Ben Bernstein: [00:00:00] This episode of Rambling on the River is presented by BB Riverboats.

Sponsor Message: What does summertime in the Ohio River Valley mean to you? From the deck of a BB riverboat, it means a breeze on the water, lush views, and a historic cruise by the queen city Skyline. BB Riverboats offers an experience as unforgettable as childhood summers.

This season let our crew take care of yours as you cruise the mighty Ohio. BB Riverboats, the river is waiting.

Moderator: You're listening to the Ramblin on the River podcast, presented by BB Riverboats. The Bernstein family has been a predominant name in Cincinnati's 1960s, and this podcast will be a collection of the stories, tales, and experiences from their entrepreneurial endeavors. [00:01:00] Evers in the restaurant and excursion boat business.

Join as they take you on a journey through the family's history in their own unique style. Now here are your hosts, Ben Terri and Alan Bernstein.

Ben Bernstein: Well, hello there everybody. Hello. You do not have a comment before we get started. I do. I think the order is wrong. You do not have a 

Alan Bernstein: comment before you get started. This is not fair. 

Ben Bernstein: Welcome everybody. Welcome aboard. You found the Ramblin on the River podcast. My name's Ben Bernstein, joined here by my father, Alan, and my sister, Terri, who still has a lisp.

Terri Bernstein: I do. I have a list. 

Ben Bernstein: It'll be going soon. Well, we are very thankful that you have found your way to our podcast. Before we get [00:02:00] started, we'd love for you to head over and like and subscribe our podcast on any one of your social media. Favorite podcast platforms. It's on all of them. Or at least all of them that I know of.

So we're highly rated. Highly rated. We're moving up the chart. We're waiting for a new update to that. Mm-Hmm. To that hundred and fifty three. Clearly 

Terri Bernstein: we're not hitting it that fast. 

Ben Bernstein: You can also go to our Facebook and Instagram pages.

You can visit our website at ramblinontheriver.Com. And you can also email us that podcast that BB riverboats. com. We've. We had several emails. We appreciate all of them and at least I know I've replied to everyone. Hopefully you guys have too. Well, 

Terri Bernstein: I don't think I've replied to a single person.

Ben Bernstein: You probably haven't. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, we said that we would reply, so if Ben replied, then that covers you and I

Ben Bernstein: we have made our way through several episodes now. We are nowhere near experts at [00:03:00] this, but we are getting better. We are getting better.

This coming episode is going to kind of be a hodgepodge. These are, a couple of items that we'd like to talk about a couple of stories that we'd like to talk about, but they don't really fit into any structure of a show. So we're going to kind of just tell you some individual stories and We will go. Would 

Alan Bernstein: Potpourri be the word of the day today? 

Ben Bernstein: No. No? Potpourri is going to be the name of the episode. Oh, the name of the episode. Episode 8, Potpourri. Oh. The word of the day will come. Don't worry. Oh, okay. I didn't want to miss it. I know last week you got overtaken by Terri. Oh. And the lovely word she made up.

Absolutely. So we will. Wallering. Yes. Wallering. Still can't understand wallering, but still makes me laugh thinking about it. Yeah. But anyway, so which what story time do you want me to do? You want me to do yours today or do you want the old one? 

Alan Bernstein: No, what do you mean? Well, you can 

Ben Bernstein: do the, do the old one.[00:04:00] 

You want to do both? 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, you can do the old one and then just see how good I am. 

Ben Bernstein: You can do mine. Okay. I'm sure everybody's sick of it. 

Moderator: Gather round everybody because it is story time on Ramblin on the River. 

Ben Bernstein: You're not even mouthing it. 

Terri Bernstein: Waiting for his. 

Alan Bernstein: I was waiting for the big here. Here's the whole McGill.

All right. Oh, here we get around everybody. It's story time! 

Ben Bernstein: All 

Speaker 14: ramblin on the 

Ben Bernstein: river! That's my favorite part there. Where we all get in unison. Like we were orchestrated. Alright, we're gonna get started here. Your father had some very very famous stories. Very famous. Well, he was a storyteller 

Alan Bernstein: actually at the end of his life He was well, he is also the subject of many famous.

Oh, no [00:05:00] doubt. Really it goes all the way back to when we started in the restaurant business we had no idea What was going on? Think until you 

Ben Bernstein: make 

Alan Bernstein: it. We absolutely did not know what we were doing, how we were doing it maybe even why, because at the very beginning, our business was quite slow.

And my dad was the bartender, mom was the hostess, I was the busboy, and we had a waitress and we had a cook. That we hired or paid to, to work and we were quite slow. So dad at the bar would end up telling stories to entertain. People that sat at the bar and Dad was a terrible bartender.

I mean he was just awful He did not know how to make drinks. No He may it was like his low well, well he was slow very slow, but 

Terri Bernstein: I think that's kind of you're a chip off the old block. I think I bartended [00:06:00] with you. Oh, yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: and he ran circles Let's 

Terri Bernstein: take a little detour here and talk about dad I 

Ben Bernstein: remember the end of the shift you saying wow, you're a lot better than I thought.

Yeah, but 

Terri Bernstein: Let me say He does not know how to open a beer 

Alan Bernstein: Oh my god, you're gonna give me a dig? 

Terri Bernstein: Somebody ordered a Miller Lite. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: He opens up the cooler door. They're in, why aren't they loose? They're in fridge packs. Instead of, you know, opening the side, he rips it open and 12 of them go shooting out all over the floor.

What does he do? He doesn't pick them up. He just 

Sponsor Message: serves them from the ground? No, no, 

Terri Bernstein: no. He grabs another one and does the exact same thing a second time. So now we are bartending with 24 cans rolling around on the floor. 

Alan Bernstein: This is unfair. Because in my day of bartending, You took the [00:07:00] can or bottle or whatever it was of beer, and you put it in the, the refrigerator loose so that when you went to grab one, you grabbed one.

You didn't grab a box. You didn't grab a case. You didn't grab. Whatever the newfangled bartenders do. I think we ought to have a write in campaign for those of you that are bartenders out there. How do 

Ben Bernstein: you prepare your bar? I would say every single bartender now pulls out an individual. I think they do too.

