Tight-Assed+River+SB

Shannon Billings

"**TIGHT-ASSED RIVER**"

In this article, McPhee gives a really descriptive image of the "Pekin wiggles" that are located in the Illinois River, between the Mississippi River, and Chicago. He seems to be obsessed with writing descriptions of the characters in the story. For example, "//Mel is tall and lanky, fed in the middle but lithe in the legs. He has a sincere mustache, a trig goatee, and a slow, clear, frank, and friendly Ozark voice. He lives in southern Missouri, on Table Rock Lake, which has seven hundred miles of shoreline.//" McPhee wants the reader to be able to connect to the characters in the story, and thus he creates a profile about each character to achieve this. I have noticed that McPhee says things in an unusual way. For instance, he writes: "//Each morning, before he goes off watch at five-thirty, he **cell-phones** his wife, Aurora, and gently awakens her//." I don’t know why McPhee didn’t just say that Mel **//called//** his wife. McPhee is trying to be original, and; therefore, he demonstrates this by integrating different words, and styles of writing, and speaking into the text. The fisherman is really busy, and has a routine. McPhee describes the boat, and it is huge! //"This vessel is a good deal longer than the Titanic. It is thirteen feet longer than Cunard’s Queen Mary 2, the longest ocean liner ever built."// When McPhee states a fact, he feels as though he has to justify his reasoning. In other words, he provides the readers with several facts because he is very educated, and he feels that it is necessary to reinforce the validity in his writing, and research. He provides several figures, and facts about the vessel. "//Tight-assed River//" means that the boat is almost as wide as the river. "//This vessel is nearly four times longer than the channel is wide. The entire river in most places is about a thousand feet from bank to bank. Our bow wave quickly spreads to both shores//." McPhee writes about the careful navigation that is necessary to guide the boat down the river safely. "//The Billy Joe Boling//" is the name of the vessel. He provides the reader with a lot of terminology used on the vessel, such as, "//getting set" is vernacular for being moved sideways by current//." Mel is really smart, and he is an experienced captain. He reminds the reader that there are seven different ways to run a river: "//high water, low water, upriver with the current on your head, down-river, daytime, nighttime, and running it by radar//." He states that once you learn those seven ways, you can navigate safely down any river. McPhee provides accurate descriptions of his characters in the article. He includes relevant, and irrelevant information. "//Tom is not hesitant to call the work stressful//" – being a labourer on the boat is stressful! McPhee is getting used to the lifestyle on the boat. He didn’t think that he would be able to urinate on the upper deck in the toilet located in the corner, but he quickly got over his shyness when he learned that he might have to hold his full bladder for six hours. He was able to comfortably use the toilet in the pilothouse after that. He becomes engaged in the personal lives of the characters. He feels it is necessary for the reader to be informed of every little detail. "//.....Tom owns, and rents out "a couple of dozen units (rooms, houses, agricultural acreage), and additionally owns a hundred-acre farm with twenty beef cattle on it. While he is away on the Billy Joe Boling, his wife, Debbie, manages the property. Also, a library clerk, Debbie is Tom’s third wife."//

"If you didn’t go to school and get a good education, you’d be out there working your ass off tightening them wires" reminds me that education, and hard work pays off. Labouring on a boat is hard work, and it is not a job that most people would want to do for the rest of their lives. If we work really hard in university, then after graduation, we can enjoy the "fruits of our labour." Meals are organized. "//Meals are the bring punctuation of the day out here...."// Lunch is at 11 am, supper at 5 pm, and breakfast in the creeping dawn. Meals are served at a certain time, and routine is followed for efficiency during the boat trip. The captain needs to maintain consistency for the route. In the middle of the article, McPhee shifts his focus to trains that are run under centralized systems, then back to the vessel, and then to an oncoming ferry. His thoughts seem to be scattered, but this is interesting for the reader because it tends to provide excitement in the article. The reader cannot get really bored with just one subject so he jumps around while he is writing. Near the end of the article, the vessel comes to a screeching halt at 5:25 am. The 1145 foot vessel’s port wire wing broke, and seven other wires broke, too. Barges (containers) fell off the boat, and started heading down the river. Mel is able to move the boat towards the barges, and retrieve them. The wires were fixed by men working on the boat, and everyone was amazed that the barges were captured. They all thought for sure that the barges would get away, and that they were heading towards New Orleans, but they changed their mind, and came back to the vessel, instead.