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The River: Space X triggers fanciful remembrances of Buck and Flash, but steamboats claimed his heart


The riverboat captain is a storyteller, and Captain Don Sanders will be sharing the stories of his long association with the river — from discovery to a way of love and life. This a part of a long and continuing story.

By Captain Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

I’ve been looking at a blank, white screen for so long today (Thursday, my “writing day”), trying to think of something “river-ish” to write about when I happened to click on the Space X launch minutes before takeoff of their Dragon cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).

The roaring plume of fire and white smoke blasting from the tail of the slender rocket reminded me of my boyhood dreams of becoming a spaceman when I grew up. (SpaceX Photo)

Watching the countdown to zero with “Ignition — Lift-Off” and the roaring plume of fire and white smoke blasting from the tail of the slender rocket reminded me of my boyhood dreams of becoming a spaceman when I grew up.

If anyone has read my earliest stories about the river, they’ll know that I was terrified of the sinister, liquid stream running between my hometown and the “sky-scrapers” over on the other side of the river called the Ohio. Also, the screaming, thundering racket emanating from within a roaring blast of steam atop the small glasshouse on the roof of the riverboat known as the ISLAND QUEEN, near where Mother made me sit by her side on the hard, wooden benches, made me shriek practically as loud as the “whistle,” or so she called that dreadful, monstrous, mechanism.  

In those early childhood days, I didn’t realize that both rocketships and steamboats were terrible noisemakers.

Mother made me sit by her side on the hard, wooden benches.

My closest youthful connection with outer space was the characters (spaceships, futuristic cities, planets, and stars) decorating the linoleum rug on the floor of the tiny bedroom I shared with my younger brother Dick. For reference, Dick will be 76 later this month.

Additionally, our neighborhood “moving picture show,” the Kentucky Theater, featured Saturday “serials” starring Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon, two heroic characters in the escapist-themed science fiction thrillers originally filmed in the 1930s but still eagerly appreciated by post-war boys a decade later. Someday, I promised myself I wanted to be like Buck and Flash.

By the time I was ten, Walter Hoffmeier, my first river mentor, changed the direction I was heading career-wise. Walt set me afloat on the water aboard his 52-foot, wooden houseboat called the PAL-O-MINE. After the grizzled, former shantyboatman started Walt’s Boat Club in West Covington during my high school years, I worked after classes for my supper and found myself hooked on the river as the direction I wanted to sail down life’s highway.

My closest youthful connection with outer space was the characters (spaceships, futuristic cities, planets, and stars) decorating the linoleum rug on the floor of the tiny bedroom I shared with my younger brother Dick.

Walter died during the first semester of my freshman year away from home. Still, I had spent a summer decking aboard the Steamer AVALON, where I met Captain Ernest E. Wagner, who continued the education Walt started. NASA’s first seven astronauts, the Mercury 7, were also chosen that same year, 1959.

During my sophomore year, I cut classes on Friday, May 5, 1961, and stayed glued to the tiny desktop radio in my dorm and listened as Alan Shepard became the first American in space aboard the FREEDOM 7 spacecraft. The following February, Lt. Col. John Glenn received the same attention when I cut all my Tuesday classes while the former Marine pilot orbited the earth three times before miraculously surviving a difficult re-entry into the planet’s atmosphere.

Sometime early in the spring of my graduating year, a hard-selling U. S. Air Force recruiter soft-talked me into taking the examination for the air service’s Officer Training School and the Undergraduate Pilot Training Program. I passed, and surprisingly, the USAF accepted me when the Vietnam War selection rate was one in 800 applicants. But before I left civilian life for the military, I spent a couple of months working for the first time on board the steamboat DELTA QUEEN.

Before I left civilian life for the military, I spent a couple of months working for the first time on board the steamboat DELTA QUEEN.

Once commissioned and in flight school, my instructor was a 19-year-old civilian with barely more than the 250 minimum flight hours required for a Certified Flying Instructor’s ticket. Mr. Farmer, his actual name, and I had difficulty working together, as did the older, former cotton-duster I went to train with next. That old airplane geezer actually advised me to take a “good shot of whiskey to settle my nerves” before my next flying lesson with him.

My final check ride was with Captain Amol Vollmeyer, the Primary School Commander. Capt. Vollmeyer didn’t take long to scare the fear out of me, but by then, as he said, “You can fly. We (USAF) don’t have the time to fool with you.”

I departed the commander with a renewed yearning to fly. So, before separating from the flying service, I earned my Commercial Airplane Pilots’ Certificate and had the promise of a flight towing job at a California glider training school. But, at the same time, the opportunity to return to the DELTA QUEEN awaited, so I chose the water life instead of the air.

