This is the first time that my sister Squirt Zapp and me have ever been on a boat so big and the first time that we have seen the Mississippi River. My sister said the river was really fat and she meant that it was big.
I am glad that we picked such a warm night to go out on the boat. It was really big and we ran all over it.
My sister, Squirt kept looking for something and finally she said she was looking for Tom Sawyer. She didn't believe me when I said he was on a different boat. I know because Huck Finn told me.
Our whole family had such a good time that I wanted to move in on the boat, but Mother and Father said that we couldn't.
Dad started to sing this song in a really deep voice.
He was singing to to the river--only he wasn't being very polite. He sang out, "Old Man River", and I would swear that the river heard us because the boat rocked just a little bit right then!
They showed us where they used to gamble on the boat a real long time ago, even before my sister and I were born They said that you always had to mark how deep the water is because you could hit a bump and then make a hole in the boat like what happened on the Titanic!
They would measure it and then they call out for Mark Twain. He is really old though and I don't think he could hear them.
There were many big beautiful birds flying by and Father said they are swans. I had never seen one before.
The people are real nice and they talk slower than me
and my sister and they have the time to hear you talk. Mother says they are genteel. I think she forgot how to say "gentle". Father called it "Southern hospitality" although I did not see one hospital.
We got to eat on the boat and ate some green stuff called okra that looked like spinach on vacation. We had sweet potato pie that looked like pumpkin pie and we had pound cake that felt like a pound in my stomach after I ate it
I met some other kids on the boat but most of them fell asleep early so they missed out on everything!
I finally got brave and went up to the riverboat
captain. That is what he is called even though he
does not play football.
He said driving a boat is his occupation and I said
he was real lucky to have such a job and he said he
knew it.
When I grow up I may have to move with my sister to
the Mississippi Delta. Sometimes I still dream that
I am floating down the river and I can hear the
katydids and the crows up above, and I can smell the
river as I am swaying back and forth. And then I
wake up at home in my bed.
I think Heaven is like the Mississippi.....