| Summary: | (7:23) Mr. Steen tells about some of the issues he faced working on a riverboat between his college semesters.Florence- Lauderdale Public Library Digital Archive
Interview with Robert Steen
April 14, 2008
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Ken Johnson
Clip 5
Robert Steen: I worked on there during the summers, I worked five summers and I said that normally we worked on twenty days and off ten days. That was in the earlier years and after that they went to you worked on twenty and off twenty days and working on twenty and off twenty, you’re really working half time and when I stayed eighty- nine straight days that was three months and I got six months pay for that, so I was making $ 1,500 during the summer. Now, $ 1,500 back in those years was, was a lot of, lot of money. The captain of the boat was a James Stutts and he, he was from Sheffield and I don’t know how many children he had but I do know of one, which is Will Stutts. And Will Stutts is an actor and ironically he does a lot of one man shows and plays and one that he does is Mark Twain and I think it’s ironic that he does that and his daddy is a riverboat captain. But, Captain Stutts really looked out for me, took care of me and I, ah, I worked, gave him a days, days work for a day, day’s pay, but he in turn took care of the college boy wanting to go to school and trying hard to make money to go. But after the first summer that I was on the riverboat, the company was not going to let me work with them the next year because I was still only eighteen at that time and the insurance company was not going to insure me and so he told me, “ Don’t worry about it, I’ll get you back,” you know, “ on my boat or I’ll get you on another boat.” And, so, sure enough he got me back on the same boat, but my parents had to sign a release that, that the company would not be liable if, if something happened to me. Now, that can tell you a little about, about how, how dangerous it probably was, but that didn’t mean that a lot of people were getting killed, it just you had, you had to watch it. But, Captain Stutts would arrange my schedule however I wanted to arrange it and I could stay on there however long I wanted to. Two summers I stayed on there eighty- nine days; that’s three months. And one of the summers I also went on the riverboat, and I, that was between my junior and senior year, I went on the riverboat, worked up until the time that I had to go to Fort Benning, Georgia for six weeks of basic training through the ROTC program. After I finished that training, I got back on the riverboat and worked the rest of the summer, so I guess for all practical purposes I worked that entire summer. But, ah, it’s whatever schedule I wanted and there’s always people who wanted off.
Ken Johnson: Right.
RS: But, another couple of occasions that I recall where he let me and accommodated me in giving me work; I called one Christmas and I asked the company, I said, “ Do you have anything that I can do while I’m out of college during the Christmas holidays?” I’d been working in shoe stores up on Court Street and we’d go to work at nine o’clock and work until nine o’clock at night and didn’t have time to do anything so I, my entire time was occupied, so they said, “ Sure. You can work on one of the riverboats during the Christmas holidays; just meet this boat down here at that certain time.” I was living in the dormitories, so I, I threw whatever clothes I had in a suitcase and went down to the lock, caught the riverboat and the coldest day I think I’ve ever spent in my life, even though I spent time in Alaska at forty- four below zero was in Cairo, Illinois at the mouth of the Ohio River on the Mississippi River and it appeared that that wind was blowing in three different directions, up the Mississippi, down it and down the Ohio River, cold out there, putting a tow together on Christmas Day. Now, with all this movement that we were doing, I was suppose to get back to the Florence area about the time that school was to start back, but they had a change in the orders and we were to drop our tow off at Paducah, Kentucky and we were to go on up the, ah, the Ohio River. Well, I didn’t know what I was gonna do, but the company called my parents and told them the dilemma and so my parents picked me up at Evansville, Indiana, brought me back and got me back in school in time for classes to start. Another occasion I worked on Thanksgiving; I asked them did they have anything for me to do and they said, “ Catch a boat down at the, the Lock 1, help them through Wilson Dam, help them through Wheeler Dam and then when you finish that get off, off and wait until another boat comes down, get back on that boat and then come back down the river helping them work through the locks.”
KJ: That sounds real flexible there for you. Was that a special arrangement they had for you and your student status or was any well- known worker treated about the same way?
RS: I don’t know of any other college student that I was associated with, or the company had any other student working. But, they were flexible in letting people work that were normal workers, but I don’t know too many of them that really wanted to stay beyond, beyond a normal twenty day—
KJ: Twenty- day per month period.
RS: — I mean, yeah, you know, this was on and on and on with them. But, ah, they really helped me out.
KJ: That sounds great.
RS: Yeah. The working on the river and going up through the locks and back in those years the, the locks were all 300 feet by 60 feet wide and that continued on, most cases a single or the small barges, you could put two of those barges in a lock, but you could only put one of the jumbo barges, and so it was time consuming at every one of these locks, but more so at the Wilson lock because you had both Lock 1 that you had to come through with about a ten or twelve foot lift and then you had the double lift part at Wilson, it was double the time of the other locks. So every one of the locks you came to, you were there for a long time and it appeared to me that we came through Wilson lock every Saturday night and it was a lonely world pulling into that bottom level of that lock and you’d know that you’ve got an hour’s trip from there up to the top, sitting there just listening to water fill up that, that lock and you are also wondering what’s all your friends doing out there in Florence on a Saturday night. But, then you were not up that long until then you had to go through Wheeler lock, about twelve, thirteen miles on up the river, so you’re up there in about three hours. And on occasions I would get off of the boat, go around, maybe go on a date or go see my girlfriend and then catch the boat back at Wheeler in order— in time to help them.
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