Muddy Waters

I sat in the dirt on that street in Philadelphia, Mississippi for a long time before someone finally picked me up and spent me at a store close by. I laid in the cash register for a while until one day I heard a conversation between the owner of the store and a customer. The customer was saying that he had just visited his family and that he was headed back up to Vicksburg today.

“Oh yeah? What do you do up in Vicksburg?” the owner asked.

“I’m the captain of a steamboat named, 'Muddy Waters,'” the customer replied.

“Is that right? My nephew works on a steamboat up in St. Louis.”

“St. Louis is actually where I’m headed.”

“Is that so? Well, I wish ya luck on your trip Captain,” the owner said kindly.

I then heard the Ch-Ching of the cash register and felt myself in the captain's hand. I heard the captain say thank you as he slipped me into his pocket. As he opened the door to the hot and humid Mississippi day, the owner called out and said with a chuckle, “If you see my nephew in St. Louis, tell him Uncle Todd said that he still owes me that money.”

“Will do” the Captain laughed.

After a few hours traveling in the captain's pocket, I knew we had met our destination, because I heard him mumble to himself how great it was to see the boat. The captain started greeting his crew as he walked up to the deck.

“We'll be leaving the dock in about an hour, so be ready,” He told everyone. The 

clomp of the captain's boots told me that we were moving along the boat now. I could hear him asking a crew member questions about the engine, souls on board, and departure and arrival times. He was quite pleasant and respectful to his crew. He seemed to be a nice, happy man, and a good captain to work for. I came to the conclusion the captain was the man who gave orders and was in charge of this boat. 

The captain talked to a few other people and checked a couple other things before he went back on deck and announced to his crew it was time for departure. The sound of the scrambling footsteps told me they acknowledged the captain's orders. The next thing I knew, I was in the wheelhouse and I heard the whistle blow and I felt the boat move away from the dock. Once we where underway, the Captain took me out of his pocket and handed me to the pilot of the boat. I heard him say, “Here's a lucky penny I picked up a while back. Hopefully it will guide us on an easy trip today.” The pilot looked me over, smiled, thanked the captain and then laid me on a chair next to his post.

At that point I was the happiest penny alive. Being able to take a steamboat cruise and feel the boat rocking on the water, hearing the conversation between the passengers and the crew, not to mention the sights and sounds of this amazing river from Vicksburg, Mississippi all the way to St. Louis, Missouri was beautiful.

I stepped off the boat in the pilot's pocket, in the grand city of St. Louis, wondering what my future held. 

Author's note.

I started this post with the intent of it being about Pearl Harbor, but somehow I went a completely different direction.

How I jumped from Pear Harbor to Mississippi steamboats is anyone’s guess. Even though the change of ideas was quite abrupt, as usual, what happens, one ends up learning a lot more than they set out to. This certainly happened to me. I learned things about Pearl Harbor that I had never known . . . and I considered myself pretty savvy on Pearl Harbor Day history. Never hurts to change subjects mid-stream and do you research, now I know a lot about Pearl Harbor and the Mississippi Steamboats of the early days. 

MB

For more information about steamboats and the Mississippi river, checkout these links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat

http://amhistory.si.edu/onthewater/exhibition/4_3.html