Ben Bernstein: [00:00:00] This episode of Ramblin on the River is presented 

Sponsor Message: by BB Riverboats. 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 River. BB Riverboats. The river is waiting.

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

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

Ben Bernstein: Well, hello everybody. Welcome back. Hello. You have found your way to rambling on the river. We appreciate you listening. Before we do get started. We'd love for you to go and give us a like and subscribe to our podcast on any one of your favorite podcast platforms we Would love for you to connect with us on Facebook and Instagram. You can visit our website at ramblinontheriver. com. How do you, how do you spell that out?

Call house guard. I don't know how to spell it, but I have a 

Ben Bernstein: comment. No. 

Here the order Rambling. Rambling on the river. Yeah. Oh, oh, yes. 

Ben Bernstein: I'm gonna turn your microphone off in the [00:02:00] beginning. Yep. Oh yeah. And also please connect with us via email podcast@bbriverboats.com.

As my father said in the last episode, we're going to take a, I guess, not really a little break, but a little a little side version. There you go. A little we, we just finished up three episodes of some of our previous restaurant and business ventures. And this week we are going to get into some of the influence and some of Connections with some of our friends around the country.

And without further ado, we're going to get into. Story time. Gather 

around, everybody. It's story time. 

Ben Bernstein: All rambling on 

Moderator (2): the 

Moderator (3): river. All 

Ben Bernstein: rambling on the river. So we have a very special guest all the way from Pittsburgh. And not just a special, it's very special. Very, very special. A very, very close friend to [00:03:00] not only you, our families as well.

Yep. He is the owner and operator of Gateway Clipper Fleet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Can we boo 

the Pittsburgh part? Yeah, I think 

Ben Bernstein: we can boo the Pittsburgh part cause they always beat us. There's nothing, there's nothing to boo right now when you're as bad as the Bengals are. We'd like to welcome to the show, Terry Wurgenis. How are you doing, Terry? 

Terry Wirginis: I'm doing great, Ben. Thank you, Terry. Terry, you sound good. Yeah, I thank you. So do you all, 

I have 

Terry Wirginis: to tell you well, with two years ago, the Bengals were in the Superbowl 

and 

Terry Wirginis: Al and I were talking, he said, I can't get my employees to do anything. They're completely consumed by this. So they're not, they're not coming to work busy all the time.

I said, well, you know, that's been happening for 40 years. Yeah. 

Alan Bernstein: He, he certainly reminded me. Pour a little salt in the wind. Yeah. A little salt in the 

Ben Bernstein: wind. So in 1980, we got into the riverboat business. As we've told in this in this podcast, probably on a couple occasions, we were operating the Mike Fink [00:04:00] restaurant and my grandfather, Ben Bernstein, my father's father had so many customers come down and ask him, Hey, when's the boat leaving that he decided, well, we should go buy a boat.

Well we have Mr. We're Guinness on with us today because he was a. Big part in making that reality. Yeah. 

But to make that connection, Betty Blake was a friend of John Conley's, who is Terry's grandfather. John Conley was Terry or Genesis grandfather. And John was his main business was not boats.

He was in the banking premium business. I don't know. Was that called a particular industry, Terry? We're banking, banking, banks and savings, savings and loan premium. Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: Post world war two, if somebody would be a housewife would be wanting to get a good set of a china or silverware and he put together a program named it out with a gold plated plate.

So, a little wheat wheat [00:05:00] stock on it and named it the world Josie and that's how he made his first million dollars. So, as a lady would come in every day, put 5 in her savings account, she'd get a plate. Yeah. Come back next week, take another 5 and Forbes magazine, one point called him the godfather of open an account, get a toaster.

 So Dad and Betty Blake were very good friends here.

Betty lived here, came to our restaurants on a regular basis and befriended Dad. And Dad, you know, like Betty, Betty was a very likable I, I almost regard her as my second mother. But Betty, when dad said, maybe we should go into the excursion boat business, Betty said, I know the perfect person in Pittsburgh that we can talk 

Ben Bernstein: to.

And I know we've talked about her a lot, but for those who maybe are new to the show, Betty Blake is the old president of the Delta queen steamboat 

company. And she started with Delta queen as a sales, an advanced [00:06:00] sales. This is when boats. Didn't, you know, there weren't newspapers and there weren't, I mean, there were local newspapers, but there weren't the USA is today back in the early years.

