{"id":4823,"date":"2014-06-15T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=4823"},"modified":"2014-06-15T07:00:17","modified_gmt":"2014-06-15T06:00:17","slug":"the-mighty-mississippi-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=4823","title":{"rendered":"The Mighty Mississippi"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>
The sun sets over the river at Natchez – where the paddle steamers used to dock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Continuing my blogs about my US road trip \u2013 I thought I should talk about the cause of the whole venture \u2013 the Mississippi River.<\/p>\n

At school we were taught that the Mississippi is one of the largest rivers in the world (4th longest I believe). We learned about its role in opening America \u2013 in trade and transport and about the plantations worked by slaves along its banks.<\/p>\n

But they were just facts and figures.<\/p>\n

I fell in love with Ol\u2019 Man River through music and books\u2026 and having finally met my love after all these years \u2013 I was not disappointed\u2026<\/p>\n

My love affair with the Mississippi has to start with the 1936 version of Showboat – and the amazing voice of the incomparable Paul Robeson. (And no \u2013 I am not that old. My parents loved the old film and introduced me to it.)<\/p>\n

\"Looking<\/a>
Looking at it now – the river looks so fake – but the movie set my imagination alight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Take a listen to this\u2026<\/p>\n

Paul Robeson sings Ol’ Man River.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to send shivers up my spine.<\/p>\n

I was never introduced to Mark Twain at school \u2013 so my first literary encounter with the riverboats was through Disney comics \u2013 and Uncle Scrooge McDuck\u2019s adventures on the river.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A young Scrooge raced paddle steamers on the mighty Mississippi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After that came George R R Martin (yes \u2013 the guy who wrote Game of Thrones). He wrote a book called Fevre Dream about vampires on a Mississippi Riverboat \u2013 and that led to a whole southern vampires thing\u2026 Anne Rice, True Blood and so forth.<\/p>\n

\"You<\/a>
You can still travel down the river by boat – although I suspect the funnels are for show and steam no longer drives her engines.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was a lot of gambling on the old paddle steamers \u2013 and it some of the modern day river boats are huge floating casinos. There are also casinos in riverboat-shaped buildings on the river. This was due to a law that allowed gambling on the river \u2013 but not on land. The casinos HAD to float \u2013 so were built on barges, permanently joined to the land. The river boat designs are a salute to times past (or a tourist trap) and, I have to say, do get a bit tacky\u2026<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I know they are trying to rebuild the romance – but they didn’t succeed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The river is still used for industry \u2013 I looked at the river on google maps before we went and saw these huge things on the river\u2026.<\/p>\n

\"Seen<\/a>
Seen from space – the river is still wide – and very very busy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Intellectually I knew they were barges \u2013 but it wasn\u2019t until I saw them in real life – filling the vast expanse of the river that I really understood how much commerce still goes up and down the river.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In places the river seemed almost chocked by the huge barges.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

I also gained a new understanding of the levees \u2013 that failed so tragically after Hurricane Katrina. It started with a walk along the river in New Orleans \u2013 where it took me quite a few minutes to realise that the river walk I was following was actually a levee \u2013 and the buildings to my right were several feet lower than the water to my left.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The levee in New Orleans – newly repaired after the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The levee system goes for more than 3,000 miles. In places we were driving along the top of the levee. They can be more than 50 feet high.\u00a0That\u2019s a staggering feat of engineering \u2013 all to protect the cotton and sugar cane fields, towns and industry along the river.<\/p>\n

\"Maintaining<\/a>
Maintaining the levees must be an overwhelming task. Here the military is doing the hard wok.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I suspect all this engineering is fighting a losing battle against Mother Nature. The river is continually changing its course \u2013 after every rainy season, the banks have moved. Engineers have apparently found a weak spot in the river bed. They believe the river will eventually cut through this narrow neck of land and turn onto a radical new course \u00a0towards\u00a0the Gulf of Mexico \u2013 leaving New Orleans and Baton Rouge and all the ports of the lower Mississippi without their commercial lifeline.<\/p>\n

If that day comes \u2013 it will, to my mind, simply prove just how mighty this river really is.<\/p>\n

But in the meantime \u2013 when darkness hides the oil terminals and the casino parking lots\u00a0\u2013 there\u2019s still plenty of romance to be found.<\/p>\n

\"And<\/a>
And Ol’ Man River, he just keeps rollin’ along<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Continuing my blogs about my US road trip \u2013 I thought I should talk about the cause of the whole venture \u2013 the Mississippi River. At school we were taught that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-music","category-my-travels","category-reading"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g6jm-1fN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janetgover.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}