Peace Out River Trip

A. H. Hubbard

peaceoutroadtrip

Currently the A. H. Hubbard (our shantyboat named after Anna and Harlan Hubbard, two revered Kentucky shantyboaters) is in New Albany, Indiana where it is having some work done on the trailer. We are having a wench post fabricated and installed, eyelet rings installed for securing the boat, and a break away kit installed for the electric brakes on the trailer. What we haven’t figured out is how to brake the boat itself when this happens:

A shantyboat on the icy Ohio River tumbles over dam in Louisville – 1948

One of the things that fascinates Art and I as we build our boat is all the lost history involving shantyboat communities in this country. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries nearly every city and town on a major river had a shantyboat community. It is where the poor and disenfranchised gathered as well as the gamblers and drunks who were welcomed nowhere else. (Art and I may only qualify as drunks as bourbon is involved in most of our planning….however, the gambling moniker may apply as well given the image I posted above.) Many of the shantyboat communities were pushed off the river because the bureaucrats could not figure out a way to force them to pay taxes, and since shantyboaters were suspect every time any crime occurred, no-one objected when they were pushed off the river. As the economic divide continues to widen in this country, one wonders if shantyboats may one day reappear on our rivers.

My book, Chasing Zorba – A Journey of Self-Discovery in a VW Bus, is holding its own on Amazon and has been ranked in the top ten in the category of “new releases for auto travel” for the past two months. To any of you who have purchased my book, I am very grateful. There is nothing that benefits a starving writer more than a positive review on Amazon, so if you have managed to finish the book, and are so inclined, I would be most thankful if you posted a review. Who knows, maybe I will be able to afford groceries next week.

Work on the shantyboat will continue once the weather breaks and until then we will provide a little more history on Anna and Harlan Hubbard in the next blog post.

Your humble shantyboaters,

Art & Jerry

Published by peaceoutroadtrip

I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. After attending college at the University of Louisville, I worked for the Commonwealth of Kentucky providing services to families receiving public assistance. This was a great education for me seeing the poverty that exists in our country and the great disparity in opportunity that exists. I left Kentucky to attend the University of Chicago where I received my Masters in Social Work. After graduating, I worked in the Chicago court system, another important step in my education. I shortly reached a point where I needed a new environment and a fresh start. Looking for something smaller, and not wanting to return to Kentucky (a great place to grow up but not where I wanted to spend my entire life), I narrowed my options to Spokane, Washington and Portland, Maine, having never been to either in my life. I decided on Portland, Maine and loaded all my belongings (not a difficult task) into my Datsun pickup truck. In fact, there was still room to sleep in the back. I headed off to Portland where after one year of working in a group home for teens, I discovered I missed the energy of the big city and migrated down to Boston. In Boston I had the opportunity to work with youth in several settings, the most significant and recent being the Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston. My career in youth work ended in 2016 and that is when the planning for the Peace Out Road Trip began. I am married to a wonderful woman, Dianne, who supports my dreams, whims and quirks and I have two incredible daughters, Katie & Rebecca, who have been my inspiration for the past 32 years. My other supporter is Dianne's daughter, Lindsey, who often gives me the same bewildering look her mother gives me. I can't blame her. And now I have two grandchildren, Gretyl and Deitrich, who make it very hard for me to be away for long periods on road trips.

2 thoughts on “A. H. Hubbard”

  1. That photo haunts me! So glad that you have a life vest already. I am going to purchase 1 (or 10) for Dad. Thanks for the updates.

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  2. Thanks for the update. Very much looking forward to hearing about your progress with the boat! BTW be sure you are taking notes, pictures and videos for your next book and Dianne’s video!!

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