Word: del
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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First Night Out. Engines pounded. Grizzled old Pilot Joe Lloyd, who has spent nearly half a century on the river, pointed the Del Commune straight ahead. The ice growled, snapped, cracked. Two ducks beat a hasty retreat to the brown Wisconsin shore, Slowly, laboriously, the towboat crunched forward. A snowstorm blew up; night came early; Captain Joe turned on the two big searchlights...
...going was tougher now. Captain Joe had to back the boat up, make his run, go pounding into the ice with jolts that cracked the necks of the crew. Each time the Del Commune bit off no more than 30 yards. Soon the snow fell faster: flakes danced defiantly in the searchlights, the beams traveled a few hundred feet and died. Captain Joe shrugged. "I don't know where the hell I'm at," he said. "They's no use going nowhere when you can't see where...
...headed the Del Commune back to the dam, tied up for the night...
...Del Commune made her run, smashed into the ice, ground and grated to a sudden stop. Her men rubbed their aching necks, fought to keep their balance. In the galley, chicken soup spattered out of a kettle. On the bridge, Captain Joe brooded: "This just ain't steamboating weather. I ain't seen a bird...
Under the constant pounding, the Del Commune began to stagger. Her joints creaked. With every blow her decks seemed to buckle. She sprang a leak under the stern transom. Given time, she seemed bound to shake herself to pieces. "You just cain't go kickin' this river around this way," murmured one of Captain Joe's copilots. "You just cain...