Sometimes when the renowned Bluegrass musician and riverboat pilot, John Hartford, and I had private moments together, which were very few, we shared dreams and, oft-times, fantasies we tried on each other to see how well they “flew.” (Bela Berty Foto)

Sometimes when the renowned Bluegrass musician and riverboat pilot, John Hartford, and I had private moments together, which were very few, we shared dreams and, oft-times, fantasies we tried on each other to see how well they “flew.” One was “The Great Outer Space Cosmic Steamboat” that sailed throughout the cosmos loaded with happy friends and mellow crewmates we’d enjoy keeping us company on our astral reverie among the stars. I think John was working up a tune about the adventure, but nothing ever materialized that I recall. He seemed more excited about his “gossamer steamboat” idea, but I liked conceptualizing the cosmic paddlewheeler better.

Although John Hartford did compose and record “Steam-Powered Aeroplane,” I highly doubt there’s a link between “Aeroplane” and what we shared in the back of the van flying along the Florida interstate while lovely Marie slept and Joe was behind the wheel. John did reveal privately, however, that his habit of carrying 3 by 5 notecards in his shirt pocket came from my propensity of naming all the trips recorded in the logbook of the P. A. DENNY. I especially remember one trip named for the pretty girl who sold tickets in the tiny booth during the Sternwheel Regatta for rides aboard the DENNY. I tagged the trip: “Fox in the Box.”

This Saturday, which will be “yesterday” when this column comes out, the SpaceX Dragon capsule will have already docked with the ISS to spend a month there “before splashing down in the Atlantic with research and return cargo,” according to a SpaceX release.

At Lesko Riverfront Park, Aurora, Indiana, Mile 498 on the Ohio River, Ms. Jenny Awad dedicated the “Riverboat Captain and Anchor Display.”(Jenny Awad Foto)

Meanwhile, down here on the mother planet, the Steamer BELLE OF LOUISVILLE and her smaller partner boat, the MARY M. MILLER, are offering various cruises. The AMERICAN DUCHESS is headed upstream on the Ohio River with about 110 passengers bound for Pittsburgh. The SPIRIT of PEORIA is once more underway on the Illinois River at Peoria, the sleek TWILIGHT claims “every day’s a good day for a boat ride,” while Cincinnati’s BB Riverboats is offering a free Club BB Membership and promises “all kinds of membership benefits.”

On Saturday, at Lesko Riverfront Park, Aurora, Indiana, Mile 498 on the Ohio River, Ms. Jenny Awad dedicated the “Riverboat Captain and Anchor Display” as I enjoyed a videotape rerun of the SpaceX Dragon docking some 254 miles overhead while zipping along at 4.76 miles per second.

Some things, it seems, are doing well these days, both on and above Terra Firma. Let’s hope and pray they stay that way.

Captain Don Sanders is a river man. He has been a riverboat captain with the Delta Queen Steamboat Company and with Rising Star Casino. He learned to fly an airplane before he learned to drive a “machine” and became a captain in the USAF. He is an adventurer, a historian, and a storyteller. Now, he is a columnist for the NKyTribune and will share his stories of growing up in Covington and his stories of the river. Hang on for the ride — the river never looked so good.  


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8 Comments

  1. Greg Nienaber says:

    Love the stories,bet Clifford would have too!

  2. Cornelia Reade-Hale says:

    I love how well you tie the old world & the new together Capt Don. You make it all interesting. You make us remember or tell us things we should renember and also think to the future. I look forward to your next jog in memory lane. Thank you.

  3. Joshua Ames says:

    Sittin’ on a 747 just a watchin’ them clouds roll by
    Can’t tell if it’s sunshine or if it’s rain, rain, rain
    Rather be a sittin’ in a deck chair high up over Kansas City
    On a genuine ol’ fashioned authentic steam powered aereoplane

  4. Joy Scudder says:

    Another great story. Thanks, Captain Don.

  5. Ronald Sutton says:

    Great ! I was out and at Sea by the time of the Astronauts, but go back to Buck Rogers, Comic Books, and even had a little Rocket Ship. Kings Point Kelly Twins both became Astronauts, one on the Space Station, while both were observed. I think we all watched the early Space Program, from Orbit to Man on the Moon. Go back to early Sailors like Columbus, Magellan, and the Portuguese Pioneer around Africa, Vasco de Gamma. An entertaining piece even if You started from a blank.

  6. Thanks for sharing your adventures – and these are all adventures! Once you get river water in your veins, though …. I appreciate you bringing back wonderful memories of my time on the Delta Queen!

  7. Connie Bays says:

    Years ago, when I tagged along after you guys on the P. A. Denny, the one thing I was never aware of was the log book. I would have loved to read all those entries, especially the names you gave the trips! I’m always kept on the edge of my seat, reading about your adventurous life! You really have packed a ton of living into your days! Keep the stories coming! I look forward to them every week!

  8. Cap'n Don says:

    Thanks, everyone for your comments and kind words. The coming Sunday’s tale could be called, “When the DELTA QUEEN Sunk Her Little Sister, a Brave Deckhand Saved the Boss’s Bacon.” Stay tuned…

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