Riding the Mississippi in a riverboat has been one of my fondest dreams since I was a small child. I don’t think there’s any other adventure on earth I’d rather try more than taking a boat the length of the Mississippi River.
I remember watching an old black and white cartoon when I was very young that had a tune about the Mississippi and in the process taught us how to spell it.
M-I-SS-i-SS-I-PP-I
I can actually still hear the tune, it was so catchy. I learned how to spell Mississippi before I learned how to spell ‘cat’ with that cartoon. (This was the same set of cartoons that used to have ‘follow the bouncing ball’ for the songs — remember?)
And then there’s Mark Twain’s tales of the Mississippi River. From his book “Life on the Mississippi, Twain talked about being a riverboat pilot:
If I have seemed to love my subject, it is no surprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I have followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is plain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely independent human being that lived in the earth.
I sometimes think my inability to settle in one spot can be attributed, in some small part, to Mark Twain and the Mississippi River.