But I will say, in our defense, we are not a normal bar. No, we're not. You're right. We have very limited space. You're right. We carry very limited numbers of products. That's correct. We buy a lot of them over the course of the year, but We buy a limited number of products, and there's really no way the way our bars are structured.

Alan Bernstein: I would like to hear from bartenders who are listening to this [00:08:00] podcast, just email the show that says, I'm a bartender, you don't have to say where, when, who, how, just say I'm a bartender and I agree or disagree with my theory. Well, which would be take it out of the box, put it in the cooler so that you're grabbing one particular kind of, we would 

Ben Bernstein: have to buy all new coolers if that were the case.

Terri Bernstein: Well, okay. All right. Let's go back to grandpa. Oh, okay. So discussing business on the, 

Ben Bernstein: okay. That was a pretty good discussion though. No, I liked it anyway. All right. 

Terri Bernstein: So he is, he actually was a very good bartender. Whoa. There it was. 

Ben Bernstein: She 

Terri Bernstein: finally, she actually know what he's 

Ben Bernstein: doing. She admitted it. I was taking his victory.

Like, I can only tell you. 

Alan Bernstein: It 

Ben Bernstein: just brings 

Alan Bernstein: it back full circle, 

Ben Bernstein: So a very famous person in Cincinnati history, a very [00:09:00] generous and very successful person, Carl Lindner had a very famous story with your 

Alan Bernstein: father. My father and Carl actually were very good friends. Carl came every day to the Mike Fink.

Every day? Every day. He came to the Mike Fink with his group or a new group or a whatever of the people that they would work over lunch and talk over lunch. And Carl had a very specific table that he liked and wanted. And Of course, mom and dad were very protective of the table, but there were some times where Carl was out of town, or maybe he couldn't do lunch that day, or whatever, and dad and mom didn't want the table to sit unused, because we were busy at this time.

You know, I just said early on we were not early on. This was in the heyday of Mike Fink [00:10:00] and Carl had his table of eight in the corner out on the barge overlooking Well at that time he was Provident Bank he owned Provident Bank and you know, Provident Bank building is right there.

Center Stage was american Financial, was that already Oh yeah, America. Oh yeah, yeah. All that was there. And yeah. Now the bill, I 

Ben Bernstein: guess I didn't 

Alan Bernstein: know he was the new 

Ben Bernstein: building. I didn't know he was in the bank world. Oh yeah. They hit Provident 

Terri Bernstein: Bank, didn't they? Provident?

Yes. Which I just said. Well you not listening again. She is on 

Ben Bernstein: her phone. She is not listening. Wait a minute. Look, look, look. She does this every episode. Look. I'm going to go back and cut a whole episode of her, of you saying one thing and then her asking the same question. No, you 

Terri Bernstein: just said I didn't know he was in the banking and I said he was.

I, yeah, as part 

Ben Bernstein: of the conversation I'm saying I didn't know that he was in the banking. You guys are killing me. She's killing us. Well, yeah, 

Alan Bernstein: it's, it's mainly her because she was on her phone and she goes. Her and her lisp. Oh, yeah. Anyway Carl became a [00:11:00] very. I'm not talking. Super. Special. Carl became a very good personal and business friend and dad and Carl would sit and talk, who knows what about, but I could guess just about anything so one day we were very busy and it was later on in the lunch hour. So it might've been 1230. Carl usually came right around noonish or maybe a little bit afternoon, but it was now 1230, maybe 1235 and mom decided that Carl wasn't coming and gave his table away.

And Carl walked in about one o'clock. So he was late and he admits he was late and his table was not available to him. Well was there any 

Ben Bernstein: table about, Oh yeah. Mom and dad got 

Alan Bernstein: him a table. Absolutely. They, they got him seated and got him [00:12:00] situated. He had his lunch and then he left and about. Three, four hours after lunch.

So it was late in the afternoon, maybe three, four o'clock in the afternoon, a truck pulls up and the truck driver goes out and picks up his thing and he brings it in and he says, this is for Ben and Shirley Bernstein. So, you know, it's in a box. It was a table and four chairs. Oh. It was a set. I don't know where you buy that kind of stuff, but you buy it. And he had it shipped over to mom and dad. And so there was a note, and the note said, Dear Ben and Shirley, this table and chairs will always ensure that my table will be there for me whenever I get there.

And of course we laughed at it, and [00:13:00] My dad started to ponder. Now when he pondered, he always had this thing, you know, he was bald. So you could tell that he was, moving his brain. You could see that the wheels are turning. And so later on, just several weeks go by and my dad and mom loved ice cream.

They loved it. And so they went to United Dairy Farmers, which Carl Lindner, which Carl Lindner owns another one of his businesses. And dad ordered a banana split. He loved banana splits. So do you. Yes, it's a family thing. I, I think Jimmy does too. Actually Mr. Ronco loves banana splits. I 

Terri Bernstein: do not love a banana split.

Alan Bernstein: You do not? 

Ben Bernstein: How do you not like a banana split? 

Terri Bernstein: I don't love bananas. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, you have that texture thing. Weirdo. He goes to United Dairy Farmers to get a banana split and they said, we're sorry we're out of bananas. And dad went, [00:14:00] you're out of bananas. And so he ordered ice cream or whatever it was.

And the next day he calls up Joe's Squeri's father, Charlie. And he said, Charlie, I have a favor. I know that you don't normally do this. But I need you as a supplier to restaurants. I need you to find a green stalk of about 200 bananas. 

Ben Bernstein: No, it wasn't like a whole bushel or whatever. It was a whole 

Alan Bernstein: stalk.

Yeah, 

a 

Ben Bernstein: whole stalk. 

Alan Bernstein: A whole stalk. There 

Ben Bernstein: were, 

Alan Bernstein: there were in Ecuador stalks, grew like two, 300 bananas on a, Big stalk. And it was a good six, seven, eight feet tall. So Charlie said to dad, Ben, I can't find a stalk of bananas like that. , I don't even know that they ship them to the United States that way.

