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Subject: American Journal; Plying the Dark and Romantic Currents of Mark Twain's
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 11:48:46 EST
Message-ID: <15.1992Nov14.114846@AmeriCast.com>

American Journal; Plying the Dark and Romantic Currents of Mark
Twain's River<By Michael Abramowitz=Washington Post Staff
Writer=ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI=

Mark Twain once wrote about how the "romance and the beauty" of
the Mississippi vanished when he became a steamboat pilot and
learned the river's dangerous snags and reefs. But Mike Keesee, a
modern-day descendant of those old steamboat captains, has been
out here for more than 20 years and still has not tired of her
dark currents.

"The first time I came out here, it was just a job," Keesee said
as he maneuvered his towboat, the Conti-Afton, around a sharp
bend in the river. "But once you get out here, it gets in your
blood, and it's hard to get away from. There's a magnetic thing
that draws you back."

On this beautiful, sun-kissed fall day, it is easy to understand
why.  Leaves on trees overhanging the banks form a brilliant
kaleidoscope of orange, red and green hues as the tiny Wisconsin
town of Fountain City slips peaceably under the bluffs to the
port side. A freight train rumbles through town as the towboat
approaches.

The Conti-Afton, part of a fleet of towboats and barges operated
by Continental Grain Co., is headed to St. Louis, pushing a "tow"
of 14 barges, including eight empties and six carrying 11,000
tons of grain intended for export abroad. Overall, more than half
the grain exported from the United States leaves on these covered
barges, turning the Mississippi at harvest time into an inland-
water highway crowded with dozens of slow-moving steel hulks.

Like truck drivers who rumble along the same interstate year
after year, mariners such as Keesee take great pride in knowing
every sandbar, every snag, every marker on the Mississippi. A
two-day trip on the Conti-Afton from St. Paul, Minn., to Dubuque,
Iowa, offers a rare perspective on Twain's river and the curious
world of riverboat men who live their lives in hermetically
sealed isolation between its shores.

Indeed, a taste for solitude seems almost a prerequisite to keep-
ing one's sanity for the 30 consecutive days that rivermen are
supposed to stay aboard before their 15 days off. The 11-man crew
of the Conti-Afton consists of Keesee, a pilot, two engineers,
six deckhands and a cook. Theirs is an unsparing routine governed
by the relentless changing of the shift every six hours, by food
- enough beef, potatoes and other cholesterol-rich food to give
most of them ample paunches - and by little rest.

"I've never gotten used to sleeping on board," said Mark Perkins,
32, a deckhand. "I usually sleep about three good hours. You get
used to hearing the engines slow down and stop, and then you're
awake. It's even harder to sleep when you first go home."

For Keesee and Jack Libbey, the pilot with whom he alternates
steering duty, life consists of long hours of isolation in the
"wheelhouse," a small cabin that is far above the water and is
equipped with two throttles, radar and other sophisticated modern
equipment to guide the tow.

Keesee, 46, of Cape Girardeau, Mo., said the solitude is one of
the main attractions of the job. "Up here, I'm alone," he said.
"I have time to think. I never did like working in a factory
where you are around a lot of people all the time."

Like many captains, Keesee started as a deckhand, a grueling job
that involves everything from sweeping and swabbing to assembling
and disassembling giant strings of barges so they can make it
through locks on the river. For Keesee, the job was a vehicle to
escape life on a General Electric Co. assembly line in St. Louis,
and he made the most of it, learning how to steer from a friendly
captain in his free time. Keesee has been piloting towboats since
1974.

Piloting is more difficult than it may first appear, as an out-
sider quickly realizes when the Conti-Afton approaches one of the
locks with which the Army Corps of Engineers keeps the channel
navigable. The lock chamber is 110 feet wide. With three barges
wired together side by side and 105 feet wide, the captain faces
a tight squeeze bringing his tow through safely, especially when
the current is fast and maneuverability limited.

Mishaps are not common, but they do happen on the Mississippi.
Most pilots or captains understandably do not like discussing
them, but as Keesee noted, "Anybody who's been a pilot for any
length of time is going to have an accident." His first occurred
years ago when the front of his tow struck the concrete bulkhead
that juts out from a lock and is known as the bull nose.

"The first couple of years, you're pretty nervous," he said. "It
usually takes about four or five years until you get real com-
fortable up here."

One thing that helps is the Conti-Afton's regular path between
St. Paul and St. Louis, a much more interesting part of the river
than the considerably wider and less picturesque lower Mississip-
pi.  Until the water freezes late this month, making most of the
upper river impassable, the crew sees a steady panoply of wild
game, rolling bluffs and delightful little towns that range from
from La Crosse, Wis., to Winona, Minn., which were first settled
in the 19th-century westward migration.  Pilot Libbey, second in
command, is the Conti-Afton's resident expert on Mississippi lore
and minutiae. He offered a stream of color commentary as the tow
passes notable and a few mundane river landmarks. Near Red Wing,
Minn., he pointed out a giant bluff, known as Barn Bluff, that
Henry David Thoreau once visited and chronicled. On the hillside,
the outlines of an old Indian trail are visible.

Farther south, near Winona, Libbey told a story from the steam-
boat era, perhaps apocryphal, about how ships never stopped in
the town because they could bypass it through a channel on the
far side of the river.  According to the legend, Winona's city
fathers purposely sank a boat full of stone intended for a new
courthouse in mid-river, essentially forcing steamboats to pass
much closer to shore and even stop occasionally.

The rationale was simple. Business generated by steamboats was
"what made a lot of these towns," Libbey said with a grin.

"It's hard to believe this is all America's backyard," he contin-
ued, feet propped on the dash as he motioned toward the river-
bank. "Knowing that history, it kind of puts a different twist on
things as you go up and down the river."< 11:07 11-14C9999-----

Copyright 1992, The Washington Post.  This story is from the
Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar-
chived or redistributed.

For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor-
poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)