Our Elderhostel was entitled "Music on the Mississipi." The entire program (except for the post-tour part in New Orleans) was held on the R/B River Explorer, an array that consists of two 300-foot 2-story barges plust the towboat Miss Nari. One barge, La Salle, contains all the cabins, each about 200 square feet. The other barge, De Soto, houses the dining room, an auditorium, a library, and a bar. There is an open deck above the second floors with another bar, the pilot house, a covered area, hot tubs, and work-out facilities. So, it was a very comfotable place to spend a week. Carolyn Vance Smith, President of the Educational Travel Association in Natchez, is the founder and coordinator of this particular Elderhostel program. She has many credits to her name and we found that she did an excellent job of organizing the program and the week.

After getting our luggage on the barge, we went to the Mud Island Museum, a super museum, which was just next to where the barge was docked. The Mississippi River Museum has a reproduction of an 1870 Steamboat and part of a union gunboat. Numerous galleries had pictures, film clips and music of some of the greats of Dixieland, Blues, and Ragtime, especially one on Scott Joplin. There was a walk-through of life along the Mississippi from prehistoric times and a film of disasters on the river, i.e. boats sinking, giving a thoughtful introduction to a long barge trip.

The first organized activity even before Happy Hour was a getting acquainted session for each of the four groups. We were in the red group and met in the Guest Pilot Room. We were each given a name of some one in the red group whom we were supposed to find and get to know. Later on at another getting acquainted meeting, each person had to introduce his/her new friend.

For the opening orientation Richard Raichelson (see also) of Memphis, Tennessee, gave us an overview of the music we would be hearing. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and now concentrates on Memphis music and history. He said he would present the programs, serve as a Master of Ceremonies, and perform daily. He was outstanding piano player of ragtime, blues, jazz, boogie woogie, soul, etc.

After dinner we went to a performance of the Last Chance Jug Band. We loved the music and were particularly taken by the young man who blew the jug, and when he was not doing that he wore a washboard with various metal objects, which were clanked at appropriate moments. The bandleader and guitarist accented the tunes with a kazoo. Richard Raichelson was on the piano. The harmonica player was awesome.

Thursday, May 9. We had an organizational meeting and had the second part of the get acquainted activities. There was a very funny and well-done safety orientation by the barge master. We were told various things about the boat and where to find the life preservers, and it was better than most that we have been to. This was a barging day to move us many miles south. We had lunch by buffet and in the afternoon we saw a movie "River of Song" which was Part 1 of a PBS program about various musicians from Kentucky to Jackson, Mississippi.

Then we heard a talk by Charles Vahlkamp, Professor Emeritus of French at Center College in Danville, Kentucky, on the mighty Mississippi. He talked about the problems of flooding and whether to build the levees or not to build the levees, discussing various engineering solutions, which were not followed. Sarah Vahlkamp, his wife, gave a very funny talk, "You know you are in the South when . . ." The plural of "ya'all," we were told, is "all ya'al." After a sub-group meeting about Vicksburg, there was a wine tasting. We tasted a white wine from Matazanas Creek, and a winemaker from Matazanas Creek Winery, Ira Rosenberg, was on this barge trip. The red wine was a Gundlach Bundshu merlot. Two musicians, the Kattawar Brothers, played boogie-woogie at Happy Hour. In the evening they gave a cacophonous performance of blues and boogie woogie. The music included much banging on the piano with hands and feet (wearing piano keyboard design socks) by Jerry Kattawar, and while it was obvious that Jerry Kattawar could play very well if he chose, the effect on me was pounding noise. He did not want pictures taken, the only musician to make that request (Many took pictures anyway, but we can live without them.) They were the only music group I didn't like, but most people on the barge thought they were good, and the Kattawars have beaucoup things about them on the Internet. A piano tuner had to be called because of sticking keys, etc., before anyone else could use the grand piano.

Continue to Part III.

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Our Travel Page Index Part I. St. Louis & Oxford Part II. Memphis, the Barge, Jug Band Part III. Vicksburg Part IV. Natchez Part V. Baton Rouge and Onward Part VI. New Orleans