And he said, Charlie, you will find me a stalk of bananas. Down in Florida, somewhere, you're gonna, you're, [00:15:00] I know they come into the country in the. And if anyone can find it, he can find it. That's right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. So a week goes by and Charlie finally calls dad and says, Mr. Bernstein, I, I, I Found you a stalk of about 200 bananas in their green.

And he said, perfect, I'll buy it. He bought it. They shipped it to Cincinnati and it came to the Mike Fink and then dad had a courier come pick up the stalk of bananas and wrote a note, dear Carl, this. present will ensure that when I go to United Dairy Farmers, that they will never tell me that they don't have bananas for a banana split.

Your friend, Ben. Well, we got a courier to take it over there. And when the courier came to see [00:16:00] dad, dad said, Now, I want you to know that this must Go to Carl Lindner in his office and we're making arrangements for you to gain access So mom called his secretary and of course arranged the whole thing and he got up there but it was a lot of trouble he did get up there and the secretary got him to the door and they opened the door and she said Mr.

Lindner this gentleman's here to deliver a package. And in he walked with these bananas, he read the note and I don't know that he did the thing that dad did where he started to ponder what would be an appropriate response to these 200 banana. And they were green, you know.

Bananas are green, very green, until they ripen, and as they ripen, they get more and more and more and more yellow. That's just the process that bananas go [00:17:00] through. I'm pretty sure 

Ben Bernstein: everybody listening understands how a banana goes from green 

to 

Alan Bernstein: yellow. Now, this is just in case you didn't know how a banana ripens.

And the colors that it turns you know, we lived in the banana capital of the world. You did. Yes. That was Ecuador. Yep. Okay. You were the top. Chiquita banana. My dad was a top banana. Yes. So anyway, now Mr. Lindner has to ponder. What response he's going to do. And the only thing he could actually think of was that one day a box appeared at Mike Fink for Ben and Shirley Bernstein, a little box, you know, like a greeting card, you would put it in you know, with a ribbon on it or whatever. It was a pretty thick box, but it was sort of that kind of a box. And. Inside the box are hundreds [00:18:00] of free banana splits at United Dairy Farm. So dad never had to pay for the rest of his life for a banana split.

And the note just said Ben, I appreciate your bananas, and I have put the word out to the stores that when Mr. Bernstein goes, he gets a banana split for free. So Did 

Terri Bernstein: you give him free meals at the Mike Fang? I don't think they did. It's not really an equivalence. 

Alan Bernstein: No, I There's not equivalency there.

Yeah that, that, that would, yeah. I'm 

Ben Bernstein: sure his three martini lunches were awfully expensive. Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: It actually ended there. But I have to say it, some reporter got wind of this and wrote a very funny story in the Enquirer I don't know it was front page, but it was pretty close to the front page.

And they wrote it and everybody loved this. It is a very famous story at the Mike [00:19:00] Fink between Carl and that do you have that, that newspaper? Yes. It's in my office. It's on one of these I'll find 

Terri Bernstein: it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: I, we, I have it. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I may have the newspaper clipping too, cause I have all those newspapers in storage, but I don't know if I have the actual newspaper.

I don't care. I just want to read the article. Oh, it's funny. , it's almost verbatim. But I doubt, I highly doubt it. Well, I mean, it might be. You've never done 

Ben Bernstein: anything verbatim. Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: So that is the famous story between mom and dad and Mr. Lindner and his group. They all thought it was very funny and very entertaining.

Ben Bernstein: Well also at the Mike Fink grandpa had some run ins with the law. Oh, yeah. From time to time. And he was a very well dressed man. Yes, he 

Alan Bernstein: [00:20:00] was. My dad he dressed very, very well. I have a feeling that was all because he was in manufacturing of clothing, that he knew Brooks Brothers and he knew, Good clothes and you know that kind of stuff.

I that's probably was 

Ben Bernstein: a lot different back then 

Alan Bernstein: Yes, and you never went out without a tie and was in a coat, it was very different. But one very funny famous story with dad and the law was River Fest on River Fest. I thought it was River Fest. Yeah. And it was it River Fest was really starting to climb the ladder.

I mean, it was the traffic became worse and people and, you know, River Fest at the very beginning was just sort of a gathering. Yeah. You know, the fireworks went on. What did it start for? Was it just the I think it was just the end of summer celebration. Yeah. And so we started to have meetings with the city of Covington and the [00:21:00] police and the traffic people and the you know, who knows buses and everything like that.

So at all these meetings Dad and I would usually go together because Dad would usually go off in the corner and talk with the mayor or whoever else was there. And they started discussing how they were going to close streets, what streets they were going to close, and how they would get people that Either lived in the area that they closed off or that were coming to the Mike Fink in particular.

This is dad's Certainly his issue was how would customers get to him if they cut the street off? so The the idea was to cut it off at 4th Street in Covington if any of you have been over there Fourth Street is the main street going west. When you come over from Newport, you're on Fourth Street and you go straight to the interstate.

So they would cut it off at Fourth Street. In other [00:22:00] words, you would not be able to turn right on to Greenup. Which is where we were at the foot of Greenup. That's now called Ben Bernstein way, by the 

Ben Bernstein: way. Yeah. 

Green up street all the way at the bottom, 

Alan Bernstein: all the way at the bottom is called Ben Bernstein way.

It's no longer green up street. But anyway so the police said we will post a officer there. You send a list up and if the Joneses or the Smiths or the. Bernstein's were on the list, they would be able to get through. So we're going on normal busy time, and all of a sudden people, customers, started to say we weren't allowed to come down here to park.

And Dad said, what? And he said, yeah, we were made to park up on 5th Street and we have to walk here. So that particular day, I remember dad was in sort of red, white, and blue. He wore absolutely perfectly white pants. He had a shirt that he had a [00:23:00] tie, which I think was red.

And he had the tie was red or the shirt was red. The tie was red. Yeah. And then he wore a blue blazer, , 

Ben Bernstein: I thought that maybe it's a different story, but I thought it was all white suit. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, he did have a white shirt and he had white pants. You could almost call it a white suit.

