The Ribbon - Part Eight - Riding the Ribbon

After my divorce in 1988, I returned to Northern Kentucky at an opportune time. David had created his new company which subcontracted with a large towing company to supply crew and administration for towboats. He worked out an agreement for the lease of his first boat and with my office and managerial experience, I was enlisted to handle the land side of the business while he handled the river side. When the company first started, David was Captain on the Queen City but as he was able to add additional boats and crew, he chose to stay land side and run that part of the operation. He would ferry the crews to and from boats, line up new crew when necessary and work with the large company regarding contacts and future endeavors. I was responsible for all office management, payroll and interaction with the towing company for accounts receivables. After we would bill them, I would go to their offices, pick up the checks and then handle payroll and accounts payable. With the men on the boats for 30 days at a time, this would also include taking their pay checks to their families when they needed it. David ran the traditional “river family” style operation and all the crew and their families were extensions of ours. If something occurred on land and the deckhand or other crew member was doing his “days on”, we would handle the situation for them. It was imperative that the crew knew that matters were under control at home. However, there were times when a crew member needed to get off a boat and a new one added. David or I would contact a crew member ready to go, find the boat in question, and pick up the crew member who needed to get home while dropping off the replacement. Boats run 24/7/365 and they can’t just stop at a convenient location for getting on or off. The following river blogs are sections of my journal written during a week aboard the M/V Queen City, a towboat run by my stepbrother's towboat company:

On June 7, 1988 my brothers and I left Cincinnati at 6:00 a.m. to board a towboat on the lower section of the Ohio River. I had just joined David’s company, IMS, and David felt that I needed a refresher on the workings of a towboat. I hadn’t been on a boat in many, many years and he wanted me to spend some time on his new vessel which had been rechristened M/V Queen City.

We traveled west on Route 50 for hours, along the river through Indiana and then into Illinois. As we got closer to the end of the Ohio River before it becomes the Mississippi River, we attempted to contact the boat by radio. We finally received an answer back from the Captain as we neared Lock No. 53. The Queen City had just locked through and it would be an hour or so before we could find a spot to board. We drove a few miles down a gravel road outside of a city called Grand Chain to see if the boat was still visible from the lock. The dusty road was so hard to find that I know I would never locate it again by land. We parked the truck and walked over to the lock so David could introduce me to the lockmaster. As we stood on the concrete wall of the lock, we could see the Queen City heading down river towards Mound City which is just about the most southern tip of the State of Illinois.

A yawl coming out to the tow headed downstream

We met the boat at Mound City about 1:00 in the afternoon but because we hadn’t intercepted her at the lock, the only way to board was by boat. The mate came over to the public landing in the yawl and Dave, Norman (engineer) and I bounced out across the river to the boat which was going as slow as she could without stopping. Boarding a moving towboat from a small metal boat, even at a slow speed, is quite frightening but I kept a brave face. I grew up in a river family and I did not want to disgrace Captain Lou or Captain David.