Before I got married, I was invited to lunch with my future wife and her parents at a restaurant on a floating barge tied up on the north shore of the Ohio River. At the time, in the early 1970s, I had no idea restaurants like this existed in Cincinnati. In fact, my future father-in-law had built this restaurant with a business partner and had subsequently sold it.
While we ate, I looked out the windows in awe as giant tows chugged by, pushing 15 or more barges loaded with coal. After lunch, we drove to a 240-acre piece of land my future father-in-law owned with that same partner. We parked next to a magnificent stone manor, got out of his car and walked a short distance to a breathtaking view of the mighty Ohio River….