Down the Mississippi #8

 I didn’t read much to prepare for this trip, just a lot of state maps and Mark Twain’s “Life on the Mississippi.” That was all I needed.

“Life on the Mississippi” is a glorious read. If it doesn’t make you yearn for time on the river, there’s something bad wrong with you.

Young Sam Clemens convinced one of the finest pilots on the river, Mr. Horace Bixby, to take him on as a cub. The account, which runs from about Chapter 5 to about Chapter 20, is time very, very well spent. Indulge yourself!

In the 1850s, the river had no lights, no navigation aids, no Corps of Engineers to keep the channel dredged, and nothing to clear the river of debris.  “Knowing” the river wasn’t nearly good enough.  Pilots had to be able to “read” the river since it changed constantly … in daylight and through the darkest of nights.

Not only did Clemens learn the river, he piloted riverboats until the Civil War, when the railroads prompted the demise of riverboats as the primary mode of transportation … and he apparently did so without a single mishap.

His superior intellect obviously helped a lot.  I also attribute much of his success to the remarkable knowledge and teaching style of Mr. Bixby.

In addition to teaching Sam Clemens, Mr. Bixby, also became an ardent opponent of slavery who transported union troops and armaments along the river, and he was instrumental in creating one of the nation’s first labor unions, an “organization” of riverboat pilots.

In planning this trip, we re-named our trusty car, a 2014 Ford Escape compact SUV that has now covered 70,000 miles with nary a hiccup. For the first few years of his life, he was “Barney,” so named because he was just a simple old Ford. He has proved his mettle time and again, and earned a new and powerful name for this journey. We now proudly ride along the river in “Mr. Bixby.”

The human Mr. Bixby is now buried in St. Louis’ famed Bellefontaine (pronounced Belle Fountain) Cemetery just north of downtown only one block from the river. He is planted a few feet from Augustus Busch.  So much about St. Louis is interesting and worth seeing, but nothing drew me to it more than seeing Mr. Bixby’s grave.  It was everything I had hoped for.

© 2017 Kenneth Mirvis