They sent people to different towns and advertise that a boat was coming. That's how they did it. And she started at the end of that era. That's that's how, and she just knew John Connolly, and she said, well, Ben, it's funny you say that, I know the guy in Pittsburgh, he has several boats up there and That's how it all 

Ben Bernstein: came 

together.

So 

Ben Bernstein: enter John Conley. Enter John Conley. Enter John Conley. Gateway Clipper Fleet. And Terry, 

why don't you Well, and honestly, I think Terry was young. I think he was Well, he is the same age as I was. I'll get into that. Okay. I can fill in the blanks for you, though. 

Ben Bernstein: Alright, I'll 

shut up. 

Terry Wirginis: Alright. 

Ben Bernstein: That's very hard for him to do, though.

Terry Wirginis: Well you had talked about Captain Jack Gessling before. Captain Jack was my mother, Audrey's first [00:07:00] cousin. They grew up together in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, and my mom's family was all very close. And during World War II Jack was, he wasn't a captain by that time.

He wanted to go to the Merchant Marines. His parents actually signed for him to go to the Merchant Marines when he was 16 years old, 1944. So, he was and the Marines through the end of the war and he served his hitch by the time he got out, his parents had moved to Chicago. So he went to Chicago and got a job with Mercury Sightseeing Cruises, which are, you know, it's still, the company's still 

Moderator (3): there.

Terry Wirginis: And he and his wife Maria got married and they came to my grandparents house. My grandparents had a farm out in little old Dorseyville, PA. Cattle and horses and in addition to everything else. So I remember I was 6 years old and Jack came, Captain Jack, because he already had a license.

He came in, he wanted to he said, you know, Uncle Jack, call him John Connelly Oh, he, John Connolly also had become the the finance officer for the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority. And they [00:08:00] had just written 500 million dollars In 1955 dollars, he was in, he had that money and it was all at Mellon Bank and he was the one that was in charge of putting it up.

So Jack came back and said, you know, Uncle Jack, you're looking at, these rivers are going to be cleaned up here pretty soon and this would be a great time and it's very comparable to Chicago from the standpoint of the sights we can see from there. You should look at getting a boat. And of course, my granddad was a great entrepreneur and he's, he's, his interest is stirred and he said, well you go out and find me a boat and we'll take a boat.

Well, lo and behold, a couple of months later. Jack and his wife at that time, they're freshly married, they honeymooned at my grandparents house, actually. On the farm, and they he said, Jack, Uncle Jack, I found us a boat. And it's up on Lake Erie, which is a two hour drive from Pittsburgh. It's a two thousand mile journey by boat to get back but my granddad literally said that's that's nice.

I don't have time. I gotta go to work. My grandmother Josephine said, John, you told him you're going to go look at the boat. So, they went up and they looked at the boat and John Conley had no interest really at [00:09:00] that point. To hear him tell it that in buying the boat by the time he got up there, he had his interest and it was an old Lake Erie headboat like a fishing boat.

100 passengers, less than 100 passengers. Single deck And he got up there, he got excited, and he decided to buy the boat. So since he hadn't prepared, he didn't bring a check or anything. And he literally pulled 50 out of his pocket. He had been walking around money. He gave that to Mr. Nolan. It's a Nolan boatyard for But hold it up to pause it on the boat, which and they wrote something up on a piece of paper in a restaurant And he bought his first boat was the Bridget Ann was the name of the boat Of course, we came down we talked I got to be as a little boy part of these conversations What was she named this new company?

that we're going to do and so what Pittsburgh was known as the gateway to the west and this boat looks like a clipper boat and long story short, it became the gateway clipper and 27 boats later, we had, we call ourselves the gateway clipper fleet and I got involved right from the beginning actually, my mother ran the concession, so my little brother [00:10:00] Dave and I were when I was eight years old we were working the stock bar all day long on the sightseeing cruises.

And I worked with the boats all the way through high school and every position. There's things you could do back then you can't do today because the age and so forth. But I was, I was there and did everything I could do. And by the time I graduated from high school and was ready to go to the Ohio Uni State University, I said, this is the last thing I ever doing in my life.

This is nuts. 

Moderator (3): Mm-Hmm. . It was 

Terry Wirginis: so, and the hardest job I ever had was working a clown on the good lollipop. I did that for the better part of one summer when the clown got pregnant.

