A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

The River: Falling in love with river life, embracing beginnings at Walt’s Boat Harbor on the frigid Ohio


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

I love these cold, snowy days – or, at least, I did when I was a young fellow working after high school hours at Walt’s Boat Harbor on the frigid Ohio River across from the Cincinnati West End Power Plant. The wages Walt paid was a tasty, hot supper prepared by his wife, Lorraine. The colder it got, the more I enjoyed being in the wintry blasts while puttering around on the fleet comprised of an oversized shanty headboat and a thousand-feet of dock called “floats.”

I love these cold, snowy days – or, at least, I did when I was a young fellow working after high school hours at Walt’s Boat Harbor on the frigid Ohio River.

In the summer, the harbor was packed with boats and their owners, but winter drove everything and everyone away. Only two boats lay moored alongside the floats: Walter’s 52-foot wooden houseboat, the PAL-O-MINE, and our family’s sternwheeler, the MARJESS. The only people around the deserted marina were Walter, Lorraine, and me until Huckle, Walter’s brother, arrived around 9 p.m. to adjust the fleet for the night.

Whenever the river was rising, Huck and I winched in the mooring cables on the headboat and those at the far end of the long, floating dock. When the water started falling, we let out the stout steel cables until the head of the walkway was adequately offshore so that nothing afloat grounded. Huck, Lorraine, and I stayed with Walt until the end of the 11 p.m. news when the river forecast told which direction the river level was expected to go — either “rising,” “falling,” or not at all, called “stationary.”

On the upstream end of the headboat, a hand-cranked winch was the appliance used to adjust the head wire. A medium-sized, wooden telephone pole, rigged as a “spud,” kept the heavy, wooden boat in place off the riverbank. The tension on the head wire against the spud pole prevented the head of the shanty-style headboat, about 75-feet in length, from riding out into the current while pulled safely into place an easy distance from shore.

The oversized shanty-style headboat, about 75-feet in length.

In mid-to-late December of those far-off days, darkness fell early, and they seemed colder than now. Consequently, most of the jobs Walter had for me before supper were performed in darkness. Chores always awaited me as soon as I stepped off the school bus at the top of the “hill,” as river people usually called the steep river embankment. The tasks assigned my way were those Walter, with his frail health and a weak heart, couldn’t do alone.

One of my favorite responsibilities employed using a two-wheel dolly for hauling moderate-sized drum loads of coal from the pile high atop the hill. After a hundred pounds, or more, of lump bituminous filled the cardboard container, I walked behind the load and shoved it to the top of the steep, concrete sidewalk stretching from the parking lot down to the river, some 100-feet lower, depending on the elevation of the water.

The very top of the ramp was set at a precariously-sheer angle which, had it not been for a pair of stout, fireman’s boot I wore for the chore, I could have never handled the load weighing nearly equal that of my skinny frame plus bulky, winter clothing. However, the thick rubber soles and heels of the boots allowed me the option of hanging onto the handle of the heavily-laden cartload of coal as I slid down the ramp on the bottoms of the boots until the load and I reached the ramp of the headboat. From there to the potbelly stove inside the boat was the hardest ordeal of the entire trip.

Lorraine, Walt’s second wife, a dainty lady who seemed totally incompatible with the rough-shod, shantyboat-bred riverman she wed, was a culinary mistress of note.

One thing I learned long ago, was finding the joy in the hardest of chores and making a game of what others generally regarded as work, but I called “fun.” Some years later, Captain “Rip” Ware, a celebrated pilot on the Steamer DELTA QUEEN, summed-up that notion like so:

“When your work is your pleasure, you will never toil a day in your life.”

In the midst of winter, Walt’s Boat Club was a terribly lonely place, or so it must have seemed to those unaccustomed to the peaceful solitude of the season.

Shantyboaters like Anna and Harlan Hubbard might have relished such isolation, as did I and the old man I accompanied on those bitter days on the Ohio River. On the street high above the harbor, the reverberations of passing cars and trucks hummed busily along unmindful of those bobbing below on the frigid, fluvial ebb and flow.

