USA
Chapter 13

Copyright© 2016 by Old Man with a Pen

On board the Vellamo; Palmer Johnson launching ramp; Friday, May 30, 1930.

"Do we really want to back through the St. Lawrence?" Wendy asked.

"What are our choices?" I asked the foreman at Palmer Johnson.

"The Mississippi or the St. Lawrence," he said.

"The Mississippi sounds like fun," Wendy said.

"You would be best served pulling the masts until St Louis," he said. "The lowest bridge has 100 feet of clearance between the bridge and the water at low water. Your tallest mast is 87 feet. At that particular bridge there has been high water 17 feet above normal. The spring floods are over but there is always the chance of torrential rain."

"What odds?"

"If you're there before the fifteenth of June you'll possibly strike."

"What about Chicago bridges?"

"You're limited by time of day and ship traffic," he said. "Pleasure boats pay a dollar a foot at the Lake Michigan lock. They will not raise a bridge for a single pleasure craft. The fee pays all the way to Lockport where you join the Des Plaines River.

"The Des Plaines flows into the Illinois which connects with the Mississippi just before St. Louis. There are railroad bridges that have attendants during daylight hours and other rail bridges are attended 24 hours except Sunday."

"What do you think, Wendy?"

She patted her belly, "The idea of medical help all the way to the Gulf? I'm up for it," she decided.

He said, "You'll spend most of the time until St. Lewis motoring ... after that the Mississippi is mostly a mile wide and people sail on it all the time. I gotta get back to work. Good luck!"

Another adventure begins.

Barges, paddlewheel steamer push boats, lighted up expresses, fishing boats, runaway houseboats, speedboats, rumrunners coming up from the hideout stills in farmhouses, police boats, River Guard boats, houses on old barges, old men of all races and colors sitting on old steamboat wharfs fishing and laughing; telling stories and drinking shine. Skinny dipping teenagers, timber rafts, rowboats, cross-river ferries; they were all in our view and in our way, singly or in bunches.

"What flag is that?"

"Finland."

"Where is that?"

"Europe."

"Furiner."

"Kyllä, tämä on hyvä, ei?"

"What?"

"Yes, this is good, no?"


"Any contraband?" asked the police boat.

"All personal property, officer."

"We're boarding you," said the blue uniformed man.

"Come ahead," Wendy said.

A check of the paperwork and the usual rummaging around.

"They're clear, Jim."

"Shove us off,"

Eventually, the River Guard, a Federal entity, stopped us. They were polite, thorough, and relentless. When they were done fingering, I asked, "Is there a sticker or some paperwork you can give me that will keep this from happening again?"

"Searched a lot?"

"Every day and sometimes several times a day," Wendy replied. "I swear this baby is going to be three before we get to New Orleans." She rubbed her growing belly.

"Yes, yes there is. Follow us."

They had a regular guard station down the river about five miles. We pulled up to the breakwater and an enlisted man dived in the water and under the hull. He'd go under, surface on the other side and kept it up until he'd touched every single inch of the hull.

"They're good under here, Chief," he hollered.

He dried off and went in the guard house. Dressed, he measured every bulkhead and compartment. He rode the mast hoist on both masts. He counted the lifejackets and checked dates, wrote down the serial numbers from the MP-28, II Schmeisser Sub Machine guns, checked the black boxes and noted that they were fakes. In other words ... he performed the kind of inspection that a crew would searching for drugs.

 
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