And that was where I was. And I'd be there first thing in the morning, the deck and clown combination had to clean the boat down and get it ready. And sail, I can't remember a lot of cruises every day, like eight cruises a day, I think, and put it up at night. And it was a great experience for a 16 or 17 year old.

And so it tells you what we do about rules at that point. But so I, I left it. I went to the Ohio state university with our having a farm as well. I got involved [00:11:00] in animal science of a degree in animal science from Ohio state and whether I figured I'd better back it up with a minor in economics, a minor in biology and economics.

And I went to work in the livestock industry in Ohio for a few years. And Married a wonderful girl that you all know. Barbara Wois or Barbara Matthews was her name. She was a teacher and my granddad kept asking me to come back. He wanted to get an operation. Started in Baltimore.

One place he had, had an operation in Philadelphia. I didn't, I wasn't interested. I was a good time. And if you go work for a few years and figure out, you might as well get in a family business. It's working and breathing. It might as well. If you're working for something, you want to end up with something.

So we finally took an offer to come back in the March of spring of 1979. Barbara left her teaching position and I came back and he was going to fire the manager actually, because he thought everything was chaotic. And, Zach D'Alessandro, who you all know very well. Yeah. And he was going to bring me in like a 26 year old guy that I thought I got eaten alive by the fire, but there had been a flood.

I should have realized in that marsh there was a flood. [00:12:00] And he did not fire Zach when he came in, he kept him on to keep the the operation and take care of the fledge conditions we had. And that told me something right there, that he had the sense that this is the guy that knew what was going on.

Well, after a month I said, you know, I called him Pappy, I said, you know, Zach is the only guy here that really has the interest of the company completely at heart. There's a lot of other people there, and they all did a good job, but in their own way, they were always trying to backstab him, so.

Of course he's kept Jack instead of being the general manager as assistant general manager. That's what I was when y'all came up, they get the gateway clipper, which was, which became the Betty Blake. But and I was just a year into it by that time. So Alan, I did, I was just getting my feet wet too at that point.

Yeah. There was a lot of stuff going on. A lot of stuff hits you coming at you fast. 

That's for sure. 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah. So that's the beginning. One 

question, Terry. How did Barb get the nickname of Boo? 

Terry Wirginis: She was one of seven children. There's another story about that behind that. She was in the middle and her father was a World [00:13:00] War II navigator in B 17s.

Great man, really a mentor for me as well. You know, for many years, but she was little. She didn't, because she had older sisters, she didn't have to talk until she was about five years old. And when parades would come by, she would say, Boom, boom, boom, like that. And, and her dad called her Boom Boom.

And that got shortened to Boo. That's what you know. That's all we ever called her actually. We never called her Barbara. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, 

Terry Wirginis: that's 

Ben Bernstein: right. So Dan, why don't you go from there? Let me just tell you one thing. Yeah, go ahead. Let me 

Terry Wirginis: tell you about Boo though. When we got her, she was so instrumental because she cleared out the problems we had with the office.

We changed a lot of personnel. And she was like it would be a really busy Saturday afternoon. Like, and, and then back then you didn't have numbers. You'd go back and John, my granddad would call into the ticket office and and she works Saturday afternoons and I work Saturday nights all the time.

And one time I was at, he's calling and you get the counts and that, you know, that's the worst time to get it. 'cause everything's so busy. You're going crazy and somebody calls, you get a account. 

Moderator (3): Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: And one day he, he wanted to know who account [00:14:00] was and, and who answered the phone. All of a sudden, and what, what's the account?

She, and he looks back and she hung up on me. So, , she really was a very strong person. And I think she, handled people well 

correctly. Yes, she did. Yes, she did. And so now , we've 

Ben Bernstein: set up both sides, right? So why, 

why don't you start? So Betty makes arrangements for us to go to Pittsburgh.

Yep. And we did we went up and, i, I believe John took us somewhere for lunch and we started talking. Every one of our stories has a meal or something. Yeah. I mean, look at us. Yeah. We obviously have never missed one. Well, John Conley was in the 300 pound club I think before he passed away.

He was below 300, but John was a, a good member of the 300 pound club which was, I don't know, about 10 or 12 of us Al Circio and, but, but anyway and certainly I was well into the 300 pound club which I'm not in anymore. No. [00:15:00] Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: The only thing 300 pounds about Terry is probably what he bench presses.

Yeah, 

Ben Bernstein: yeah, yeah. 

