When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.
“
| — |
Mark Twain, “Old Times on the Mississippi” Did you know Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) had been a steamboat pilot? At the time it was one of the highest paying jobs in the country. In fact, the pen name “Mark Twain” comes from that line of work. It was a leadsman’s call meaning that the boat was in water two fathoms (12 feet) deep - safe water. |