Lorraine, Walt’s second wife, a dainty lady who seemed totally incompatible with the rough-shod, shantyboat-bred riverman she wed, was a culinary mistress of note. When my family and I used to take trips aboard the Hoffmeier’s PAL, my mother, Anna Margaret, packed a hearty meal she combined with Lorrain’s fare at the communal spread served on the stern of the houseboat. It seemed that my brothers and I eagerly consumed Lorrain’s vittles instead of those of our mother who was no slouch at rustling up the grub.

The fleet comprised of an oversized shanty headboat and a thousand-feet of dock called “floats.” 

Early on, when I first started helping Walter, I asked Walter how much he was paying me for assisting at the harbor, he promptly shot back:

“Paying You… Paying You? Hell, you’re getting your supper, ain’t ya.”

Looking back, a meal of Lorraine’s plus the opportunity to be on the river in all sorts of conditions, in every phase of the weather, and in each season, was definitely, payment enough. Today, I couldn’t buy similar experiences with a boatload of money – even if I had the bucks.

If anyone ever cares to ask if I had attended my high school proms or where I hung out after classes, the answer would be simple and the same – I was at Walt’s Boat Harbor helping an old fellow with his dream. In turn, that old man taught me workaday skills I would use for the rest of my life. Most of all, though, he gave me a similar dream where I could grow up and be on the river much as he had done in his lifetime.

Although Walter died sometime in December of 1959, I occasionally slip back to those long-ago times on the Ohio River in West Covington to recall helping him around the boat harbor. An early winter chill is in the air on a river different from today before Markland Dam raised the water level some fourteen feet, where no Interstate 75 Highway Bridge looms above the harbor, and steam towboats still call on the coal fleets on the opposite shore.

It’s a grand setting there in time and space to find peaceful solitude with odd, elder folks on a shanty harborboat where coal smoke waifs above a tin chimney pipe…and the savory scent of supper still beckons a time-tripper roaming between places only those who’ve lived as long can wander.

On the street high above the harbor, the reverberations of passing cars and trucks hummed busily along unmindful of those bobbing below on the frigid, fluvial ebb and flow. 

I was at Walt’s Boat Harbor helping an old fellow with his dream.

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. 


Related Posts

8 Comments

  1. Cornelia Reade-Hale says:

    Awesome. As i sit here blocks from that site.I feel the cold as you describe it. Thank you for bringing the hard work on and love for the river alive. My dad had a friend up Eastern Ave with. cruiser we visited in the 60s and I saw that peace. Thanks for bringing those days back to life.

  2. Béla K. Berty says:

    Those proper work habits trickled down to the crew of the Sternwheeler P. A. DENNY. No wonder I was impressed with her cleanliness on my first occasion to board a river excursion vessel. Thank you, Captain Don!

  3. Donna Sanders says:

    Love your stories and you in my heart !
    hard work..makes you feel alive,healthy too!
    Can laugh out loud just remembering your pranks too!
    Manure and my Mom come to mind!

  4. kim says:

    I’m waiting for the book. Captain Sanders a part the river and his memories live on through her.

  5. Barb Anderson says:

    Once again Cap’n Don has dropped us off on the edge of the River to shiver and contemplate how River life was back in the day. Always a pleasure to read.

  6. John Busavage says:

    Nice story, hope to see more. I was the USCG Captain of the Port in Cincinnati from 1980-84, not long after we moved our office to the river next to Anderson Ferry. The best 4 years of my 30 year career. I believe Walt passed away before I was there but we loved the river and the entire area.
    John Busavage, Captain, USCG (RET)

  7. Ed Miller says:

    From Sarasota Ed, it is always good to read about “home”

  8. Cap'n Don says:

    Thanks, everyone for your mighty-fine comments – they keep me motivated.

Leave a Comment