The Mississippi Queen-the forgotten one...

LOL no Travis that was after my time. We used to have to urethane them.

Yeah Travis remember doing the white trim on the wheel and yeah when I first got on the boat she was very plain jane when ONA owned her.

Travis June Lockhart was awesome! She came up to the pilot house around 3 and hung out me, Harry Louden and Dave williamson. Then she went down and had breakfast with us in the crew mess.

ONA flag

Remember the standard reply to the question, what does ONA stand for?: ON A sandbar.....

Who will come after us?

John, Travis has gone into great detail, but to sum it up: there have always been 'old' people riding the DQ, and when they leave, another generation of 'old' people appear. This has happened ever since Tom Greene started running her on the Mississippi system in 1948, and it would continue today IF as Travis said, the DQ were marketed for what she is, a steamboat, and not some 5 star hotel/resort. True, today's generation wants action, but there are always exceptions to the generalization, and there IS plenty of potential there, IF the DQ is returned to being a boat and prices are reigned in. And something no one ever touches on: bring back the old 'share basis'. There are many potential passengers who are single and have no traveling companion. That was the number one reason I quit riding - in 1984 they changed the share policy to having to take a high class room, not any class room. My fare would have gone from $105 per night in 1983 to $240 in 1984. So that was that for my DQ riding days. No way could I touch a trip now with the single supplement. Back in the 70s/80s when I took 39 of my 41 trips, we had a large group of share pax, who rode and rode and rode - and also contributed mightily to the bar and gift shop. Just because the cruise lines do the supplement doesn't mean the DQ has to. Know your passenger base! One other thing, which Travis mentioned and I'll emphasize: the DQ is a BOAT - she needs to be moving when people can enjoy the scenery. Quite honestly even if I could have afforded a trip these past few years, I would not have take one - to sit almost all day in a town to make the shore tour bucks and then hustle under the cover of darkness to the next town is not my idea of a steamboat trip. One example: our stops used to be 3-4 hours and we always had at least one full day of cruising. Now, as an example, the Davenport stop: arrive in the middle of the night and leave at 2:30 in the afternoon for Burlington. And that's one of the shorter stops! Build it and they will come can be translated to: Run her as a steamboat, and they will come!!!

Mel,

I know who did it as a joke in 1987....after that time they just came back year after year the same way!

~Travis~

Mel,

You DO remember!

It was 18, July 1978, at Louisville, KY...Vic Tooker took me up to the Calliope Bar to let me play the calliope (the combination for the lock on the keyboard in the Calliope Bar was 36-10-36...and why I remember that I don't know), and lo and behold there she was, June Lockhart! I knew her from the popular 1960's TV show "Lost In Space"! Vic introduced us and I asked her if the rest of the characters from the show were on the boat with her and she seemed rather taken back with the question. Once she realized she was dealing with a 13 year old kid, it all made sence!

Vic played the "Lost In Space" theme music for her and later "Raindrops Keep Falling On Your Head" which was Terry Severns' favourite song (as he came walking down the landing back to the boat). Vic also played "Tuck Me To Sleep In My Old Kentucky Home" that day, and I stole his arraingement from the recording I made that afternoon.

What great memories are coming out in this thread!

We need to start a similar one on the DELTA QUEEN, too!

~Travis~

Judy,

I was rather wordy in my disertation, wasn't I?

And also.....

AMEN!!! Well put!

~Travis~

Yeah Travis there are alot of good memories coming out. Did you ever see Vic in his Air National Guard uniform? He was a bird Colonel, and I would call him Colonel Tooker after that.

Mel,

Not only was he a Air National Guard Colonel...he was a Kentucky Colonel, as am I. So I called him "Colonel" for a different reason!

Say what you will about Tooker, he took me under his wing and taught me more about keyboard technique and showmanship than I could have learned at 100 universities. I would be more than remiss if I were to say I could stand in the mans shadow...but I learned alot of how to get through life from him....and the Tazmanian Gariachiphone! LOL!!!

~Travis~

I have to echo what Travis and Judy are saying here about what made steamboats successful. My experience with steamboating was in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. The Greene Line formula was still driving the operation of the DQ even though the Greene family no longer owned the boat. Everything more or less ran itself if you were working on board and that is why I fell in love with the DQ in the first place. The MQ was brand new with lots of mechanical problems to work out. Plus the same operational formulas on the DQ did not hold true on the MQ. We were reinventing the wheel. When I moved over to the DQ in late 1977 there were already early attempts at “upgrading” to cruise industry standards and they met with little success. The first was the on board photographer. I doubt if he made enough sales to cover his salary. Plus the added annoyance of finding a place to display the photos for sale was a big space problem that took away from the classiness of the DQ. This idea of cruising at night and staying all day in port is an appalling idea for a steamboat cruise. Most of the small towns along the river are not worth an entire day. Back then first time passengers often commented by the end of the cruise that their fears of not having enough to do were silly and they had turned into die hard steamboaters. Over the years the management seems to have looked to the cruise industry to make these decision changes. Now we see the end result of that kind of management.

