JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC

I’ll tell you a story about “duck rides.”

Patty and I used to go to Hot Springs, Ark., for the horse racing at Oaklawn Park, and we continued going after our children, daughter Brooks and son Charlie, were born in 1988 and 1989.

There’s a lot to do in Hot Springs besides going to the track, including walking and hiking in the Ouachita Mountains and enjoying the many bars, restaurants and retail stores along gently-curving Central Avenue downtown.

Another popular attraction has been the “duck rides,” in the amphibious vehicles, like the one that went down yesterday in Branson, taking the lives of 17 people, ranging in age form 1 to 70.

I never was much interested in the duck rides, which start downtown, then dip down into nearby Lake Hamilton, cruise around and then return downtown. The duck rides were — and possibly still are — big business in Hot Springs. Back then, two or three companies offered rides, and they competed aggressively, with carnival-type barkers buttonholing passers-by and making their pitches.

For some reason, on one visit when the kids were about 7 or 8, I think, we decided to take a duck ride. I don’t remember what it cost (there’s something else I didn’t remember, and I’ll get to that in a minute), but my most vivid memory is that when we were nearing the water, the driver/captain casually announced that life jackets were available if anyone wanted one.

I’ve always been safety conscious, especially around water (got it from my father), and I went to the shelves where the life jackets were stacked up. It appeared to me that none of those jackets had been used in months. They were covered with dust and so tightly wedged together it was difficult to dislodge from their holding place.

I got four, dusted them off as best I could and distributed them to Patty, Brooks and Charlie. I think we all put them on. I know I did because I remember to this day being irritated because smudges from the dusty jackets got onto my pants.

At any rate, the boat proceeded into the lake, and we drove around on the lake for 15 to 20 minutes without incident, before getting back on land and returning downtown.

Two or three years later, I was shocked to hear and read about the first big duck-boat disaster. Thirteen passengers, including three children, drowned on May 1, 1999, when a duck boat named Miss Majestic went down in Lake Hamilton.

Miss Majestic, after being pulled out of Lake Hamilton, near Hot Springs, Ark., in May 1999

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the boat started to go under seven minutes after entering the water. One passenger escaped before the boat submerged. Everyone else was trapped under the vehicle’s canopy roof. Six of those who were trapped were able to escape and swim to the surface, and boaters came to the rescue.

Obviously, all four of us recoiled at hearing that account and felt a retrospective sense of great relief that the “duck” we had ridden a few years earlier had stayed afloat.

Needless to say, none of us has ever ridden a “duck” since — and never would.

**

Now to the other thing I had forgotten about that day in the mid- to late-1990s.

Brooks, now 30, sent me a text from her workplace this morning, saying: “I ALWAYS KNEW THOSE DUCK BOATS WERE  BAD NEWS…Remember when I tried to hide in the bathroom so you wouldn’t make me go on it!?!!!”

I told her I did not remember that but reminded her about breaking out the dust-covered life preservers.

She texted back, “I was so scared I almost threw up in the bathroom and tried to stay in there so that it would leave without me, and you guys would get off.”

It sure sounded like something Brooks would have done. She’s always been squeamish about amusement park rides and such. I recall a time at Silver Dollar City when Patty, Charlie and I got on a ride, and Brooks remained in a waiting area so she could avoid going on the ride. We went on without her and retrieved her afterwards.

I have two thoughts today: May God be with the families of those 17 people who died on Table Rock Lake yesterday and… it’s time to ban those damn duck boats.