You Might be a Steamboater if . . .

Good one David.....How did you know I do that all the time!?!?!

You might be a steamboater if:

You use all your vacation time and money that should be going to a retirement account to ride a steamboat (DELTA QUEEN)....

You might be a steamboater if:

You wake up wondering if you're tied up or underway.
you go around humming certain John Hartford tunes all day.
you tend to answer your boss with "yes sir cap"

...if you have to explain to a cop what you are doing on the landing at 3AM and that really is the boat I'm waiting for coming under the bridge up there...

... if you get misty-eyed when you smell floor sweepings mixed with the scent of soggy cigarettes and stale beer because it reminds you of your AVALON days.

... when you savor fried chicken, white beans, and turnip greens because "it's real steamboat cooking."

... when you call the smoke stack on a towboat a chimney; thereby ticking off the dieselboat captain who says he doesn't want to hear any more steamboat talk.

...you think the Save-the-Delta-Queen campaign is more important than the Presidential campaign.

...you fill every room in your house with "steamboat stuff" and blow three blasts on your car horn when backing out of the garage.

You miss the fact that when you stumble out of a bar on land, it is always an easy walk "downhill" to where the boat is docked. Except leaving Fat Mama's Tamales in Natchez. Boy, that's a steep hill to go down after four of their Knock You Naked margaritas!

You ARE A Steamboater If......................................

Greetings From New Orleans ,
You ARE a steamboater if you work fifty (50) days on the boat without relief , if your bunk in the forward hole is three feet under a steam line , if your take home pay is $60.00 a week , if you have to use duct tape to tape up all the cracks and openings in the Pilot House to keep warm , if you have outragious and unplanned sand bar parties for the crew , if you have pizzas delivered to you by a store boat when passing through the Baton Rouge harbor , if you propose marriage to some young lady on a lonely lock wall in the middle of the night , if you take a maid on a cruise of the Yazoo River in the DQ's life boat , if you "throw craps" with Capt. Wagner on the bow of the boat while passengers are coming on board , if you put on Halloween masks and look into the Mark Twain bar windows from the out side boat's gunwale , if you bring young ladies to the top of the DQ's pilot house for some live entertainment , if you listen to every word that comes from the mouths of the Crusty ol' Pilots that come on board to pass on their wisdom and experiences , if your sitting in the Aft Cabin Lounge in the middle of the night and the port and starb'd doors open by themselves , if you " Ride The Anchor " on a dare while the boat is underway , if you take the DQ south bound through the Bayou Goula Chute in shut out fog , if you send the " Green " deckhand to the Pilot House for the " Key " to the lock or to the Engine Room for the " Portable Bulkhead Stretcher " , if you go to " Nellies " or the " Under The Hill Bar " and then wind up in the Natchez jail house , if you survive to tell all this , well , YOU are definately a STEAMBOATER !!
Ted Davisson

John Jarrett;14300 wrote: You miss the fact that when you stumble out of a bar on land, it is always an easy walk "downhill" to where the boat is docked. Except leaving Fat Mama's Tamales in Natchez. Boy, that's a steep hill to go down after four of their Knock You Naked margaritas!

You might be a Steamboater if your better half says Where we starting? and Where are we going?

And you respond with Does it matter? Actually, the direct quote is who gives a rat's...

And she answers back No, not really...

Do you want to know what stateroom we're in?

I suspect we're on Starboard Sundeck, somewhere. If so then no, not really...

About three years this way...

Capt Ted...funny stuff about the past, thanks.

Here's another one...
On the boat, any of the three boats...
What time is dinner?
You would think we would have this memorized by now...
Are you hungry? Do you even want to eat?
but we always do...

You might be Steamboater,,..

IF you Ring-Off your automatic transmission on your vehicle,,,,.....
Mine may say park,, But to me its "FINISHED WITH ENGINES",,...:)

Hmm, Jo Ann, I DID that! Now to figure out how to pay the property tax!
OK, You MIGHT be a Steamboater IF
You check these forums BEFORE checking your email!!

