Boyhood on the River
The America River Roots Festival and the words of Mark Twain helped me rediscover a bit of boyhood on the river
“When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient...These [other] ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.”
The Celebration Belle coming in to dock on the Tuesday before the America River Roots Festival on the Cincinnati Riverfront.
A picture I drew in 1981 of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones.
When I was 9 years-old my father took my brother and me to a fall festival in a nearby town. Amid the whirl of sights and sounds I can stir up from that event, the two that stick out the most involve wooden guns (with clothespins affixed to the top of the barrel so that you could shoot rubber band projectiles) and bullwhips. Why those you may ask? It’s because this was the September after Raiders of the Lost Ark had dominated the summer box office, and opportunistic artisans at the festival were peddling their wares to desperate little boys like me eager to reenact the derring-do escapades of our favorite cinematic archaeologist, Indiana Jones. In the end we convinced our dad to get both for us, with his admonition not to bullwhip each other or any other living creature quickly forgotten. Needless to say, I would up hurting myself more than any unwitting invisible Nazi.
The other details of that day are fuzzy to me, but I’m sure if pressed I could conjure up images of vigilant scarecrows guarding street corners, hay bales stacked with colorful displays of pumpkins and other autumn gourds, people indulging in hot apple cider and apple fritters, and rings being tossed onto empty milk bottles. In truth, I would probably be safe in assuming that all of the these things were there, yet I have no specific memory of them. I just remember the gun and the whip and the rollicking adventures that awaited. Of course my ambition to be Indiana Jones eventually faded away (and perhaps permanently exiled after the Crystal Skull, though I do have a soft spot for Dial of Destiny), but the memories shaped by those early boyhood experiences still linger with me today.
In preparing for this blog entry, I thought about a number of different directions to take when writing about the America River Roots Festival, the multi-day event which took place in October, 2025 on the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky riverfront. But in the end, I kept coming back to the famed American author Mark Twain and how the early experiences of his youth shaped the course of his life. Growing up in Hannibal, Missouri, Twain was entranced by the riverboats that would ply their trade up and down the Mississippi River. Eventually he became an cub steamboat pilot and later a full pilot, and in such writings as Life on the Mississippi and various other letters and reminiscences, he gives a thorough account of his time navigating the waters and detailing the small towns and flora and fauna along the Old Man. So, if being a “steamboatman” excited Twain throughout the entirety of his life, maybe it was worth checking out the River Roots Festival and rediscover a bit of the joys of boyhood.
(Fun fact: The pen name “Mark Twain” referred to the second marking on a measuring line to ensure a safe river depth of two fathoms, or 12 feet.)
SHORT STACKS?
The America River Roots Festival was a reboot of sorts of the beloved Tall Stacks Festivals that took place starting in 1988. That inaugural event was held during Cincinnati’s Bicentennial and drew almost a quarter of a million people. It was so wildly successful that they brought it back five more times, in 1992, 1995, 1999, 2003 and finally in 2006, though subsequent attempts to revive the event in 2009 and 2012 were cancelled due to lack of sponsorship support.
A lot of digital ink has already been spilled on how the River Roots Festival didn’t measure up to the vaunted Tall Stacks legacy, so I won’t add to those complaints here, but I do think it’s worth mentioning that some of the challenges the planners faced were beyond their control.
In 1966, Congress passed the Safety at Sea Act, which prohibits ships carrying over 50 passengers to travel overnight on American waterways unless the conveyance is made with fire-retardant materials. Of course, the vast majority of steamboats were built prior to the passage of this legislation but the few that remain satisfy the strict safety protocols because they are used for daytime travel only. Unfortunately, the iconic passenger ship many had hoped would make a return to the River Roots Festival was the Delta Queen, a crown jewel of steamboat construction when it first launched in 1927. It was put out of service thanks to the 1966 act (the Queen was built from wood) but was granted an exemption from Congress until 2008, meaning that it was not allowed to return to passenger service and had since served as a floating hotel in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before receiving another exemption in 2018 to resume overnight operation. As of 2024, the ship is still awaiting its return to the Mississippi River but lacking the necessary funding to make it water worthy again.
The Queen was a showpiece of many of the previous Tall Stacks Festivals, but its absence at the 2025 River Roots Festival highlights a major challenge events of this type continue to face: preserving the past is inordinately expensive. While the 1988 event had 14 paddle wheel boats, River Roots had only 9, which, in my opinion, is still an impressive number, but with the outsized expectations set by the previous festivals, River Roots was inevitably going to suffer in comparison. In addition, while the inaugural event lasted three days, the 2025 festival was five days long, most likely to allow for the ship owners to maximize their opportunities to book cruises and spread out the costs of bringing their boats to Cincinnati. Yet without the added allure of the musical performances and other entertainment to bring people to the riverfront after work hours, many of the boats had to cancel their evening bookings on that Wednesday and Thursday due to the lack of ticket sales, the news of which only added to the negative publicity the event had already generated. No doubt that loss of revenue (along with the debacle of the cancelations of the musical acts) will loom large in the minds of planners when considering whether it is economically feasible to host this event again in the future.
