Everyone defines themselves by a time in their lives where they really fit in and everything was going well. Good times. No worries. Glory days. My time was probably between 1986 and 1988 when I was working on the boats in Toledo.

The company had three boats. The first and smallest one could carry 50 passengers for sight-seeing cruises up and down the Maumee River and is the boat I started on. This is also the boat that we recently chartered for Mom's surprise birthday party.

The next boat was a replica paddle wheel river boat. It had a huge paddle wheel that turned, but it did not propel the boat. It just spun from the backwash of the propellers. It cold seat about 100 people, maybe more, for dinner on two decks. It had a bar on each deck. Every cruise had live entertainment.

The wheel house was a little box that sat on top of the roof of the upper deck. Two decorative smoke stacks sat to the front left and right of the wheel house.

The time that I feel most proud of was when I was just promoted from deckhand to first mate and was assigned to go out on a dinner cruise with the owner of the company, also a licensed captain. A deckhand works the mooring lines when the boat leaves and returns to the dock. They do a lot of the cleaning, maintenance, and anything else the captain or first mate tells you to do.

The first mate is responsible for getting the engines and engine room ready before cruises, maintaining the official Coast Guards logs, working the mooring lines, and when the boat is under way spends most of the time in the wheel house helping the captain navigate the boat.

Any way, so I had been a first mate for probably only a month or so, and I get assigned a night-time dinner cruise with the owner. Once a cruise leaves the dock, all of the other captains turn off the decorative lights that run up and down the decorative smoke stacks in front of the wheel house so you can see the river. The owner, however, wanted them on the entire cruise so that it looked better from shore. There must have been 100 bulbs in a line running down the front of each stack. Unless something on the river had its own lights, it was almost impossible to see it.

Most captains would also stay up in the wheel house most of the cruise. They might go down for 15 or 20 minutes to mingle with the guests, but most of the time they were in the wheel house. The owner couldn't get out of the wheel house fast enough. He wanted to mingle and schmooze with everyone.

So, I am in the wheel house by myself heading north-east towards Lake Erie on the Maumee River, and I am getting the boat lined up to go under the I-280 bridge. It is a drawbridge, but if we line up just right we can fit under without needing a lift and stopping traffic. I am probably about 400 yards away going at our normal cruising speed, which is probably about 80% power. I will probably be under the bridge in about 30 seconds. Just then the captain calls up and tells me to turn it around and head back towards downtown, and then he goes back to mingling.

Aaaaaaa!!!! Panic! Panic! I can barely see what's around me. I have a full head of steam, and rapidly approaching the bridge. The span that is tall enough for us to go under is also fairly close to the north bank of the river. No time to think, just react. I take both engines out of drive and put them into about 50% reverse to take off some of my forward motion before I try to start changing the direction of the boat. The bridge is still approaching. I don't want to use too much reverse because it makes the boat vibrate and the sound will cover up the band and might panic the passengers. Don't want to do that. After about 10 seconds of straight reverse, I put the right engine in neutral and keep the left engine in reverse. This will make the boat start to spin counter-clockwise. I am worried about the front of the boat swinging into shore, which is about 200 feet away. I also bring the rudder hard right. It started to work. The left engine in reverse is not only turning the boat, but also is helping to pull it away from shore.

At this point I am not worried about hitting the bridge or the shore, but now I am concerned that I am pivoting in place too fast. I don't want to leave the shipping channel, and I don't want to spin past 180º. I take the left engine out of reverse and put it at about 50% forward power. I move the rudder to just a few degrees right of center. I leave the right engine in neutral for now as back-up help. If I do end up overshooting, I can put it into reverse to check my spin.

The left engine is starting to bite the water and slow down my spin. It's looking pretty good. At about ¾ of the way through my pivot I take the left engine out of reverse. I leave both engines in neutral to see what my inertia looks like. I still have a nice gentle spin. I put the left engine in forward at about 25% power to check my spin. When I am slowing down and almost hitting the 180º position, I slip the right engine into forward and match the engine speed of the left engine. We are making straight forward headway! I did it! I slowly increase throttle on both engines to get back up to cruising speed.

The owner was a hot-head and didn't have any problem yelling at you if he thought you messed up or didn't do something right. He never said a word, so it means I did it perfectly! I remember feeling like an adult for the first time that night. I think I was only 19 at the time.

This is the biggest boat the company had. I helped bring in back from Rhode Island via the St. Lawrence Seaway with four other licensed captains. It is being run out of Cleveland now. It could seat about 400 people for dinner on two decks. It also had an open-air observation deck on the same level as the wheel house. Thankfully, no decorative smoke stacks! We also took this one out into Lake Erie. On weekend nights we took it out to the harbor light for a midnight dance cruise. In the middle of the week we took it to Put In Bay for an all day trip. We stayed at the island for four hours.

I don't know where the paddle wheel boat is now.