A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

The River: Amazing thing, the Internet, to connect friends, because, really, it’s a big river out there


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 Capt. Don Sanders
Special to NKyTribune

Within the area upstream from the CLYDE, Chris Henderson, a U. S. Navy Seabee still on active duty, is kayaking the length of the Ohio River.

What an age we live in! Without the Internet, and Facebook especially, how would I know what’s happening on opposite ends of the river? My river life, anymore, centers around getting several projects completed on the Rafter CLYDE so it will be irresistible when the right buyer comes along. I haven’t even the time to watch “doodlebugs” dancing atop the surface of the water. I am so engrossed with painting and tidying-up my paddlewheeler I’ve failed to notice them.

Within the area upstream from the CLYDE, Chris Henderson, a U. S. Navy Seabee still on active duty, is kayaking the length of the Ohio River; so I read on a posting. Otherwise, without checking my page, Chris would have paddled on by Laughery Creek and I’d been none the wiser. I even sent him a message to stop by if he is staying the night in the neighborhood. He can’t miss the CLYDE, he was told, it’s the only boat with a bright-red paddlewheel in the marina.

Only a few short years ago, another kayaker stopped by my boat at the time, the GRAND VICTORIA II, at Rising Sun, IN, some ten miles downstream from CLYDE’s present berth. That was the beginning of a lasting friendship between Kim Cornell and me. After her brave solo adventure with just her dog for companionship, Kim returned to Pittsburgh and wrote a lengthy book about her experiences, “A River Runs Through Me, An American Adventure.” There’s even a chapter mostly about me. Even more exciting, Kim worked hard on the river in her home port and became a licensed Captain! She is best known in the cyber world, though, as “Yin Zer.”  Make that Captain Yin Zer, if you please.

Kim returned to Pittsburgh and wrote a lengthy book about her experiences, “A River Runs Through Me, An American Adventure.”

Down on the Lower Mississippi River, according to what I read from towboat pals, the river channel is filled with silt after many months of flooding conditions, and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers closed the river below Memphis so they can dig a gut deep-enough for the barges and boats to navigate. Victoria Bend seems to be especially problematic, but that was always a menacing stretch of river, even in the best of water.

A phone call to Captain Clarke C. “Doc” Hawley, my long-time friend and steamboat mentor, revealed the river gauge at New Orleans was 6.1 feet after months of lingering in the double digits. Of course, any conversation with Cap’n Doc is a trip down our oft-travel path on Memory Lane. We remembered Captain John Emory Edgington, an elder steamboatman in his late eighties when I was a seventeen-year-old deckhand working with him aboard the Steamer AVALON in 1959.

Doc recalled Captain Edgington saying: “My boy Clyde drove me down to the landing, and I would like for you to meet him.”

Expecting to find a fellow of about his own age, Doc ventured onto the dance floor, but instead of a younger man, he discovered a white-haired gentleman well into his sixties. Doc failed to take into account the great difference in age Captain Edgington, born in 1970, and his “boy” was from him.

Down on the Lower Mississippi River, according to what I read from towboat pals, the river channel is filled with silt after many months of flooding conditions, and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers closed the river. 


In fact, I often use Cap’n Emory as an example of how short a span in time the 1700s were from the present. Most young people mistakenly think that span of time was but a long, slow-moving stretch incomprehensible to fathom. But I say to them, “Shake my hand.” When they do, I explain that 60-years ago, I shook the hand of Captain Edgington who was 88 years of age. Then I tell the young student, “Surely, Captain Edgington shook the hands of men born in the late 1700s. So you see, from now to the 1700s is but three handshakes away. You to me. Me to the Captain, and from him to them.” The illustration never fails to make an impression upon a younger audience.

Before Cap’n Hawley and I finished our chat, we brought forth the names of several more river men of yore we had the privilege of not only knowing, but men we served with on fire-breathing steamboats on the inland waterways:

Albert Sidney Kelley was a lad growing up on his family farm, Kelley’s Landing, on the Ohio River above Louisville, Kentucky and directly across the Ohio from Bethlehem, Indiana. Kelley told me that the palatial steamboat, the CITY of LOUISVILLE, passed by the family landing at the same time as it was coming or going to Cincinnati. Whenever his mother wanted a mess of fresh fish for the family meal, she sent young Albert down to the riverbank with a large wicker basket that he placed at a strategic place on the shore and waited for the fast steamboat to arrive.

Of course, any conversation with Cap’n Doc is a trip down our oft-travel path on Memory Lane. 


The CITY of LOUISVILLE was so swift, over 20 mph, and huge, over 300-feet in length, that it sucked the water off the banks as it passed; stranding fish upon the shore. As the water receded, Albert ran along what had been below the pool level before the steamer passed, and tossed the stranded fish toward the wicker basket. As soon as he retrieved his fill, the basket, loaded with fresh, flopping fish, was quickly hurried home. That evening the Kelley family sat down to a tasty repast of Ohio River catfish.

Captain Doc also reminded me that Captain Kelley told him that as he matured, he tired of “looking a mule in the ass all day,” so when the CITY of LOUISVILLE made a stop along the shore near the family farm, he went aboard, begged a job, and became a Watchman on that celebrated vessel. The CITY of L’VILLE built 1894, lasted until the ice of January 1918 crushed her and her sister boat, the CITY of CINCINNATI, at the Cincinnati Public Landing as my Grandmother Edith watched from her kitchen window on the corner of Greenup and Front Streets, across the river in Covington.

In another week, the Sons & Daughters of Pioneer Rivermen will be making their annual pilgrimage to their hallowed sanctuary at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers at Marietta, Ohio. This year, though, the guest speaker will be none other than Phillip Johnson, CLYDE’s “Chief Engineer,” and my traveling companion to last year’s rendezvous to hear Cap’n Doc speak. Phillip also owns ten-percent of the venerable Steamer DELTA QUEEN, and he will enlighten an eager audience about what he and his fellow owners are doing to get the QUEEN up and running and back into the fast-growing overnight passenger boat trade on the Mississippi and its tributaries.

In the meantime, you will either find me aboard the CLYDE or on Facebook keeping abreast of all that’s happening from Pittsburgh to Cairo; from St. Paul to New Orleans and points in-between. Either way, look for me, give me a LIKE, but,

“Be especially careful, “It’s a big river out there!”

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.

The CITY of LOUISVILLE was so swift, over 20 mph, and huge, over 300-feet in length, that it sucked the water off the banks as it passed; stranding fish upon the shore.

The CITY of LOUISVILLE built 1894, lasted until the ice of January 1918 crushed her and her sister boat, the CITY of CINCINNATI, at the Cincinnati Public Landing as my Grandmother Edith watched from her kitchen window.

 The S&D guest speaker, the year, will be none other than Phillip Johnson, CLYDE’s “Chief Engineer.”


Related Posts

4 Comments

  1. Cap'n Don says:

    Captain John Emory Edgington was born in 1870 – not 1970. How did I miss that? His son, John Clyde Edgington, was birthed in 1897, the same year as my Grandmother Edith’s debut into the world.

  2. Pete OConnell says:

    Yes Captain a big river in a small word with good people and wonderful times. “Of all the people I’ve met in my travels “ will open my eulogy I hope.
    Great story Captain.

  3. Jo Ann W Schoen says:

    Keep them coming! Another wonderful story and what “life on the river” is all about.

  4. Cornelia Reade-Hale says:

    Thanks.Capt Don. I’ve met many of the people of whom you write,but I’d never really thought about that “3 handshakes” link. Great image. I look forward to more great pieces of river histiry snd lore.

Leave a Comment