Topic starter
15/12/2006 7:21 pm
Please join me in wishing Deborah "The Fish" Fischbeck a very happy birthday, today. Fish was a maid on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN in 1978, and remains one of the most delightful people I ever met on the river... or elsewhere for that matter.
Topic starter
16/12/2006 3:04 pm
From the Fish
Just so you know, I was on the MQ from 77 to 79 and I was also the relief galley supervisor. Had to do the maid thing to make some actual money, with not many hours. I was terrible at it but kept my passengers entertained. I really enjoyed working in that galley, work wise it was grueling (pun), but it was some of the best situation comedy I've ever experienced. Still have Chef Silver's philosophical missives...
(Yea, "terrible at it." What I remember is a flame-tressed dynamo who could make forty beds an hour helping other gals, and on change-over days she hired an additional "linen boy", from ashore, to keep her supplied with towels, sheets and stuff, and kept both him and the regular boy running. SS)
Topic starter
15/12/2007 5:33 pm
A Girl of Such Rareness...
What a difference a year brings. Fish would have been 52 today. At 1041 hrs., today, the NEW DAY was officially rechristened, SUN*FISH, combining our signs, my Yellow Star and, of course, her Fish. God bless the Fish, and may her memory never fade from the minds of those fortunate-enough that their lives touched her's.
On the old Mississippi
a girl with red tresses,
One's that a beauty-
She's stolen my heart.
To dared to have loved a girl of such rareness,
So fair and so perfect,
She's nature's fine art.
On the ole Mississippi
is the girl of my vision,
On the ole Mississippi,
She's stolen my heart.
Thank you, John Hartford.
Topic starter
15/12/2008 5:13 am
A Special Day
Today is the Fish's 53rd birthday. Her birthdays were always special... and still are.
15/12/2008 11:22 am
Sam: How 'bout a recent pitcher of the Sun+Fish? Cap'n Walnut.
15/12/2008 12:48 pm
Willie, my heart is with you. SBM
15/12/2008 3:47 pm
Thats just the way I remember her Sam. She was always a good friend and I too shall never for get her.
Topic starter
15/12/2009 5:35 am
HBD Deborah- 2009
Today, December the 15th, would have been the Fish's 54th birthday. It seems odd that she would have been that old so soon, considering she was just 23 when I first saw her standing by the door to the cabins she attended as a maid on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN all decked-out in her candy-striped outfit the girls wore on 'leavin' day'. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn she was 14, but she had to have been at least 18 to work on the boat. The Fish, as I discovered later, had recently graduated with honors from "a small college in Maryland", as she was fond of saying, on a full academic scholarship, and without waiting to collect her diploma, hurried to New Orleans and landed a job on the new steamboat on the Mississippi River.
To say it was love at first sight, would be an understatement, but that's the way it was, and as soon as it happened, and before I actually met her, I began an investigation into finding what I could about the shy, elusive flame-haired beauty, and I was told that she was "different", "loved the water", and was "unique"', so I borrowed a small row boat from the MQ and asked her to take a ride with me on the Yazoo, and she did, and we were, as she once described, inseparable... but for only a couple of years until circumstances separated us for nineteen agonizing years until I found her again through a 'friend-finder' website. We stayed in constant contact until she died on 2 April 2007-- her Mother's, Sara, 90th birthday.
Fish craved adventure. Besides serving on the MQ for four years, she sailed a giant square-rigger back to Europe after the famous "Tall Ships" exhibition in New York harbor; she braved a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico that ripped her foul weather gear apart as she stood wheel watch on an open-decked schooner, and delighted in the telling of it; for several years she was a deckhand on a tanker crossing the Atlantic into the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas until she fell into an open hatch and had to give up working on the ships.
It is still hard to fathom that such a miraculous creature could have been taken all too soon and so quickly, and there isn't a day that goes by that I fail to fondly remember the most nautical person, man or woman, I ever met. She was, I sincerely believe, Neptune's daughter.
Later today I will call Sara and thank her for bringing such a daughter, as Deborah, into the world. And I will count myself as one of the most fortunate persons in the world that I met the Fish aboard the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN and that I shared a very special loving relationship with her.
