpful youngster, and it wasn’t long before he became my “Cub Pilot.” Several years after my departure from the paddlewheeler, Capt. Tom Price commanded the DENNY. Brad left for towboats but was injured and left the river. These days, Tom lives in Florida, and though he fondly recalls his river days, he is no longer a commercial boatman.
  

My brother Jeffrey Sanders, worked a couple of summers on the DENNY and was as good a riverman as any of the Kanawha River-bred fellows. Though the crew damn-near drowned my youngest brother his first day on the job by putting him in a particularly-hazardous position getting off the boat and onto the concrete landing wall, he survived and excelled as a talented and trustworthy riverman. All my brothers, Jeff, Dick, and Bob, are good boatmen; they just chose other fields for their careers. 

Todd Mace also starting decking on the DENNY in ‘76. Todd, like Tony, eventually commanded the paddlewheeler. Sadly, bothTony and Todd died all too young, as did Captain O. Nelson Jones, whose legendary status only grew in stature before he was “called away in the flower of manhood,” to quote the poet.

During those early DENNY days, Connie Shaffer, a young local girl of about 14, rode the boat with her mother, Barbara. Connie best described her first and subsequent cruises aboard the paddlewheeler:

“From the first cruise down the river, I was hooked! I had found my love. My home away from home. I rode the DENNY almost every day. The cost of the cruise was $4.00.  When the Captain found out, I was working to pay my fare, and not just a rich little girl with nothing better to do, he started allowing me to ride for free. I’d get on early before people started lining up to ride. I began helping the guys in the snack bar, serving up the hot dogs and cokes and cleaning up the tables. I had so much fun. I loved every one of those guys.” 

What seems hard to believe, now, that from the last time I saw Connie on the P. A. DENNY until recently, when she and her son Jonathan came to visit aboard the Rafter CLYDE, over 40 years had flown by like a proverbial moment in time. In that seemingly short span of years, Connie became the mother of two daughters and a son; she retired from nursing and is the grandmother of six grandchildren: three boys and an equal number of little girls. 

Of all of Connie’s memories, her youthful days aboard the P. A. DENNY remain fond remembrances. Again, in her words:

The whispers of the water,
calling out to me
I hear the faint echoes
of all that used to be

Though time has ticked on
And changes are certain to be
The clock cannot steal
Those special memories I see

My heart stores the seasons
the precious memories abound
As I listened to the echoes
I hear the calliope sound.

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.