Tramp Steamer

When I was little I wondered what the great big world was like outside of my neighborhood.  I began reading newspapers.  I was about four years old at the time.  I read the funnies first, of course...but there was an article about how all the chinese walking four abreast would never end...there were so many of them.  Another thing I learned from newspapers was about how most people never traveled more than 50 miles away from where they were born.  I was already over 1100 miles away from where I was born in Anaconda, Montana to live with my grandmother in St Paul, Minnesota.  That most people never traveled in their lives made a big impression on my young mind.  I was already a traveler...and I was determined to travel the world throughout my life.

I wasn't yet old enough to travel the paddlewheel steamers that would pass St Paul on the Mississippi River.  Fortunately, I lived close to a library.  My love of reading and my love of the idea of travel were a natural match.  I found Howard Pease, who wrote stories about tramp steamers...which were coal fired paddlewheels that would travel the Mississippi with no itinerary...picking up a load here and taking it there, where they would find another load to take somewhere else.

When I was maybe six years old I was able to travel by streetcar unaccompanied by my grandmother or aunt, or any adult for that matter.  I got street car tokens and fifty cents from my grandmother, caught the street car to the boarding dock and paid my fare for the "President", a sidewheel steamboat that was ready to depart right now.  I was treated as an adult and had a lot of choices of seating.  There was a calliope playing all the way to Hastings, Minnesota...my destination.  The music filled me with joy.  The trip took us through one lock on the river, which dropped the waters level...was very exciting...feeling the boat going lower and lower and lower.

 I bought a coca cola from the soda fountain on board and drank my refreshment slowly while watching the water on the sides of the boat.  When I finished my drink I noticed what was at the bottom of the glass...a cockroach.  I went right back to the fountain and, showing the soda jerk the glass and roach, demanded a coke without any insects, please...and got one, for free of course.  

On the return voyage to St Paul I wondered how many 6 year olds had the opportunity of traveling the Mississippi on a tramp steamer...alone.  Not many, I bet.