Go on. But he was very colorful. It's irrelevant. He was very, yeah, it is irrelevant. 

So dad goes up and he says officer, my name's Ben Bernstein and I own the Mike Fink and we have an agreement with the city of Covington to let our patrons through and they can park down in our parking lot.

And we have a group of people who say you're not letting them through. And he said Mr. Bernstein we have determined that we cannot have any more traffic down that way and we've cut it off. And dad said, what do you mean you are having too much traffic down here? We're the only thing really here.

And they know we're having traffic. Well, [00:24:00] anyway, they get into a pretty good heated argument. It was not a discussion because the officer made it clear he was not budging. And dad. As stubborn as he was sometimes 

Terri Bernstein: it clear that he made it 

Alan Bernstein: clear that he was not budging. So there was a customer that was coming through that said when he got down to the Mike Fink, he said, Alan, you better go up because it looks like your dad's getting into trouble up at the police barricade.

So I go up and dad is dug in. The officer is dug in. They have the supervisor of the officer they've called the chief of police and they've called, you know, all these people to the scene because they were just about ready to arrest dad. And put him up on the 10th floor where the jail was. Which is , now [00:25:00] very nice conduct.

Very, very nice. Very nice. they even made the jail a part of that. Right. I mean, they took the jail. The jails took all the bars down and they're now luxury condos. That's called renovation. Oh, yeah. Oh, I guess they needed a cutting torch. Mind blowing. I guess they needed a cutting torch. Anyway so dad gets arrested and hauled away in handcuffs in his suit.

Terri Bernstein: On River Fest 

Alan Bernstein: on River Fest. Mom is panicked. Mom's panic. And I said, you stand in there watching it. I watched the whole thing. As if it was right where Terri is. So away he goes. 

I had to walk down to the Mike bank to tell mom that dad had went to jail. And I think I needed to pick up like a thousand or 2 in cash in order to bail him out. You know, , they don't take a check.[00:26:00] 

Jail requires cash. Still does. Yeah, I think it does. I think it still does. so dad gets up to the 10th floor jail. And of course he's in a holding cell, you know, it wasn't private. It was, he's in this 20 person holding cell with the drunks and the drug addicts and I guess thieves and everybody else that's up there.

And of course, dad walks into the jail. They put him into the cell and it's the scenario where you walk in and everybody stops talking, they're all looking at you. So I'm sure he was a showstopper. Oh, he was. And of course, everybody wanted to know, you know, was he a drug dealer?

Was he you know, what was he in for a bank robbery, a pimp, a pimp? Yeah. He could have been a pimp. Sure. He could have. And he said, no got into an argument with a policeman. And it was pretty [00:27:00] nonchalant., I get my money and I go back up there. In the meantime, it's getting close to showtime and fireworks, fireworks.

And so I go up and where you bail, where you post bail or bond or whatever it's called is downstairs. And then you can go upstairs or they send them down or however it's done. And Dad said when he was in there and they started the fireworks, all the inmates rushed over to the one little tiny window that they had, and they were all going, Ooh, and dad's sitting there, he could care less about the fireworks.

And He got out just as the show ended he came down and dad and I walked back To the Mike Fink. It was only a block so He missed the entire fireworks , Mom was just totally upset Dad was pretty upset and in the meantime, I I think it [00:28:00] was 1, 500 bond, I think It's a lot of money. Seems 

Terri Bernstein: like a lot.

Alan Bernstein: Yeah. Yeah. It might be. I don't. That might be an exaggeration. 

Terri Bernstein: We can only get so lucky in that dad would get stuck in jail on Riverfest. 

Alan Bernstein: And so dad appeared in court and He was given I don't know a couple several days where was 

Ben Bernstein: that where was the police officer that you arranged all this with Who should have been there.

Alan Bernstein: Oh, they all said, yes, we made an agreement with Ben and, but it didn't mean anything. He still got arrested. I, the police officer that arrested him. Well actually I think they became friends at the end, but dad was very upset with the police officer that arrested him because.

Even the guys that he had an agreement with and the city manager and all that, they all collaborated and said, yes, that's, that, that's what we agreed on. But he still had to pay whatever it was, there was a [00:29:00] fine and he had to do community service. So that was a dad's run in with the law. 

Ben Bernstein: I just can't 

Alan Bernstein: believe it 

Ben Bernstein: on Riverfest.

Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe that they didn't throw it all out. No, they did not. Yeah. I grandpa must've got pretty 

Alan Bernstein: animated. Yeah, I don't know. He a little colorful. Oh, he was when I got up there, his little bald head was red as a beet. And anyway. 

Ben Bernstein: All right. Well, moving on from that and many would say saving the best for last.

Speaker 14: Hmm. 

Ben Bernstein: Probably the most famous story, at least in my lifetime, with you, involving a pirate ship, or turning into a pirate ship. The Bell of Cincinnati goes down to the great steamboat race this year. This has to be What do you think this is? Early 2000s? Well, 2006 or 2000. You think it was 

Alan Bernstein: even that, I think it was even that late?

I [00:30:00] think the newspaper clippings. It was because Nick was 

Terri Bernstein: there the following year. So it must be 2005 or six. 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, because he's killed in seven, right? Yeah. Yeah. The Belle of Cincinnati goes down to the great steamboat race goes down to the great steamboat race, which Really needed a lot of help . 

But we do go, we, we, every year we go down to Louisville. And we race the bell Louisville in what is called the great steamboat race, which has been going on since 1964. 

Ben Bernstein: It's a Kentucky Derby 

Alan Bernstein: official festival events. And they sell tickets to it and it's a big, big day in Louisville.

It's the only thing that really is major on that Wednesday is the steamboat race. They have if you don't know, the Derby Festival lasts two full weeks, right before the Kentucky, Saturday Kentucky Derby, first, Saturday in May. And the Steamboat Race has [00:31:00] always been A big spectator kind of a sport because it's, you know, it's outside and it's a big deal.