Anyway so we went up and John and dad and Betty. And, you know, I didn't know the pointy end from around then I really didn't. And, and dad kept saying, Alan, you're going to learn. It'll be easy. And nothing was easy for Alan. Believe me, school is not easy. It's still living a life.

Wasn't easy. Nothing was easy for Alan. But, but he did turn out to be right that I would learn the business. And and so we made a deal. The gateway Clipper, which was the boat that we were going to take, which we renamed the Betty Blake, right? 

So there's some definition between the company and the particular boat. It was operating as a ferry in Portsmouth, Ohio, because the bridge was torn down or it fell down. 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah. The Route 23 bridge it's what is it, south Point, Ohio? Yeah. 

South Point, right. Kentucky, 

Terry Wirginis: which they rebuilt it because if he, in 66, the Silver [00:16:00] Bridge and Huntington actually collapsed with cars on us.

So they had three suspension bridges across the Ohio up there. And they rebuilt the other two before 

they That's right. That's right. So it was in a ferry service when we drove down to actually see the boat. It was not in Pittsburgh. So dad and Betty and I you know it was in a couple of days. We went down to ride the boat across from, you know, the one city to the other, and I think it operated 24 hours a day, didn't it Terry.

Terry Wirginis: Yes, it did for 14 months, 24 hours a day. Oh, that sounds simple when you get started, but 

it kind of turns into some issues. Oh, yeah, I'm sure it does. That is the boat that came to Cincinnati after its ferry service. Which we leased from them. Which we leased for five years. It was a five year lease.

And we ever purchased the boat or no, no, no, we actually returned the boat. The Betty Blake went back to Pittsburgh and I believe that was the boat that went to [00:17:00] Savannah with Captain, Captain Sam, Sam, yeah, Captain Sam, who didn't think that the government was his partner and I think he didn't pay taxes, right?

Terry Wirginis: He actually was, oh, it was fuel. It was fuel, wasn't it? And I'm not sure it was really, it might've been one of the people who worked for him actually, but they were feeling service and they were putting the fuel on the main and the front of the boat, I'm going to back out on the back of the boat.

It's one way to make profit on fuel. And so captain Sam, we returned the boat to Pittsburgh and we moved on. We had bought. Terry will remember these boats. They were Dubuque boat and boiler work boats. A sister to the Gateway Clipper was the Becky Thatcher and the Mark Twain in New Orleans.

It was down with the president and something happened. I can't remember how we got word. Maybe it was Betty. It could have been Betty may [00:18:00] have said, hey, there's some boats for sale. Oh, and. Now we're already in the business, we're up and running and we, headed down and dad bought the boat, both the Becky Thatcher and the Mark Twain.

Ben Bernstein: Gotcha. 

And we sold the Mark Twain in a trade deal with Bob Lump in Hannibal, Missouri. I feel like Bob Lump's always part of that deal. When we got the Becky Thatcher, we returned the Gateway Clipper back to Pittsburgh and we started our own little fleet, although we did lease the Good Ship Lollipop from Pittsburgh.

And the Good Ship Lollipop came here. You also sank the Good Ship Lollipop. Wait, no, wait a minute. That's Paul Harvey news. That's true. So we released the, the good ship lollipop and we made it our daily booze cruise off the serpentine wall in Cincinnati. And actually it [00:19:00] was pretty popular.

I mean, we ran liquor cruises, you know, happy hour cruises for a couple hours on the Cincinnati side, and it was a perfect boat for that. Perfect. Absolutely. It was a pretty little boat. I mean, this was a yacht, you know, pointy bow Terry and I wrote it down from Pittsburgh. She and I lived right behind the pilot.

There was a little, you're talking about me. Yes. Oh, you don't remember that. No recollection. How would I remember you weren't a baby, but you were young. I mean, I was born in 76. I will show you pictures of you on the good. I had to have been like four. 

Ben Bernstein: I don't, I'm just happy. She's paying 

attention. Yeah.

Well, we leased a good chip lollipop and we became the. Official riverboat for the 1982 world's fair. Yeah. And like Terry said in the boat business, things happen fast and furious. [00:20:00] I mean, it goes fast. It's only in two years. Everything's good until it's not. Now to the good ship lollipop sinking, and it did sink in Knoxville, Tennessee, which we've talked about, which we've talked about, but we made page three.

