Bilgewater
2011 · Dedicated to Brian "Fox" Ellis and Barry Cloyd of the Spirit of Peoria
Bilgewater is Ken Bradbury's affectionate, wholly unreliable guidebook to the Spirit of Peoria riverboat, where he spent his summers as the resident honky-tonk piano player cruising the Illinois River from Starved Rock to St. Louis. Billing himself as "Ken Bradbury, Phb (Doctor of Bull-ology)," he calls the book "an almost totally unreliable guide to the Spirit of Peoria riverboat, its excursions, its nooks and crannies, why it floats, what to do if it doesn't, where the bodies are hidden, and then some really important stuff."
It is a comic collection rather than a narrative — a preface, a glossary of "nearly useful terms," a deck-by-deck tour of the boat, a mock history of Peoria, a field guide to the "strange species" of passengers, a sideways tour of Europe, the song "Carpe Carp," and a list of the dumbest questions ever asked aboard. Tucked among the fibs is a short chapter, "I'm Not Kidding," where Ken finally tells a few true stories from his life around the river towns of Meredosia and Valley City. The title itself nods to the Duke of Bilgewater, the notorious liar from Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn — fitting for a book that opens by confessing its own dishonesty.
In Ken's own voice, from the preface:
Lying is perhaps one of the oldest traditions on the river, second only to fishing and swatting bugs. After a couple seasons on the Spirit of Peoria riverboat I found that I was inundated with facts, figures, weights, distances, histories, and other extremely useful data. What I seemed to crave was a small storehouse of totally useless information. After all, I'm on vacation, dog-gone it! Don't make me think!
What follows is a ragtag amalgamation of relatively useless lies, half-truths, almost-truths, and ought-to-be-facts-if-only-we-could-prove-it. If nothing else it may provide a good way to while away those idle hours waiting in line to lock-through behind six barges of coal.
I come from a family of well-schooled liars. I can remember a time in third grade when we were asked to go home, talk to a relative, and try to trace our family tree. I chose my Grandpa Ralph. I climbed up on his lap and asked him how far back he could trace our family. He said that we could track our line all the way back to New England to a couple of brothers who were hanged as horse thieves so the family line ended there.
And from the dedication, to the two men who first gave him the stage:
This poor excuse for a booklet is dedicated to two really great guys who found me wandering homeless and forlorn on the streets of East Peoria, took me in, fed me, gave me my first real pair of shoes, paid to have my eyes straightened then forced me to take piano lessons to pay for my keep on the Spirit of Peoria. They showed me how to get onto the boat and then pointed vaguely in the direction we were going. Their only warning, "Don't screw it up, kid."