Mississippi River Mile Marker 953.8/Cairo, IL

I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at when the Ohio River seemed to open up into a much larger body of water. I glanced down at the GPS and realized we were approaching the Mighty Mississippi and before I knew what was happening, the swift current took Detour, shook it a couple of times, and changed our course without me having to move the wheel. The power of the river was immediate and unmistaken; it convinced me within the first few seconds that it was truly the most demanding body of water I had ever cruised. Cairo, IL is the town closest to the confluence of the Ohio and the Mississippi and when I realized I was in Illinois, I knew I was a long way from home. The mile marker on the Mississippi indicated it was 953.8 miles from the Gulf of Mexico. I wasn't going all the way on this trip but I would have been more at home in the Gulf at that moment than in Illinois. I didn't have much time to dwell on my place on earth because a very large raft of barges was moving slowly up the river which quickly captured my attention. It was the first view from river level of the immense size of these floating warehouses. I knew they were big and this one, I would soon come to realize, was one of the smaller ones. We gave it a wide berth and our trip down the Mississippi had begun... whether we liked it or not. Bo, I think was the most excited or maybe concerned is a better word. He has a cautious kind of personality but when he makes up his mind to do something he seldome retreats. He had duck hunted on the backwaters of the Mississippi and had experienced some of the power of the river from that perspective and knew how unpredictable it could become. Now he was in a much larger boat and it took a few miles to realize, that while the river was still unprecictable, we were well prepared to handle the trip. Thinking of Bo's independence and determination, brings to mind an instance in our past that illustrates it clearly. During Bo's junior year in high school, I was working at Mississippi State University as Director of Development and had the opportunity to take the same position at the University of Pittsburgh. I knew it would be difficult for Bo to move to Pittsburgh for his senior year but for a number of reasons I needed to accept the position. I took Bo fishing to tell him of my decision to leave Mississippi, where he had grown up and where he decided to stay when his mother moved away. Bo and I had been together through some difficult times and had no idea his response would be, "I understand why you have to go to Pittsburgh and I'm happy for you, I just hope you'll understand why I don't go with you". And, he didn't. We worked out an arrangement with one of his good friends to spend the next year with his family. It allowed Bo to finish high school with his class and maintain his life in as close to an normal setting as possible. As it turned out he made a good decision as the position at Pitt was not a good fit and I left after the first year to have similiar positions at two other schools within a five year period of time before returning to Jackson for a four year stint as Special Assistant to the State Superintendant of Education. My responsibilities were focused on advocating for positive legislative initiatives in the Mississippi legislature. Probably, the most personally gratifying position I've ever held. This was a difficult period of life personally for me but the multiple positions and experiences allowed me to develop skills I would have never developed if I had not gone to Pittsburgh. It was a difficult period for Bo also and I hope the experiences he had helped him as much as mine did me. This was really the first time Bo and I had the opportunity to spend time with each other in some sort of noteworth manner and even though the time was short, it meant a great deal to me to be able to have it with him. I had arranged to have an oil distributer bring gas to a boat ramp in New Madrid, Missouri and to also spend the night there. I had miscalculated the time it would take to navigate the locks on the Ohio and the speed we could travel on the Mississippi so we took on our gas and shoved off for Caruthersville.