Terri Bernstein: It was originally the Delta Queen and the 

Alan Bernstein: Belle of Louisville. And the Belle of Louisville, because they were two steamboats and when the Delta Queen went out of service. Right before this happened, right, right before it happened, it might be just a year before. Yeah. We stood in for the Delta queen in Cincinnati and we, during the race, we won.

Overwhelmingly, we won the race and when the race is run when the boats get back to dock, they have to go up to the main stage where both crews get up on the stage and there's a ceremony. The passing of the antlers for the winner of the race. So you don't get to keep the antlers unless you continue to win year after [00:32:00] year.

And these antlers are big, they're, they're 12, 14 point elk antlers. And the antlers are a 

Ben Bernstein: traditional trophy 

Alan Bernstein: for a fast boat, a steamboat. That's correct. Because I guess in the olden days that was an indicator of a fast boat.

Terri Bernstein: So if you're trying to ship something, you wanted to find a boat and 

Alan Bernstein: before advertising and all that stuff, you wouldn't go down to the levee and you wanted to know that the boat would get from Cincinnati to St. Louis in four days or eight days or whatever it was. So that was that's the trophy and the winner of the race gets the trophy for the year And then you have to bring it back for the ceremony the next year so The judges have a little tent off the side of the stage where they convene in each boat brings two judges.

That's what you're allowed. Two judges and a festival has [00:33:00] two judges, and then the mayor or the president of the festival, somebody, there's a seventh vote to break a tie. So, you have two of your judges, the Belle of Louisville has two of theirs, the Festival has their two, and then one other.

Okay. So we go in and of course we're very happy, we've won the race, there's, you know, no argument, no dispute, but hundreds of thousands of people saw this race. And they saw the Belle of Cincinnati. I think hundreds of thousands might be an overestimation. But we'll stick with hundreds. We'll let it go.

We'll stick with it. Okay, a hundred people saw us go across the finish line. That's probably 

Ben Bernstein: closer. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, there was quite a crowd. There is always a crowd. There is always quite a crowd. I, you're right, it may not be hundreds of thousands, but it's thousands. It's probably tens. Oh yeah, I think it's [00:34:00] thousands, there's no doubt.

So, we're all in the tent together. The mayor of Louisville at that time was Mayor Abramson, I haven't talked to Mayor Abramson in a long time. 

Ben Bernstein: He came 

Alan Bernstein: into the tent. He came into the tent. Abruptly. I mean, he flung the curtain. Yeah, the curtain. And he said, I don't know what's being discussed in here, but the Belle of Louisville won the race. They are declared the winner. And that's all I got to say.

And he left, huh? Well, that was quite rude. And I keep saying, I kept saying mayor, mayor, and he just walks out. He leaves. So, the judges reconvene, and they decide to go with the mayor of Louisville and declared the Belle of Cincinnati the loser of the race, and the winner was the Belle of Louisville.

And off they went with [00:35:00] the antlers, back to their boat. And we were sort of left dumbfounded. I mean, what happened? How, how could this happen? Everybody saw, well, it happened. So we're all walking back to our boat and the crew says, captain, this is wrong. , we have been wronged here and we deserve those antlers.

And we have a plan on how to get them. We're going to do something about it. We're going to take this in our own hands. Now I have to preface this part by saying when our crew gets riled up like that, it's hard to control them. I mean, they, they sort of get themselves built up into a frenzy. You can't stop them.

You can only hope to contain them, but you can't stop. So our chief engineer and our oiler and our deck hands and our captain and everybody [00:36:00] else get in on this scheme. So the scheme was this covert ops. Oh yeah. We were going underground. We're going to get two girls to go over.

To the Belle of Louisville's night watchman. And they're going to distract him while everybody dressed in black is going to go in and get the antlers. Which worked quite well. They asked for a tour of the Belle of Louisville and away they went. And here we go. We're all going in and we find the antlers.

And we get the antlers and take them back to the bell. But when we exited the wharf boat that they have, there was the mayor of Louisville's ceramic horse, large life size. What do you mean? They're not ceramic. 

Ben Bernstein: I thought they were like steel. No, not steel, but their 

Alan Bernstein: plaster or their ceramic or what they make them.

They're molds. Okay. [00:37:00] It's a life size thoroughbred horse and jockey. Right. So, 

Ben Bernstein: so everybody listening, a lot of you live in Cincinnati. If you remember back 20 years ago, we did Flying Pig. Yeah. A group would buy a horse or donate money. 

Speaker 15: Right. 

Ben Bernstein: And would decorate it. Decorate it. And then I think they judged them, but then they placed them all around the city in certain spots.

Alan Bernstein: And at the end they auctioned them off for money, for charity. Correct, correct. 

So Louisville did this with thoroughbred horses and jockeys. Full size. These are real life size. It was huge. Yeah. So, you don't, is ceramic a bad word? How about plaster? I don't know. 

Terri Bernstein: No, I just 

Alan Bernstein: remember it being, I don't remember it being.

Stone, 

Terri Bernstein: maybe? No, they're made, what, what do they put on cars? It's not plexiglass, it's Fiberglass? Fiberglass. That's what they're made out of. They're not that heavy. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, they were heavy. It was a heavy horse. They decide to take the horse. And they take the horse, and they hoist it up onto the [00:38:00] bow of the Bell of Cincinnati.

Like a hood ornament, a Cadillac hood ornament. And we get the girls back from the tour and it was time to go and it was time to go away. We went and under the cloak of darkness, a cloak of darkness. And I don't think we revved our engines. We just sort of floated out into the river and away we went.

In the meantime, until the night watchman realized he had been bamboozled, hoodwinked, hoodwinked, word of the day, word of the day he then decides to call 9 1 1. For real. This is, this is a real part of no idea. It's a, 

Ben Bernstein: it's 

Alan Bernstein: a, he has no idea. It's a college prank or a joke or whatever. And it pursues a local police department half a day later.

I mean, a couple of hours, a 

Terri Bernstein: couple of hours, yeah, dad's in his car. Yeah, I [00:39:00] was driving back. 

Alan Bernstein: I, it was in darkness, but I'm almost to Cincinnati when, when I got the call that said, you better turn around and go back to, to Louisville to turn yourself in there. They are legitimately hunting you down.

