Topic starter
27/01/2014 2:41 pm
Here is the link to a feature which appeared on our local TV Friday which shows just the main room of my river collection - the lighting wasn't good enough in the other room to film. Fran Riley was led to me by Michael Blaser, whom he featured in December, and Michael suggested he look at my collection. I in turn have suggested Fran contact Vi Foley, widow of Capt. Bill Foley, for a feature.
Of course they showed 2 of the captains, John Streckfus and Buck Leyhe, as my statement about knowing most of the captains pictured on the wall played. No, I was not around to know either of them!
Fran Riley Features - News and Weather For The Quad Cities -
27/01/2014 3:08 pm
Very nice! Thanks for sharing that, Judy!
27/01/2014 3:28 pm
BRAVO!
BRAVO Judy!
Indeed, they showed only a very SMALL part of your, to quote Capt. John Hartford, "Great BIG collection of steamboat stuff"!
27/01/2014 10:49 pm
Really neat. Maybe one of these days I'll make it to your "museum".
28/01/2014 6:14 pm
A couple of juvenile delinquents
I forwarded the link to a friend of mine here in Colorado who used to live in Rock Island. When she found out I worked on the DQ, she asked, jokingly, if I ever played the calliope. I told her no way, never touched the thing.
Judy, I just told her, in the link, that I knew you and that we used to hang out and get into BIG trouble all the time.
Topic starter
28/01/2014 6:46 pm
Just had to tell the truth, huh?
You mean like the time we were sitting out on the starboard fantail during a wait for a lock, and Capt. Wagner yelled over the speaker: Who the ... is out there on that fantail? Or maybe the time we paddled up to the SPRAGUE to 'acquire' some stirrups and we came back coated in rust? Or the time Marilyn Monroe paid a surprise visit at the Vicksburg hotel to KN and JS? or....
Does that friend happen to know of me from their RI days?
28/01/2014 7:19 pm
You mean there might be Sprague artifacts located somewhere on the Upper Mississippi or in Colorado. Oh My!
28/01/2014 7:38 pm
Rumors have it that there might be a piece or two of the SPRAGUE hiding out in a Covington, Kentucky basement too, or perhaps it is under a bed there!
29/01/2014 3:48 pm
Indeed, pieces and parts of the SPRAGUE are scattered UP and DOWN the entire river system. I have a few "souvenirs" (including a skillet) from the boat, as do many river museums and friends -- some of whom wish to remain anonymous about their acquisitions! Several years ago a man showed up at the Howard Museum to give us a very rusty and warped (from the 1974 fire) steel door from the boiler room of "Big Mama"! He acquired it just before the sunken/beached hulk was dynamited and scrapped along the Yazoo.
Hard to believe that April 15th will mark the 40th anniversary of the fire that virtually destroyed the biggest steam towboat of all time! I already have selected several unique photos for an Old Boat Column in The Waterways Journal to commemorate that tragic event.
30/01/2014 4:03 pm
I know nothing
No, but she enjoyed seeing the story on tv very much. They used to own some big old house on the bluff and I have asked her to provide photos. She misses the river.
Should anyone wish to "ring a bell" on the Sprague, it may be done from the upper reaches of the Arkansas River. Judy, you were not a part of that acquisition. When the Sprague was beached, after the fire, was the same time I was attending the River Academy, just up the river. And there was this very convenient ladder....
It seems like in all our sniffing around old river boats, all I had to do was crawl into some remote corner and someone would take a picture of my butt. These photos cannot be used as evidence. My butt does not remotely resemble the one in the photos.
30/01/2014 4:56 pm
I seem to recall that Cappy Louden had a uniquely descriptive phrase for that "stern"!
31/01/2014 9:50 pm
How we have digressed!
Cappy had uniquely descriptive terms for a lot of things, mostly not printable, but he always said you could hang 2 balanced rudders on someone else's stern. I don't think mine had the dimensions to qualify for that honor, at least not then.
Topic starter
01/02/2014 5:42 pm
Ah, but there is a connection...
We may have digressed from the video link posting, but this 'museum' has examples, on tape, of what we are discussing... It also has one that Bob made imitating Howard Tate, which caused me to throw myself on top of the tape recorder to muffle the comments, since it was by my open window in this neighborhood in the 'hood'
That phrase "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" has nothing compared to
What happens on steamboats stays on steamboats!
01/02/2014 7:09 pm
That's a real neat segment Judy. Thanks for posting it.