I Missed The Boat

In the midst of my activities last week, I neglected to check my e-mail for three days.

That means I missed the boat.

Besides this blog, Rabid Fun at (www.cowart.info/blog ) and my on-line book catalog (www.bluefishbooks.info ) I keep a general website of religious humor essays and Jacksonville history articles; that website is called The Rabid FUNdamentalist at (www.cowart.info ).

I started Rabid Fundamentalist first when my son Donald I first gave me a computer. That site is horribly crude because I was learning as I went along, yet it filled a gap in the local Jacksonville history available on the web.

It is not unusual for readers to e-mail me asking questions about local history and I always try to answer as best I can.

Last week, a reader in Asheville, North Carolina, sent me some photographs of a river boat departing a landing; they were taken in 1918:

The reader thought there was a chance these were taken somewhere on the St Johns River and asked my help gathering more information.

But I had not read my e-mail for three days.

I missed the boat.

First, I consulted the closest expert on St. Johns Riverboats, my wife Ginny, author of the article “Paddlewheelers On The St Johns” .

We discussed at length how to go about finding the location, the name of the ship and information. Ginny suspected the photos were taken at Captain Jacob Brock’s landing in Enterprise. I thought they were taken on the west bank of the river at Green Cove Springs.

We asked Donald to enhance the photographs so we might read the name plate on the ship and a sign on a nearby business.

We prepared to sent e-mails to various people knowledgeable about riverboats, etc.

Then came another e-mail from the reader.

Our help was not needed.

Because I had not checked my e-mail and delayed answering, the needed answer had come from another source.

The reader thanked me for my efforts and said, “Since I wrote to you, the photos have been identified. They are of the Manatee River at Bradenton, and the ship is the “Favorite”. There are more interesting parts to this story too. The photo of the old lady and the little boy watching the steamer is my great grandmother Harriett Steele and my father Jack Steele Wallace. That much we already knew. The ship, “the Favorite”, we were able to identify this week. As a twist of fate, my mother’s father was the pilot of “the Favorite”. About 10 yrs after this photo was taken my father’s family built a home next door to my mother’s family in Pinellas County. It was then that the 2 families met for the first time. Small world”....

Fascinating.

Ginny and I stood down in our search.

I think I may have learned either of two lessons from this:

1. Check my e-mail daily or risk missing the boat.

2. If I neglect a problem long enough, someone else will solve it.