Soory, can't help you Ebbie: SOunds like Tom traded in his Mississippi raft for a corporate ladder.

I have a very fascinating book called Mississippi Solo, written by a young black man who decided that he wanted to travel the Mississippi from it's headwaters in northern Minnesota, down to the Gulf, traveling in a canoe. He was completely inexperienced, having only been in a canoe once or twice, and he had to borrow a canoe. There was also the added complication of being a black man traveling in small towns where, as he says, "white folks don't like us much." The author's name is Eddy L. Harris, and I'd be happy to give my copy to anyone who would like to read it..

First come, first served.

I also wrote a song called The Last Mississippi River Steamboat about an actual event that took place on the 4th of July in 1844. Steamboats used to come up the Rock River from Rock Island on the Mississippi. On the 4th of July of that year, a stemaboat came through my home town of Janesville, and everyone was very excited. The steamboat was heading up to Jefferson, Wisconsin for a grand picnic and fireworks. When they got up to Fort Atkinson, they discovered that someone had built a bridge across the river since their last trip. In those days, boats had the right of way over bridges (hard to imagine) so they raised such Hell on the boat that someone went and found the owner of the bridge (yes, someone owned it) and they made him take the lowest span off so that they could get underneath the bridge. Hell hath no fury likes folks going up to Jeffesron for a picnic on the 4th of July. Besides, there were more people on the stamboat than the total population of Fort Atkinson, so they had the town outnumbered. And they were steaming mad!

I thought it was such a delightful story that I wrote the song. The next year, they built a damn across the river in Janseville, and dams had the right of way over steamboats....

Jerry