Terri Bernstein: Cause weren't they in Kevin Mullen's front yard? 

Alan Bernstein: Yes. Yeah. At midnight, he was doing an interview. Captain Mullins about the heist and he said his kids were all upset and his wife thinks he's going to jail and all this stuff and they should go to jail. Well, they stole the, they stole it.

Absolutely. So of course the next day, the boat isn't back yet. The boat, it takes overnight to get back. So 

Ben Bernstein: give me a night. It takes about 12 to 14 hours to get down and then about 14, 16, 18, sometimes 24, 30, 

Alan Bernstein: you never know, you never know when the river's running, how long it's going to take. So the next day, of course, all the [00:40:00] phone calls happened.

The mayor is all upset. He's calling me. The, the, the police are calling me to come back and turn myself in. I have to postpone and all that stuff. And the mayor was more concerned because the horse, the mayor's horse that he had decorated in the city of Louisville paraphernalia.

Was to lead the Pegasus parade Thursday afternoon. And the mayor's office called and said the mayor wants the horse back right now, and you got to get it here. Cause it's going to lead the parade in about two hours. It's not going to make it. And I said, the horse is AWOL. 

Terri Bernstein: We put it, we put a BB riverbeds t shirt on it.

Alan Bernstein: We decorated it all BB riverboats. If you remember, we had it all. I 

Terri Bernstein: think we had a hat on it. We 

Alan Bernstein: had a captain's hat and we did something to the jockey to make him whatever, [00:41:00] it looked a lot 

Ben Bernstein: better than what it looked like. 

Alan Bernstein: So I told the mayor I said, Mayor, I'm sorry, the horse is not coming back for your parade.

And it didn't. It missed the parade. However we did make, arrangements for the horse to go back to Louisville in a traditional way. We put it on the Delta Queen, which was in Cincinnati. Another coincidence. Another coincidence. Just happened to be in Cincinnati. So we took it over by barge. Now we have pictures of it on the barge going over.

We landed the public landing and the parade of deckhand with the horse, and of course, all the patrons of the Delta Queen were watching this. This was a big, big deal, and we paraded the horse down the landing and onto the Delta Queen onto the bow of their boat, like a hood ornament, like a Cadillac blue ornament.

Did it, did it have all the BB Riverboats gear? Oh, yeah. Oh, it had, [00:42:00] oh yeah. It was totally reconditioned. And it went back by boat. And in the meantime article after article, we are on the front page of the Louisville Courier Journal, the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Huntington, there 

Terri Bernstein: was a reporter sitting there when we stole.

Everything there was a reporter sitting for the courier 

Alan Bernstein: journal. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah, he was finishing up his article And watched it all go down. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, I didn't know that Well, I knew that they wrote an article, but I didn't know who would have been charged as an accomplish Accessory to burglary so the long part of this story I have to go back.

This isn't the long part, . No, no, no. This is the shortened version. I have to go back to Louisville to face the charges. So I drive down the next day. And on the public landing, the, are these still real charges? The still real charges. [00:43:00] Okay. There were four counts. Horse stealing.

Which in Kentucky is 

Ben Bernstein: a 

Alan Bernstein: very, very serious crime. In fact, I think you can still hang in Kentucky for stealing horses. There was disrespect to the mayor's office of Louisville or some trumped up charge about being disrespectful to their mayor. Disrespectful to us. That's what I said. I said, we should charge them.

Yeah. So, and then there were two trumped up charges about inflicting pain and suffering on the kids of Louisville, that the Belle of Cincinnati had stolen the mayor's horse and stole the antlers, which were listed in the article as priceless, priceless. There was no value could be. Ascertained to put a bet value.

Those were two Trump charges. The two real charges was horse stealing and whatever the mayor trumped up. . And of course, I [00:44:00] got my attorney who was a Louisville lady. And when she came down to represent me, when they read the charges, she said, I can't represent you because.

This is too painful for me to represent. So I would have to choose with the other. She was with the other team. Yeah. Yeah. So there I am having to defend myself. Of course I lost on all four counts. I was guilty as charged. And I was sentenced to two days of community service. The first day was being a deckhand on the Belle of Louisville

now deckhanding on the Belle of Louisville isn't that bad of a job, but it was for me. It was toilets, urinals. You know, that kind of stuff. Toothbrush cleaning of the toilets and the Brass shining. And then the second day of community service that I had to do was the pooper scooper in the Pegasus Parade the next [00:45:00] year.

Yeah. So You were in a, you were in a crook outfit. I was in a prison outfit and we all came to behind the, the, the Clydesdales. They, they assigned me the Clydesdales. I mean, those things make a hell of a mess anyway. That's a big pile of shit.

In many different ways. For three and a half miles, I scooped the poop of a Clydesdale. A very, very funny day. People cheered me and a lot of people booed me. I was in a prison outfit, you know, yeah. And our whole crew wore prison outfits that year for the race. We were all.

Prisoners. this turned into one big publicity stunt, really. It was the biggest publicity stunt that BB Riverboats has ever done. It's the best marketing BB Riverboats has ever done. And [00:46:00] it was all by 

Ben Bernstein: mistake. It was all by happenstance. But well, and a lot of your friends at the Coast Guard were reading this along the way.

Oh yeah, 

Alan Bernstein: oh yeah. Well I'm not done with the story. I'm just trying to help you along. Okay, well I'm glad you are. as the Coast Guard read this in the newspaper, I mean, they're reading it every day for weeks they finally thought that there should be action taken. And the action was that they wrote a proclamation, which we still have and cherish.

Very proudly. Very proudly. We have the proclamation where the United States Coast Guard declares that the Belle of Cincinnati its captain and all of its crew and anybody who rides upon it. We're going to be officially known as pirates. And in that proclamation, we need to fly the pirate flag to warn all the boats around the Belle of Cincinnati.

We're a bad boat, the Jolly Roger, the Jolly Roger, [00:47:00] and we fly it on very proudly, very proud, fairly, very, very proudly. And. Have to say we have celebrated being a pirate to a full extent. We now have pirate cruises. We have little pirate hats. We have some treasure on board. For our little pirates when they come aboard.

