Sept 20, 2006 |
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Sept 20, 2006 |
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Last week we featured the
upriver Kalamazoo and a few of the early riverboats around the turn of the
century. Fifty years passed, the river boats and crusty captains faded
into history -, Dick Hoffman a talented young man just finished a four
year tour with the Coast Guard was looking for a way to earn a living on
the banks of the Kalamazoo. The old beach boat the Waugon was lying at the
end of Lucy St. and for sale cheap. Dick converted her to a stern wheel
paddleboat suitable for New Richmond trips and - just like that - he
started a business that would become a Saugatuck fixture. "I ran that boat and one day I sunk it coming down the river….caught the rudder, one of two rudders, on a snag and it pulled right out of the boat, I went back there to pick up the hatch to see what was wrong and here was this fountain of water coming up…. a great big fountain. I closed the cover quickly. As the rudders were locked off center, I just put the wheel in gear and ran it ashore where it would go… we weren't under yet but I told the people that we would be, and they had to get off. It was not too deep, but we had twelve ladies from a bridge club, and a family of five, and we were maybe a couple of miles from New Richmond, at least. These were ladies of some weight. I had to carry those ladies from the boat to the bank… we walked back through the woods. If you have ever been in that woods, it is a carpet of poison ivy. Gary Diepenhorst was with me at the time, as sort of a crew; he was fishing as we went along. He said, "Is that poison ivy?" I said, "Sssh don't say a word." And those ladies walked through all that poison ivy back to the little store in New Richmond… and you know I never heard of one of them getting poison ivy." by Jack Sheridan
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