While I need more space for displaying my artifacts, I
don't think the Goldenrod would fit in our back
yard...when she was in St. Louis, she was full of life
with the melodramas on the first deck and the St. Louis
Ragtimers performing up on the second deck. A longtime
Ragtimer, tuba player Don Franz, often subbed in the DQ
band in the late 70s, early 80s. In fact, he was
involved in one of Betty Blake's few PR blunders: Back
in 76, I was on a 10 day DQ NO-St.L cruise, when the MQ
was coming out on her maiden voyage(the 3rd time). We
started off with Vic Tooker's whole regular band on the
DQ. One by one, they got called off to join the MQ's
cruise. By Memphis, we had only Fred Dodd, who was in
his first year as banjo player on the DQ, and Don Franz
left. The passengers' uproar forced them to put on a
substitute band for the rest of the trip. Better that
we had started with the relief group than to know what
we were missing. And poor Fred and Don!
.........
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