[Keith Norrington]

Just back from a sojourn in the South. Saw a BIG river at Vicksburg, Natchez and St. Francisville, where the road to the ferry was closed and under water at Bayou Sara. The AMERICAN QUEEN visited Natchez last week and I took some pictures of her stage almost in the front door of the Under-the-Hill Saloon! A portion of Silver Street was still submerged, although the river was receding, albeit very slowly.

At Deer Park, Louisiana (16 miles downriver from Natchez) the old Str. MAMIE S. BARRETT is again afloat after being beached out in the cutoff since the mid 1990's. Maria Greer, manager of the Deer Park Campgrounds, kindly provided the attached photos. The MAMIE began life at the Howard Shipyards here in 1921 and was for a time named PENNIMAN during her long career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Retired in the late 1940's, she became a boat club renamed PIASA at West Alton, Missouri, before being sold in the early 1980's and serving for a time as a restaurant at Vicksburg. The old boat was offered some years ago to the Howard Museum, but we have no means to move or maintain it so had to politely decline. IF the old boat is ever scrapped we would, however, like to have the pilothouse to restore for the museum grounds.

Speaking of the Howard Steamboat Museum, our 16th annual spring festival is this weekend (May 17-18) with the theme being "Celebrating 50 Golden Years". Full information is available on the museum website at www.steamboatmuseum.org, which now includes a column by yours truly entitled "Curator's Corner". And please be sure to mark your calendars for June 28th when my "River Ramblings" progam series will feature Judy Patsch presenting "Rise and Shine for the Streckfus Line" at 3:00 PM. Y'all come!