Of the Paul Harvey news. Now, I think a lot of people that listen to this will know Paul Harvey. And many of our young listeners have no idea who Paul Harvey was. And, but he was a newscaster on the radio. He was on every day with the news. And he would start out with the headlines. End up, end up on page three.

That was the end of his broadcast. So, and we were on the beginning of page three, he said, it's a sad day in the United States when I hear that the good ship lollipop sank in Knoxville. My [00:21:00] question is how did you have to call Terry and tell him that you sunk his boat? Yeah, it was not a good call. It was not, it was not an easy call to make Terry.

Is that how it happened? 

Terry Wirginis: Yes, it is. It's a good thing it is because right after that, the next morning, excuse me, one of our boats is going out. But the next morning, on the front page of the Pittsburgh post is that there was a on the upper above the fold. There was a picture of the good ship lollipop port of Pittsburgh being pulled out of the water by a crane It was still half submerged That's how the world expert found out about it.

I'm really glad we knew first 

That would have been bad had I not called him but yes, we had to call and said that it sank overnight and at the end it was investigated and the maintenance guy did not put the strainer back properly and it leaked and it leaked and it leaked and it kept leaking and it kept leaking.

Terry Wirginis: It wasn't out [00:22:00] at what you brought the boat back in perfect condition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if there's any more years after that. 

Sponsor Message (2): Yep. 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah. And we, I have to say that that taught me a lesson. Never leave our girls alone at night. Yep. 

And Terry, I remember when I came to your dock, it was always on the inside by the mooring cells there.

Yes. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, that's where you kept the good ship. Well, very thankfully, there's not a Carfax for riverboats. People don't look that up and devalue your asset 

because it's been to the bottom of the river. Yeah. Sometimes more than once. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we should start boat facts.

We don't want that to follow us. No, let's not do that. Over the years, Terry and I became. Very, very close friends his first wife, I knew very well, in fact, attended her funeral. 

Terry Wirginis: Oh, you were there? Yeah. I was so very thankful for that. You were there by a couple days notice.

You guys 

met a lot, and I, I thought it was the right [00:23:00] thing to do. You know somebody and it was just, it was a cancer that she died from, right? Yeah, 

Terry Wirginis: melanoma. Went from being like a 37 year old tough as could be to you know, it was just, yeah, it 

was terrible. It was terrible.

And anyway, then Terry met his new wife. Who I got to know very well as, as well just a couple of stories since we're in story time. Yes. We took Pam out a couple of times without Terry and brought her back in a very inebriated situation and one of his employees, Elmer, this is the hell of a way to set the story up.

Oh no. Elmer. 

Terry Wirginis: Elmer. Well, 

that's the beginning 

Terry Wirginis: of that, Al. It had to do with Al Cerf, you know, the year before. What 

was that? 

Terry Wirginis: You tell that story. Okay, so we're in St. Louis. I actually got there late because we had a big freeze and water breaking loose. Probably the second highest water we ever had here, where we dock our boats now.

Second highest since [00:24:00] 1936, actually. So I got to St. Louis late. And we are at the, and made it in, it's a little stressed. And the closing banquet, Al Ccio was speaking as the incoming president. Now Al spoke for about an hour and a half, I think, and he was, he 300 pound club and they left us out.

They were, we were going to New Orleans the next year for the conference. So somebody, I think Gary Omo from New Orleans, he or Gordon Stevenson arranged for us to all put these Mardi Gras outfits on. And they go around the room with beads and. And well, they left this open bar outside the room for like an hour and a half for waiting.

So we're in the bar, the whole group of us were all, it was bad. It was really bad. So, and now my wife at that point, she's six months pregnant with our our seventh child together. Quentin is now 28 and a bit She's pregnant and they're at the table now.

It's always he has a history of Terry. I need you. Let's go get all these We're setting up through Subchapter T and through man. Yeah, let's stop. It's always Jerry I need one and was like [00:25:00] 14 hour days every day at the conferences and I eat I'm sitting there having my pie for dessert And that's when Terry I need you right now.

So we go out in the hall. That's when we dressed up then after Al Sorcio finished and I'm we are all five sheets of the wind. I think as you discussed in the one of the previous podcasts. But, 

I'm glad to know what that definition is. But we were pretty loose.

And it was Gary Fromo is going around with, like with ladies underwear sticking out both eyes and eyes are sticking out through the underwear. Can I say that on this podcast? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. You can 

Ben Bernstein: say anything you want. 

