Ice on the river

There has been a coat of snow on the river, making it white. The snow, of course, is resting on a thin layer of ice that has formed during the past couple weeks. It's been pretty cold.

But nothing like I remember from my days with Ohio Barge Line and Midwest Towing. I guess the coldest place I've ever been is up on the Illinois River on the Midwest boats. But when it comes to ice, I recall going down the Ohio on one of the OBL boats - Steel Something, I don't recall which - and pushing through thick ice.

One time we were down around Kenova, Ky, where there is a "boat store." This is a place where towboats can get fuel and water, gorceries and other things needed. We were southbound for New Orleans and the store boat couldn't come out to us because the ice was too thick. So our captain told us to simply disconnect the towboat from our tow of barges and he ran the boat over to the shore to pick up our supplies and to fuel. He left the barges right out in the river! The ice was so thick they only moved a few yards while we left them.

On the towboats the ice made a lot of noise rubbing along the sides and bottom of the boat as we pushed through. It is always pretty noisey on a towboat, with the huge engines running. But the ice was different and made it hard to sleep. Also, while I'm on the subject of ice on the river: it sure was hard putting barges together when there was ice in between them. We had to take long poles and push out the individual chuncks of ice so that we could wire the barges into a tow. All this was done in pretty cold conditions.

Can't say as I miss that.

If the River Catches on Fire

I'll be ready if the river catches on fire. Found this fire extinguisher among the litter above the Morgantown Lock and Dam last Saturday.

You may think I'm just being funny, but some of you may remember hearing stories of how bad pollution was on our nation's rivers. I always heard this story about the Illinois River, which, by the way, is a place I'll always regard as one of the coldest on earth. When I worked on tow boats up there in the winter I was afraid of freezing to the steel decks, waiting for our boat's turn through one of the locks.

I heard that there was so much oil and other petroleum discharges on that river that the deckhands were warned not to throw a match overboard. UPDATE: My friend Mike Breiding, who is now a member of MORFS (see below) just sent me this information about the Cuyahoga River Fire of 1969. See what I mean?

Well, that's an old river tale now, and I don't think I'll need that extinguisher. Since the Clean Water Act of 1972, we can celebrate the recovery of our rivers. The Mon, for example is a great place to swim! After our litter cleanup, I like to just jump in and splash.

It's not the same as a swimming pool, or the ocean. Hey, anyone want to join my group: Monongahela Organization for River Fun and Swimming, or MORFS? Let me know. Leave a
comment.

I'll be swimming in the Mon River up until it's too cold.

Hey, my wife, Maureen, makes a great deckhand. I was watching her putting a line around the floating pin in the lock, and thought, "How many times have you done that, and did you ever think Maureen would?'

I must explain: I worked on towboats for 11 years when I was young. Midwest Towing, Valley Barge Line, Ohio Barge Line. I was promoted to "watchman" which is the same thing as second mate. My friend Larry Durdines was a first mate. He lives at Clarksville, Pa. and has the blog tenmilecreekcountry.blogspot.com.