Good job Travis and Judy, you guys are sooooooo right. I always liked cruising days better than sitting in town. I hated calling them ports, thats for seagoers. Nope it was nice to sit up in the pilot house or on the swing on a crusing day. But I have to admit I loved my afterwatch as I got to do alot of steering after midnite. There were certain pilots that liked to party and trusted me enough that they would hit the couch after the other Pilot went to bed. And then there were the ones like Lexie that would let me because they liked me I guess and sit and watch me work. I loved my steersman days. I still have my License applicaton signed by CS Ware and Harlod DeMarerro and my documentation of 10 round trips. And Lexie was the only one that trusted me enough to let me steer in the "war zone" below Baton Rouge.

Hey Vic was always a great man Trav I never had any problems with hima and Loved mom. we were neighbors in those quarters behind the pilot house.

Sure Mel, we'd love to have it! THANKS! If you haven't seen it, the museum has a website at Howard Steamboat Museum - Home Page. Come see us sometime! It's always special when "river people" come calling!

LOL never heared that one Judy, but made perfect sense. Speaking of sandbars we were leaving Prarie Dog one time and had picked up Walt Karnath and I cant rememeber who the other pilot was but as we were headed back out to the river these 2 pilots hadnt seen each other in many years and were chattin and showing pictures from their wallets like a couple of hens and all of a sudden everybody on the boat lurched forward.
Apparently in all the melee of re-aquantance nobody was watching where we were going . took about an hour to get off that bar LOL.

You were right about the photographers Ted. It worked on the MQ but was kinda of ridiculous on the DQ.

Mel,

Now there is a blast from the past! The modern steamboaters have no idea what we are talking about here! The crew had their traditional rooms below decks and Officers were in the sun deck cabin aft of the Pilothouse, to about where rooms 311/312 are today.

The way to the Pilothouse was through a very narrow stairway just ahead of the stack (about where todays fridge sits in the Pillothouse). There was a fence at the top of the stairs so you didn't fall down them in the dark.

I remember those rooms well! I knew exactly whose room to knock on and whom not to knock on if I wanted to play the calliope!

Oh wait, I can't let out all my secrets!

~Travis~

Cathy Dick

Enjoyed your great pics, Mel, but there are lots of folks on there I didn't know, and I would appreciate it if you'd identify them. Many times, I've heard people's names, but can't put a face to 'em. Ed Smith was good to see, again.

I started working with Ed and Bubba Chinn in '59 on the AVALON when they saw me sitting by my footlocker soon after I first came aboard. I overheard them talking:

"Who's that new white boy?"

"I don't know, but he won't last long."

Do you, or anyone else, remember Cathy Dick from the late '70's? She worked in the kitchen on the MQ and even decked on the DQ for a while. Dick was a pal of Fish's, and I would love to find her and let her know the Fish died.

Mel,

Here is one that should interest you. Not a whole lt about the DELTA and MISSISSIPPI QUEEN's...but alot of stories from the Commodore!

~Travis~

YouTube - Capt. Harold Demarrero River Stories Volume 1

Yeah Sam she was an old friend of mine but I lost touch years ago. She, like me, was from NOLA so we had some stuff in common. She was also a maid on the MQ and decked for me on the DQ with Kari Preston. I had to girls on my crew and was proud of them both.

Mel,

Those Muster Pictures of the MQ Maiden Voyage show her mundanity rather well! My favourite is the stern shot which was on the post cards. There is one head on port side shot of her from the bank that is equally all over the place and she is pouring water over her stern transom like she is rolling to beat the band...if you look closely there is no bow wake at all! Look even closer and you can see little whisps of smoke from the mid section from the towboat strapped to her starboard side!

I do have to say, she was a much more attractive boat after the yellow trim found her and the wheel was painted appropriately steamboaty! Thanks for making that happen for all us steamboat nuts!

~Travis~

oh and here is my all time favorite photo I took. It is such a classic Pilot Picture

Travis I cannot thank you enough for that link to Utube. Harold and I were good friends when he was a pilot. He taught me alot and let me steer about as much as anybody. He was the only one that would let me steer daylight much to Gabes chagrin. The stories I could tell.

Mel,

That pilothouse brings back so many memories for me. I will never forget giving a pilothouse tour one afternoon shortly after Tall Stacks 2003 and one of our Pilots, Jim Davis had a little bobblehead statue of Mark Twain he got at the festival up there on the console.

Jim was known for his irreverant humor and had the statue holding a rather vulgarly worded sign....I guess I should leave it at that!

Needless to say,. a pax asked..."What is that sign Mark Twain is holding"? Quickly I removed the sign and said it was a gum wrapper!

Later in the same week I came up to do a Pilothouse tour and Capt. Jim had him dressed up in a clown suit. There was a constant threat from him never to make him put on his clown suit!

Wow, some of these stories really lose their punch when you clean them up, don't they?

~Travis~

Yes Travis we need a whole nother site just for the R and X rated stories because some of them really are hilarious. Oh and Travis heres a Photo I found today you might appreciate.