Terry Wirginis: Thanks. But you helped me, you helped me Bailey that. The good thing was we were flying home that night, the next, we were in the middle of building casino boats at that point too.

So I flew back to Pittsburgh with my wife and my family and I was on my granddad's jet. So we get out of there late and I asked Gary to come back to my room with me because I needed some support. And so he doesn't need no word. We're staying in that round hotel in St. Louis. I can't remember the name.

Wait a minute. The the Regal. The Regal. 

Terry Wirginis: Have 

a Regal 

Terry Wirginis: day. Yeah, exactly. So we're banging down the hall. We [00:26:00] can't even walk down the hallway. We're just straight up. And Gary thinks he's just coming back to help me pack. And I'm really using him as a diversion so I can get packed and not get killed by anybody.

And there's my granddad, my mother, and my wife, pregnant wife, and I don't know if you guys remember Boren, Brenda Weinstein, but they were there, and they're just looking at, looking at us. I go in the back, and I'm laughing, and Gary's just, he's trying to tell them a story about what's really going on.

I always remember, I don't remember what he said, but the last thing he says, well I think I'll just be quiet now, so. But that's how you do it. That's how you got to me the next year. Cause you all went out down in New Orleans and that's right. I, I've got these, our two youngest Christian was like two years old and Quinn was a brand new baby and they go out like at 11 o'clock and they come back like at five o'clock.

I don't know if Terry and Ben know that Troy Manthey was in the bar business in new Orleans at Spanky's. Yeah, I've been, I remember that. Okay. That, okay. And so we all go to Spanky's Terry. With Elmer [00:27:00] and we kept we kept her there pretty late, 

Terry Wirginis: very late. I don't have it because he owns the bar is the only reason to do it.

Captain Elmer Schmidt, he was my right hand man. Yeah, he was 

a good guy. Anyway, Elmer kept saying, Alan, Terry is going to fire me. I want, I want you to, where 

Terry Wirginis: was 

Terry? 

Terry Wirginis: I was home. I was back in the hotel room with the kids watching the kids. Oh, yeah. Yeah, 

because the year before we had Terry out again. So Elmer said, Alan, when I, when I get fired, I want a job in Cincinnati.

I said, you got it. Don't worry, Elmer. I got your back. And he was convinced Terry was going to fire. 

Terry Wirginis: Well, the next morning, the regulatory committee, when you get started the next morning, Elmer said beside Pete Larson. And I walked, I sit just very quietly, went right behind the two of those heads.

And I said, Oh, Mark, we're fired. He was, 

He was seriously worried. So I wasn't going to fire [00:28:00] him. No, we knew that. And anyway, so you know, the Troy had the spankies. It was for a couple of years. I, I don't know how long it stayed in business, but Troy's another dear friend.

He's been on the show as well? Yes, he is. so I guess those were some of the side stories. Is there a well, The Bells of St. Louis is a story really all on its own. And That was 

Ben Bernstein: the day you lost leg hair. 

That is correct. The rest of your life. The rest of my life. You are correct, Ben. Well, we 

Ben Bernstein: did that 

Terry Wirginis: two or three times.

Well, yeah, that's right. We did. Al only had to shave his legs once. Yeah, but it was gone. After I shaved my legs, that was it. So they said you have to shave your legs and all you can have. Did you shave your own legs? Huh. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, right. 

Well, I mean, you can barely shave your own face. How in the hell are you going to shave your leg?

Well, you can't shave your own head. No, no, wait a minute. You end up with gashes everywhere. We're not talking about grooming shaving. We're [00:29:00] talking about just shaving shaving. 

Terry Wirginis: It was a little spotty, yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, Terry Wurginis. was voted the cutest Belle of St. Louis and Bob Lump was the runner up because Bob Lump looked like Tina Turner. He had a wig on, a Tina Turner hat and who did we think you look like when you dressed up, Terry, you were, you were a good looking girl. 

Terry Wirginis: They told me that 

the lipstick 

Terry Wirginis: wasn't 

Ben Bernstein: really 

good.

I mean, it only helps that he's a good looking man. So compared to the rest of you, he's 

Ben Bernstein: keeping it in your pants. Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: Everybody, I think. Everybody in that group were old guys. They were all Tom Dunn's the one that put it together. He was the only one that hadn't been a president of the 

NAFTA.

That's 

Terry Wirginis: right. That's right. Yeah. 

That's right. 

