220406 Sentinel, Adventures with Dad.

We used to go to a sports show at a big auditorium downtown. They were in late January and the event was for displaying the new fishing, hunting, boating and camper shells for trucks.
In 1959 dad got the fever to buy a boat. We had just acquired the clubhouse earlier that year.

This picture shows mom and my youngest sister by our dock with part of the boat showing at the bottom of the picture. The boat was not really big enough to get out on the Mississippi river nearby. When the huge barges were on the river they created a 4-5 foot high wake behind them, more than enough to capsize that small boat. I found that out one day when my buddy Larry and I went up the river to Portage de Souix on the Mississippi. We met a barge going the opposite direction and darn-near capsized out in the middle of the river. We did get soaked in river water as we cut through the barge's wake. That was the one and only time we did that.

Dad was never one for buying new products, always used cars, fishing boats and such. He wanted a boat that could be used for fishing or cruising around the lake and river. The one he bought looked nice, but small, just a 14 foot long boat with a 25 horse outboard motor and a trailer to transport the boat. He also bought a captain’s cap. The only thing he neglected was buying a paddle.
He and I went up to the Mississippi river about a half-mile or more above the Alton dam. There was a safe marina just a quarter mile below the clubhouse, but that would cost him a dollar or two to launch the boat there and if he went to a state launching site on the river it was free. He backed the trailer into the water until the boat floated off the trailer while I held onto the bow rope. He parked the car and we shoved off into the river. When we drifted out about 20 feet from shore he started pulling the rope on the motor to start it up. We were already in the river and into the current. He must have yanked on the rope a hundred times or more with no success.
This is a later picture of the Alton Dam.

By that time dad quit trying to start that motor, we were out a hundred yards or more and moving fast toward the dam. Just above the dam there was a line of buoys that were there to keep boats away from the dam, because getting too close there was a downward current that could suck a boat under the water and rush it through the turbines at the dam. That was where the electric generators created power for the area. We had drifted within sight of the buoys when dad said put your hand into the water and start paddling for the rocky shore to the right side of the dam. We worked furiously trying to avoid sure death if we got into the marked off area. We made it out of the strong current and up to the shore. Dad and I pulled the boat by the bow line along the shoreline all the way back to where the car was parked and loaded it onto the trailer and then drove home.
The next week he took the boat and motor into a repair shop and finally bought a paddle for it. The next weekend dad paid for using the marina close to the clubhouse to launch it. From there we cruised up to the dock at the clubhouse. The previous weekend we were littorily up the creek without a paddle.