Dave loves this stuff.

Al Johnson Construction, the first company Dave worked for as a brand new engineer, built this lock on the Tombigbee Waterway. He understands this whole system and can visualize how it was built, pour by pour. He would come home from working on the Hydro-Electric Dam or the Murray Powerhouse and tell me how the dynamic compaction went or what pour they did that job. The Murray Powerhouse was a design-build. Imagine taking sand, rock and cement to build this type of structure. It is truly a feat to consider. Dave really appreciated all those engineers he worked with like Brian Kaub, Randy Mackereth, Tom Pieck, Fred Cearfoss, Jim Peterson and Don Rassmesun. And then there were those sage Superintendents like Ray Gunderson, Cliff Reiss, Jack Townesend, Harold Thomas and so many others we will never forget. They would move from job to job to lend their expertise to the projects. Their families would move with them from project to project, town to town and state to state. I remember Livonia Reiss telling me that one of her boys attended 4 different high schools. She tells the story of following Cliff in his truck across the country with all of the kids in her car. The youngest had chickenpox and it was a hot, miserable drive but it got even worse when they lost Cliff on a huge city ramp-like bridge. This was before cell phones and she had no way of contacting him. With just enough money to get a hotel room, they needed to save the last so they ate cold hot dogs and went to bed. Lisa Thomas tells of so many different friends she met along the way from project to project and how a new high school gave her a chance to change and become who she was meant to be.

We passed through this lock which the guys at Al Johnson Construction Co always referred to as “Bay Springs”. It was the 4th lock we went passed through on our Great American Loop Trip on April 12, 2025. Dave would notify the Lockmaster that we are a pleasure craft wanting to “lock-thru”. Sometimes we would have to wait for a barge or two for hours because commercial traffic is given the right-away. Other times, we could time it just right and get through the lock immediately. When this happened, we felt like we hit the lottery. On April 13, 2025 we made it through 6 locks on the Tombigbee Waterway in one day.

Look at those massive gates in the photo below.

Dave is on a mission and I am along for the ride-trying get the finders on the side they are needed, my knots perfect to secure the lines and hope I don’t trip and have to be rescued. My job in the lock was to catch a floating bollard with a line.

I was really bad at it.

It felt to me like roping a wild steer at a rodeo. I should have practiced more as kid on the farm. Dave made a loop for me out of blue flexible electical conduit to make it easier but I am not sure how much it helped because that just meant my loop was smaller and not able to change in size depending on how far from the bollard I was. You can see blue loop and I am smiling because on the second try I caught it. Once I caught it, the boat was secure and Dave notified the lockmaster that we were secure. The lockmaster would let out the water and we are lowered with the water level.

You can see in the photo that there is water just in front of the “Jobsite”. Leaks like these were common and could easily flood our boat.

I am wearing headphones so that Dave doesn’t have to yell, “I can’t belive you missed that bollard!” and could instead, with panic in his voice say it privately so only I could hear it.