The America River Roots Festival had nine steamboats in attendance, including the Belle of Louisville (far left), the Celebration Belle (center) and the Natchez (the boat pulling out into the river next to the Celebration, directly under the bridge).
Ironically, the exigent economic concerns which may have led to the expansion of the festival to five days and nights (six evenings if you count the late Tuesday afternoon when the boats arrived) proved to be a bit fortuitous when it came to photographing the event. Rather than making compromises as to which moments and details to capture due to a compressed timeframe, I had the luxury of being able to revisit a lot of the same scenes from different angles and perspectives. I’m sure that will mean little to the planners and boat companies when evaluating whether it will be worth it again, but hopefully there will be a way for them to continue this charming event.
“THE DREAMY TWILIGHT…”
“Would I live it over again under certain conditions? Certainly I would! The main condition would be that I should emerge from boyhood as a “cub pilot” on a Mississippi boat, & that I should by & by become a pilot, & remain one. The minor conditions would be these: Summer always; the magnolias at Rifle Point always in bloom, so that the dreamy twilight should have the added charm of their perfume...”
Regardless of public perception, I had a grand time at the River Roots Festival. Not only did it provide a wonderful opportunity to exercise some much needed photographic muscles, it also gave me the chance to sample some of the delights Twain writes about his time on the river. Of course the boats themselves were the centerpieces, with the Natchez from New Orleans and the famed Belle of Louisville among the most popular. Twain’s words in Life on the Mississippi help to illustrate how the steamboats of his day enchanted all who saw them, a sentiment that I think still holds today:
“Presently a film of dark smoke appears…and the scene changes!…and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. Drays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters…Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time.”
I also think what made the festival all the more appealing was the chance to focus on many of the details that contributed to the experience. Though Twain preferred summer as stated in his letter to friend David Watt Bowser, fall was an ideal time weather-wise, and thanks to the short distance between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky (only about .2 miles at normal river stage), the multiple bridges and overlooks on the Ohio River afforded many vantage points from which to capture the excitement. In addition, the “dreamy twilight” of the early sunsets and tree-lined views of Riverside Drive in Covington (the elms and cherry blossom trees substituting for magnolias here) helped add visual interest, especially after a rainstorm had passed through that late Tuesday afternoon before the official beginning of the festival.
Some of the details and perspectives of the River Roots Festival
“I would rule out the middle watch in the night, except on moonlight nights, because it makes one feel so dreary & low-spirited & forlorn to rouse out of a pleasant sleep at dead midnight & go & perch away up there in the pilot house in the midst of the wide darkness, with apparently nobody alive in the deserted world but him; but the middle watch in so summer moonlit nights is a gracious time, especially if the boat steers like a duck, & friends have staid up to keep one company, & sing, & smoke, & spin yarns, and blow the whistle when other boats are met...”
The moon made a “gracious” appearance several nights of the festival. This was taken from the Roebling Suspension Bridge as the Belle of Louisville passed by. You could hear the revelers “sing … and spin yarns,” though probably no smoking!
A year before he passed, Twain was invited to come aboard the battleship Mississippi when it was docked in Natchez, MS. Twain politely declined due to his deteriorating health, but he did send his regrets because he knew that the pilot of the ship was a former Mississippi riverboat man.
“I know quite well what I am losing,” wrote the irascible Missourian in a letter to the mayor of Natchez. “Among other things, I am losing the chance of seeing -- for a blessed once in my life -- a Mississippi pilot in supreme and unchallengeable command of an American battleship. I am losing the chance of hearing the executive officer say: 'Stand by, there, with the starboard lead,' and of hearing an affronted voice from the pilot retort: 'I beg your pardon sir, but I'll call for the leads when I want them.’”
I imagine part of Twain’s lament involved the fact that he could no longer engage in the pursuits of his youth and seeing this marvel of modern technology would have only reminded him of his current physical limitations. Even thirty years prior to this, Twain was already waxing nostalgic at the memories of his boyhood on the river. “I should feel a pleasurable emotion trickling down my spine & know I had not lived in vain,” he wrote to David Watt Bowser, yet he knew that if he could have suspended the ravages of time, he would have done it all again, provided he could have recreated the optimal conditions for his time-travel fantasy. “Yes, under such conditions I would most gladly ‘be a boy’ & live this long stretch of time all over again.”
Trading cards, comic book movie adaptations, even the coveted issues #1 and #2 of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. Not pictured: action figures, the 12-inch Indiana Jones doll, even the read-along records. Yes, you could say I was obsessed!
I don’t wish to be Indiana Jones anymore; fortunately I can rewatch the films (yes, even Crystal Skull) when I feel the urge to be young again. But I do hope that the “tall stacks” will continue to grace the Ohio River and the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Riverfront, because once in a while it’s good to revisit the passions of childhood. Even if they were someone else’s.
A panorama taken the Tuesday prior to the River Roots Festival. I jokingly call this “The History of the Ohio River,” because almost every kind of river conveyance is here! (Except for maybe keelboats, canoes and dugouts, but once in a while I still see a kayaker or two!)
Thanks to the following websites for the Mark Twain quotes: