Ships passing

Lexington on the Tennessee River near Pilot Knob, March 6, 2018 When I was a child, my parents thought watching barges was great entertainment. They'd load us into the car and drive down to the foot of Broadway in Paducah, and then we'd sit. Sit. Sit. Waiting for a barge to come by, and as I remember it, sometimes there never was a barge at all. Just hours of waiting.

Do you have any idea how boring, tedious, torturous that was for a child? Well, for me, at any rate. I don't remember my...