15/12/2009 7:16 am
Anyone that ever knew the Fish would never forget her. I can still remember her voice as though it was yesterday, her lithe little body and wild as the wind red hair. Her nights in a sleeping bag behind the pilot house and how I had to be careful not to step on her as I made my rounds as a watchman checking on her each half hour and seeing her sitting up bleary eyed with that wild hair at daybreak. Yeah Deb was the model of cool. Happy Birthday Debra Fishbeck.
Topic starter
16/12/2009 4:32 am
Mel- What a grand recollection. I read it to Sara, Fish's mom, today, and she chuckled when I came to the "wild as the wind red hair" part. Sara was delighted that her daughter meant so much to those of us who knew, cared for, and loved her Deborah.
Topic starter
15/12/2010 2:02 pm
Double Fives
Deborah Anne "FISH" Fischbeck would have been 55 today. HBD Fishie-- wish you were here.
The SUN*FISH is the second boat named for the Fish .... the FLYING FISH was the first.
16/12/2010 5:05 am
Yes sir and I believe she would be just as Lithe, pretty and free spirited as she was 30 years ago Cap
17/12/2010 2:58 am
I remember , " The Fish " !
Greetings From New Orleans .
I remember , " The Fish " ! I have to admit that I did not really know her that well , but what I do recall about her was that she had a certain unique and unpretensious and undefinable presence about her . She was the " Genuine Article " ! There was nothing phony about her ! She was one of those special people that always went about her own way but was always ready to give anyone a smile , a hand and if necessary even the shirt off her back and never ever expected or demanded any type of recognition or payment for her kindness and generosity !
In my sixty years of perpetual motion , I have noticed that there have been times when special and unique individuals have come into our lives and have made their presence known to us and have offered us an insight into what is really important in life and more importantly what is not !
The " Fish " and others like her have been and will always be sorely missed by all !
I guess it is true , " the good , they do die young " !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted Davisson
Shipyard Sam;2807 wrote: Please join me in wishing Deborah "The Fish" Fischbeck a very happy birthday, today. Fish was a maid on the MISSISSIPPI QUEEN in 1978, and remains one of the most delightful people I ever met on the river... or elsewhere for that matter.
15/12/2012 3:20 pm
Fish would have been 57 today. Miss you Deborah....
12/02/2013 4:33 pm
Hi. I am Deb's nephew. Thank you everyone for the kind words and stories it meant a lot to me to read them. I never really got to know my Aunt that well, but I do know that she is up there somewhere looking down on us and getting angry that you all are calling her Deborah! haha. Deb, begrudgingly Debbie, but never Deborah and she would tell you so! (although I think it may have been Debbie that she really hated)
I have been doing some thinking lately about her, and how she was the most like me out of my family. Her brother, my father, is gone as well and was always so straight-laced and secure. She was definitely the wild child (until I inherited that title). I have am taking some time off from college and have got the idea into my head of following in her footsteps for some time and dedicating it to her and I was told that it would be a good first step to write on here. Just don't tell my grandmother, Willie!
Thank you again everyone, it seems like we would have been really close if life would have let us. She was definitely a special person.
-Andrew
14/02/2013 7:22 pm
Hi again guys. I applied to work on the American Queen at the suggestion of "Steam Boat Willie". (Can I call you that?). I'm not as pretty as my Aunt but we definitely share the same spirit, I think it would be an amazing adventure and experience. I'm beyond excited about the idea but I'm not sure how to make it a reality. Is there any advice anyone has on how to make this thing happen?
Topic starter
15/12/2013 6:16 am
Fish Would Have Been 58, today.
Missing The Fish on what would have been the 58th anniversary of her birth. Here's a message from Fish written on her last birthday she observed; less than four months before she died: "Oh, I guess I am on the wrong side of 50 now, huh? Used to wonder that about 40... couldn't figure out if it kicked in at 45, or 46, but 50??"
Fifty-eight is young...
Topic starter
15/12/2014 5:50 am
Fish Would Be 59 Today...
Fish would have been 59 today. Miss you Deborah....
Topic starter
15/12/2015 11:06 am
Sixty Short Years...
The Fish would be sixty today... sounds like a long while, but 60 is just a moment in time.