Wow Ted that was incredible! Man what that brought back. Oh but you forgot one How about when the Captain hangs over from the roof of the Pilot House and asks the mate to get him a corkscrew. And I remember the Baton Rouge Pizza caper well.

YMBAS if the first thing you read in the WWJ is the Old Boat column.

Sigh: Ted, I don't reckon I'll ever be a steamboater...I was with you, in spirit at least,all the way to the roof of the pilot house! MISSIE don't have no roof on the pilot house! Wow! Really?...the roof of the pilot house and goin' alla the way up there without a corkscrew? Cap'n Walnut. ps: Cap, I do carry a corkscrew!

If you have to plead the 5th to many of the questions this thread has brought up.

Or if you wouldn't trade the memories of those days for anything but another chance to do 'em one more time.

YMBAS if you can recognize a packetboat landing on the Ohio River shore though it's been at least 75 years since a steamboat landed there.

YMBAS if you look at a nice large rock and think "That'd make a really nice B.F.R."

That B.F.R. !

Greetings From New Orleans ,
Mel , thanks for reminding me of the B.F.R. ! I remember coining that expression when Capt. Wagner asked me to go grab a rock and place it right at the water line and so I went and looked for the Biggest F. Rock I could find and I guess the expression just became one more unique steamboat term ! Go Figure !
Smooth Sailing !
Ted

mel hartsough;14334 wrote: YMBAS if you look at a nice large rock and think "That'd make a really nice B.F.R."

the BFR

mel hartsough;14334 wrote: YMBAS if you look at a nice large rock and think "That'd make a really nice B.F.R."

Here is a picture of the DQ's BFR in Dover, Tennessee. You have to look closely, as the fastrising Cumberland has covered all but a tip of it. This was on the St. Louis to Nashville trip in 2002 and Franz, Carmen, Leonie and I knew it was going to become the St. Louis to Clarksville trip very soon, due to the BFR's calculations. There have been times when this highly accurate gauge would have saved some groundings if they hadn't relied on technology instead on the big sisters-simple but tried and true...
How many times did you guys have to go out and redo the lines during the night because of the BFR's indications?

Yes Ted you started a DQSC tradition as well as a very important tool. I remember getting chewed out for forgetting to bring in the BFR and once we actually pulled back in and had a deckhand jump off and grab the BFR lol! after that we found and painted a back-up.

what exactly is the importance of a BFR?

Matt,

The BFR will tell the First Mate and the rest of the Navigation Staff some very important information as to how much work there will be during their watch.

They can watch the BFR to see change or a rise or fall of the river.

If it is going down (the BFR is getting dryer) they have to let the lines out.

If it is going up (The BFR is getting wetter) they have to pull the lines in.

If it isn't changing (The BFR is just sittin there with nothing changing around it, perhaps there is a lizard, snake, or turtle sunning on it) they get to sit still and relax (or perhaps an industrious Mate will break out the paint cans and the crew will pray for rain or the upstream dam to let out a bunch of water quickly)!

~Travis~

Mathew: I'll stick my neck out and say that if you sit at the feet of Alan Bates you might call it a BAR. Matt, it is simply any rock that you can pick out of a lineup...painted or not. Placed at the very edge of the water, over time, it will indicate a rising or falling river or one that simply has not changed. When you are deeply concerned with passing under a low bridge or doing other things where the stage of the river has any meaning for your plans, it can convey information with a degree of reliability that meteroligists only dream about. It can be meaningfully "read" if no miscreant has moved it in the night! The meaningful terms of these BFR and BAR acronyms are the words "BIG" and "ROCK". I'll let you supply the middle term to suit yourself. I think that Alan credited the BAR term to the Greene Line back in the old daze! Matt, don't feel bad, you mostly lurk at a lake where the information is not all that critical and you mostly tie up where you have fixed landmarks or gauges to go by. Cap'n Walnut