River World Field Trip, Alton, IL to Lake Charles, LA and back on a working towboat, 1956

There are three definite layers, or zones, along these shores. They are all of cottonwoods and willows, thickly set. The first zone is low, the next medium height, the farthest back zone much taller, but they all make three very definite areas, one older than the other.  Hills on the left, and the site of Fort Adams. Haws were in bloom at mile 318. The mouth of the Buffalo River. Loess hills covered with green trees. Three black vultures, a snowy egret, and 8 American egrets on a sandbar.

And so ninety miles below Natchez, at 3:45 we turned into the boiling rapids of Old River, where the Mississippi is trying to gouge its way and descend to the Gulf via that same Atchafalaya, and which the Engineers are desperately trying to discourage. There were the usual willows on the swampy west shore, and sheer banks on the right, where there was a forest of magnolia, box elder, red ash, hackberry, elm, honey locust, sycamore, and willow, with some Spanish moss.  The left banks are gnawed and churned into by eddies which are still working.  Shanties with chinaberry trees were on the left also, and live oaks and moss. The chinaberries evidently were in full bloom.

Past the mouth of Red River, with actually pours red water and red mud into the Old River, which at this point becomes the Atchafalaya itself.  We dallied, with our speed cut, while the deck crew respotted the barges so that they were strung out in a line more than 800 feet long. Meanwhile meadowlarks sang on the pastured left bank, and tree swallows zipped about. And as we went on, ahead there lay the menacing Simmesport Bridge, worst on the river. We blew long and hard for the bridge to open, but since the bridge operator lives some distance from the bridge, and there is so little traffic that he stays home, it was a while before the span began to swing to let us through. Orders came for all of us to have our life jackets handy. The Todds with theirs on came up to the pilothouse, because if the boat went down this would be the last place to submerge. Five boats have been wrecked on this bridge and several lives lost, so the precautions were not silly. I wished I had a waterproof jacket for my manuscript….  And so while we waited for that slow bridge operator to get going, we were caught in an eddy which pulled us over into the shore, so that we churned up black mud and with some difficulty got ourselves out. And then a wind got up, and contrived to shove us again. We finally got out into the current and aimed our high-riding barges straight toward the bridge opening, and, while everyone held his collective breaths, Captain Griffin shoved his tow neatly through the opening, turning before he got through, to make the curve beyond, and didn’t even scrape. The Todds in relief went back to fixing supper, and everyone breathed easily again. They felt the worst was over.

Dinner — spareribs, French-fries, cauliflower, slaw with marsh-mallows and pineapple, hot rolls, limas, buttermilk, angel food cake, and ice cream.