by Ruth
（Continue from last week）
At lunch, we reassembled our appetites. Plates arrived with crisp salad, and then the star: Grandma Stier’s famous beef brisket—tender, rich, and savory, like a handshake. Alongside came homemade cornbread that tasted sweet at the edges, crumbly and warm, exactly right with butter. The room went quiet for a few moments when people focused on food and satisfaction. If we judge a day by its meals, this day earned high marks.
Our boat drifted past a section called Finley Beach, the sand sweeping to the river in a generous arc. The captain recounted with great enthusiasm the story of a beach house, once belonging to the Catholic Church as a parish retreat, where many unforgettable gatherings had been held. This story, cleverly packaged as “The Gardener’s Party,” was rife with winks and nods to rampant materialism, ultimately ending with the church selling it. Whether every detail was true was irrelevant. The river imbued each story with a certain quality, allowing it to drift for a moment around the bend of the riverbank, eventually merging into the landscape’s sound.
Just upstream, a tow boat labored along, dragging lots of cargo. The host noted that tow boats actually push, a fact that made me recalibrate the whole geometry of barge traffic. From deck level, the arrangement was mesmerizing: a broad nose pressed firm to a raft of barges, the pilot reading currents and wind and the river’s mood, inching a city-block of steel through a seam of water. We watched with appreciation as the cargo bot held a perfect line. Everything on the Mississippi moved with purpose. It didn’t need to hurry to be powerful.
Throughout the afternoon, the railroad kept us company. Sometimes a train would emerge from the trees just as we rounded a bend, the engine bright against the pines, and we’d see shallow waves between us and the train. On shore, small towns revealed church steeples, white clapboard houses, and water towers lettered with friendly names even if I’d never been there before.
By the time Guttenberg’s limestone façades came into view, the light had turned warm. Such a handsome little town! The Twilight slowed again, and the crew readied lines. Before we landed, another bald eagle made a low pass over the river, as if to say hello.
Stepping off the boat, I realized how rested I felt—not just the physical kind, but the mental softening that came from a day where the only real to-do was to notice how hills cast their shadows, how an old violin made a deck go quiet, and how stories told over a microphone became part of the river mythology. The Mississippi impressed me by being exactly what it has always been. The Twilight just game me the perfect front-row seat.
If I’d measuring a day by highlights, there were plenty: a huge bald eagle nest in a cottonwood, the railroad pacing us like a steadfast friend, the play of fall color on bluff and bank, Grandma Stier’s famous brisket with homemade cornbread, and the sight of a tow boat nudging an empire of cargo upriver. But the best part might be harder to pin down. Somewhere between the host’s easy narration of river life and the way everyone on board turned, the Mighty Mississippi remained mighty, and for one bright day, we got to move with it.