And that really is why the, when you come to BB and you get on the Belle of Cincinnati, you will proudly see on the mass poll just below our BB Bergey flag. Yeah. Is the Pirate Flight. The Jolly Roger. The Jolly Roger. Skull and Crossbones. Skull and Crossbones. And we, like I said, we're very proud.

Ben Bernstein: And if you've ever wondered why we fly the Jolly Roger, that is why. We get that question many almost every time. All the time. 

Terri Bernstein: So I found the bill of lading. 

Alan Bernstein: Oh, the Delta, that's right. 

Terri Bernstein: The Delta [00:48:00] queen sent to the bell of Louisville returning the stolen 

Ben Bernstein: stolen. Say louder this time.

Terri Bernstein: They charged 83, 975. 

Alan Bernstein: Yes, and if I remember right, the caretaker got drunk and something happened. Well, yeah, 

Terri Bernstein: the let's 

Ben Bernstein: see, they had to care for him. To me, the funniest part. So we'll post the, the bill of lading. On Facebook and Instagram, this episode comes up. But the funniest part it's an itemized list of all the charges that it tallies up to like 84, 000 and then the very last line of it, or two tickets to the Kentucky dirt.

Speaker 14: So 

Ben Bernstein: you can pay 80, which maybe they, they. The bar bill 

Terri Bernstein: for the jockey was 933, 000. 

Alan Bernstein: The 

Terri Bernstein: hangover medication for the jockey, suit [00:49:00] filed by a passenger who got bumped from the room for the jockey was 50, 000. But this does tell us it was May the 1st, 2004. 

Ben Bernstein: Oh, okay. That's when it came back. So it was 2004. No, no, 

Terri Bernstein: no.

That's when the rate, 

Ben Bernstein: oh, that was the bill only? You just spit all over it. 

Terri Bernstein: How many more weeks do you have left? Four more weeks. Four more weeks. It might be more than that. It depends. 

Ben Bernstein: Oh my goodness. Thank God you don't talk a whole lot. I know. Oh. Anyway, 

Terri Bernstein: we'll post it. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: We'll post it. That is the very, very famous.

Pirate story it's time for the word of the day. Oh, there we go 

Moderator: Now it is time for rambling on the rivers

Word of the day 

Terri Bernstein: All right 

Moderator: That always 

Terri Bernstein: sounds like it's gonna be more impressive than it is. 

Moderator: Oh, 

Terri Bernstein: come on! It's like this intense music. [00:50:00] Come on, bamboozled was a good word. And then word of the day. 

Ben Bernstein: Again, you guys can have your own production done at any time. I will pay for it.

You get your creative juices rolling and have new ones. I'm good. I'm good. 

Terri Bernstein: I just like to complain Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: very much. I think the order is wrong at the beginning

All right this week's word is Hoity toity. 

Moderator: Oh I love it. 

Alan Bernstein: I Love when we go hoity toity. Now, here's the way you spell that hoity Is HOI,

little quicker. L , I'm, I'm everyone's falling asleep. TTYI. 

Speaker 14: Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: Or it could be IE and then toti is the same. [00:51:00] T-O-I-T-I-E or TY or whatever. Hoity tote. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: Great job. And, and hoity tote means. The definition. The definition. Let's hear the definition. The real definite I don't have oh, we don't know you are definition you are the definition Yeah, it's gonna be a little better than that I would say The 

Terri Bernstein: people in the upper class social Circle right 

Ben Bernstein: haughty or snobbish.

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: very money'd hoity toity Inhabitants of the island. There you go That is a perfect 

Alan Bernstein: definition. 

Ben Bernstein: Well, everybody's a little disappointed they didn't hear your definition. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, that sort of was mine. I mean, come on! You don't want to be disrespectful to people that are up in the This is turning into my 

Ben Bernstein: favorite part of the word of the day.

Oh. What's the origin? 

I would say hillbilly.

I can't remember what word it was. When he looked at it, he says German. [00:52:00] It just looks German. 

Alan Bernstein: That would be my I think Hillbilly is moving along. 

Moderator: Welcome to as the paddle wheel turns our look at pertinent current events happening right now in the world.

Ben Bernstein: All right. This episode will come out on August. The 28th, which is Wednesday, August the 28th. That is just a couple of days for one, two, three, four days prior to the biggest end of summer celebration. And that is the WBN. I don't know. Who's the other sponsor? WBN. It's a bank. 

Alan Bernstein: No, it's a bank. Is it Western Southern?

Southern Southern. No. No. It's a bank. First Federal. No. 

Ben Bernstein: No. Yeah. It's not First Federal. What is this year's? The W. E. B. M. Fireworks. Who cares? [00:53:00] You're the secondary sponsor. Well, we 

Alan Bernstein: ought to get it right. They might want to sponsor our show. 

Terri Bernstein: Western Southern. Western and Southern WBN Fireworks. 

Ben Bernstein: There's a lot of S's in there.

Terri Bernstein: Shut up. I can't. 

Ben Bernstein: Anyway, so if the weather's nice, it is a very popular place to bring your boat to come down to the Riverside. 

And 

Terri Bernstein: what are they doing during the day? Don't they have like a rubber ducky 

Alan Bernstein: regatta and there's something over on the wall there and they have a band, they have bands and Newport 

Terri Bernstein: has a festival. That's a fun, but 

Alan Bernstein: you're talking more about river traffic and being safe and secure. 

Ben Bernstein: In general, if they're coming down rather they be coming on foot or if they're coming by boats the first thing I would say is come early

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to be a latecomer. 

Terri Bernstein: Well, the street's all [00:54:00] closed by six o'clock. Everybody, 

Alan Bernstein: everything. Yeah. No, 

Terri Bernstein: they're closed. No, they are o'clock. They closed 

Alan Bernstein: by six. Okay. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: So six o'clock you're now, you can do the two interstate bridges. 

Terri Bernstein: You can walk and you can walk, but you can't drive.

