Life On The Mississippi

the nebraska etv network and the great amwell company in association with wnet13 offer a special presentation in the humanities made possible by grants from the national endowment for the humanities john deere company exxon corporation the andrew w mellon foundation and the author vining davis foundations hello i'm kurt vonnegut and i'm standing on a bluff about 10 miles south of hannibal missouri the great mississippi mark twain called this river the majestic the magnificent mississippi rolling its mile wide tide along and shining in the sun he grew up along the river for four years as a cub or apprentice and then as a licensed pilot he stood at the wheel of steamboats that plied the 12 or 1300 miles of the lower mississippi between st louis and new orleans when the civil war broke out the river was closed to commercial traffic so his occupation was gone but the pride and challenge of