Alan Bernstein: You can go on either side of the downtown area 75 or 471. You, that is always open, right? It never, yeah. The bridges interior to that close 

Terri Bernstein: and on the river, you're stuck outside the bridges. 

Alan Bernstein: You're in a zone. If you want to anchor, you're in an anchor zone. When does 

Terri Bernstein: that stop? Is that all?

I believe 

Alan Bernstein: at six 30 or seven o'clock, they close off the channel. And it's a no wake zone 

Ben Bernstein: from noon, I 

Alan Bernstein: think. Yeah, they move it all 

Ben Bernstein: the 

Alan Bernstein: way back, 

Ben Bernstein: yeah. But I think it's through 

Alan Bernstein: the entire area. I 

Terri Bernstein: think it's bridge to bridge, 75 bridge to 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, I think it is bridge to bridge. I thought it extended. Maybe. They did, you're right.

Ben, you're right. They used to. I don't know if they still do [00:55:00] or not. We 

Terri Bernstein: clearly have no idea because we never get to leave here. 

Alan Bernstein: We want everybody to be safe. We want everybody to be secure. If you see something that looks bad, you say something. 

Terri Bernstein: They've definitely made it a much safer event than they did in the past.

I mean, they took away alcohol, which stopped a lot of Yeah, a 

Alan Bernstein: lot of crazy stuff. The fighting and 

Terri Bernstein: the, 

Alan Bernstein: and 

Terri Bernstein: the coolers with the beer bottles. 

Alan Bernstein: But we're going through this with River Roots Tall Stacks next year that, you have to prepare for a lot more than you used to 18, 20 years ago.

Terri Bernstein: But it's a great fireworks display. 

Alan Bernstein: I think it's awesome. It's, 

Terri Bernstein: it is. 

Alan Bernstein: I think it rivals Thunder. a lot of people think Thunder over Louisville is a better show. I think they have a nice air show. I do like their air show down there. 

Terri Bernstein: I think this show is better. I think Louisville's spot, because it's bigger and open, that it kind of looks 

Alan Bernstein: cooler.

Well, it also spreads it out. [00:56:00] That's right. That's, you got, that's exactly right. 

Terri Bernstein: That's the only reason why it's neater, but. And 

Alan Bernstein: I don't know that I can compliment Louisville over Cincinnati after they've been so mean to us. Especially this episode. Yeah, 

Terri Bernstein: we are very nice to Louisville except for one day a year.

I know 

Alan Bernstein: that. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah 

Alan Bernstein: Yeah, all those guys on the Belle are good friends of mine for 364 days of the year 

Ben Bernstein: I would say if you're going to come down boating come early not number one come early number two if your boat doesn't have a restroom, I would probably go find a buddy buy him a case of beer or something nice and buddy up so you can use their restroom because you're not getting in.

Alan Bernstein: They sort of raft and then they find a 

Terri Bernstein: bathroom. And most of them are all friends and they have done it for so many years. I mean, 

Alan Bernstein: yeah. 

Terri Bernstein: If you're a random person it might be a little hard. Are our house 

Alan Bernstein: mudders out here yet? Tomorrow. Tomorrow. 

Terri Bernstein: Are they coming this year? They did not come last year. They [00:57:00] called me 

Alan Bernstein: this morning.

Terri Bernstein: Huh. 

Alan Bernstein: 830 this morning. How many years do you think they've been doing that? Oh my god. A long time. And they've had a lot more. 

Terri Bernstein: Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: They've had a lot more. Now they can only put about 8 or 10 boats in there. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. That's it. Every year we have a group of houseboaters that Push into the, bank just below our dock and they spend usually two, three weeks.

Yeah, they've cut it back here for three weeks before I know for sure. Oh yeah. This is as early of a river fest as you can have. Maybe 

Terri Bernstein: we should do that in Louisville. Get dad to give us three weeks off and just take our pontoon boat up there and just stay there for three weeks.

Ben Bernstein: Where are we gonna stay? I 

Terri Bernstein: don't know but I was just thinking he could give us three weeks off 

Ben Bernstein: If you want three weeks you take three weeks, I don't think i've been trying to tell you this I don't think I don't need to listen to it's hard 

Alan Bernstein: to take one day I don't know. I got a thousand 

Terri Bernstein: phone calls yesterday and I just didn't our fall 

Alan Bernstein: meeting of the board of directors We're going to have some discussion about [00:58:00] this 

Ben Bernstein: All right, well I guess that's it. Next episode, we're going to be talking about dad's summer in the Catskill mountains. Oh, that's a good one. How old 

Alan Bernstein: were you when you did that? 17. I was a year under age. I lied. I mean, I, I told him I was 18, 

Ben Bernstein: you were still in Ecuador. 

Alan Bernstein: Well, I came home and then I went to the Catskill Mountains.

Terri Bernstein: No, you went on the Delta Queen and then I mean, 

Alan Bernstein: that's right. I'm sorry. That's correct. Terri, you are correct. So 

Ben Bernstein: you 

Alan Bernstein: Delta Queen, 

Ben Bernstein: Delta Queen, then you came home from the Delta Queen. You went to the cat. Well, 

Alan Bernstein: I went to school and then I went to the Catskill Mountains. That's correct. 

Ben Bernstein: So that's what you have to look forward to.

Alan Bernstein: It's 

Ben Bernstein: a good one. We'll see you next week. All 

Moderator: right. for listening to the rambling on the river podcast presented by BB river boats. Stay tuned for the next episode of our podcast and remember to like, subscribe [00:59:00] and follow us on all your favorite podcast platforms.

Ben Bernstein: The previous episode was brought to you by BB Riverboats. 

Sponsor Message: The moments that await just around the river's bend are what we look forward to each day. Watching high school sweethearts tie the knot or watching them celebrate 50 wonderful years together. A group of old friends reuniting for one more adventure or young minds embarking on their first.

Next. Next. At BB Riverboats, we believe a cruise on the mighty Ohio is where lifelong memories are made. And that once you experience it, you'll want to share it with others time and time again. Plan your group event at BBRiverboats. com. Journey Aboard.