Terry Wirginis: See, they're all old presidents. They're the best of the group. You know, they're all, we're all the people that have gone through all this and there we are at the bells of St. Louis. 

And just so that everybody listening we weren't real [00:30:00] cross dressers. This was an event.

We were in St. Louis and there was a movie called meet me in St. Louis, or meet me in St. Louis, I guess was the name of the film which was very famous. And there was a song that said, meet me in St. Louis, Louie. And, and that's what we were trying to recreate because the convention was going to St.

Louis the next 

Ben Bernstein: year. So I got a very important question. Okay. You just said that you weren't real cross dressers. No. 

I mean, I'm not currently in cross dressing. 

Ben Bernstein: You're not a professional cross dresser. I think everybody would, but in that given time, you were a real cross dresser. 

Terry Wirginis: Well, I don't know.

Tom Dunn made us do it. It was outside of your will. That's right. 

We were demanded that we had to do this. You had no choice. I 

Terry Wirginis: see. After that, we did it two more times. 

Well, in San [00:31:00] Francisco, it was a request. Who was the executive director at the time? Eric Scharf.

And he was okay? Now John, I don't think John ever got a performance of the Bills. No. No, no. John Graham was. In New 

Ben Bernstein: Orleans he did. I don't believe, cause when he was on our episode it seems like he came right after that. Oh man. John would have never said yes. Oh no. John is Mr.

Political. But that's probably why he's such a good executive director. Yeah, probably. So John came to 

Terry Wirginis: 95. John, he, the first year was 95, I believe. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. He either came right after that or just before. I just remember that sticking out in that episode when we talked about it. 

Well, a gateway clipper in dad's in my view were really the head of the industry, the top of the industry.

Well, I think we all feel the same way right now. I think that and it's a pleasure to say that the Pittsburgh people are friends of ours. And would you, would you agree with that Terry? 

Terry Wirginis: [00:32:00] A thousand percent. And I don't sell your outfit short. You guys are very impressive. Taking that big old age boat you have.

She's beautiful. And you get a lot of work done with her. And I know how it is, how hard it is to keep H boats going. 

Yeah. Ben, Ben thinks you want to buy our H boat since we have it. So properly done now that. No. I what? You thought Terry might buy our H Boat. Terry Wurgenus. I'm sure he wants nothing to do with it.

He loves H Boats. Terry Wurgenus. So much so. 

Moderator (3): I 

built a bunch of them. I was going to say, how many H Boats did 

Terry Wirginis: you build? So, I had five and then we had six, seven altogether over the years but yeah, that's just but wait a minute. 

Can we go backwards? Sure. What weren't you in the casino business? 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah. Yes, I was the very first when he started out in 1989.

I took the started converting the old president. President. Yeah. Aspiration vessel president. We had a chance. We we [00:33:00] got the license in Davenport, Iowa. I ended up but in the Quad Cities. We used to trip, we'd we had purchased by that time, the the president from the Dalles. We used to take it into New Orleans in the winter and St.

Louis in the summer, 

Moderator (3): and 

Terry Wirginis: That 1989, I started a refurbishment of that boat. So you couldn't, it was 300 feet long, no Fire protection in the way, you know, there's no 40 meter rules or anything. So basically we take the old boat and build a new boat around it, took the space and built a new boat around it over two years, almost a year and a half.

We opened April 1st, 1991. I think your boat started that same day. Actually, 

it might have, we, we had something going on, but dad and I came mom, dad, and I drove out. to Davenport, and we were on the, I have a chip. I took a chip from Gateway one from Bob Kiel's boat. And who was the third operator that wasn't there?

A third? No, two, maybe Bernie. Oh, Bernie. Oh, [00:34:00] that's right. It was the diamond lady started. 

Moderator (3): That's 

it. Yep. But, we, we 

Terry Wirginis: we can do a whole episode on that, on getting that boat into into place in 

time. Absolutely. Yeah. That whole ga start of gambling was, was a, a tremendous story, but it, it is no longer, we, none of us really believed it was gonna be a long lived game.

Terry Wirginis: Nobody wanted to be in the boat have the casino on a boat. We, it's the way it got started in many states. Mm-Hmm, . But nobody wanted to have the boat be in the way of getting people. You, you don't wanna sail. I was always a boat guy, so it kind of confused me a little bit, but I finally figured out that let's keep it to the dock as much as possible.

It 

didn't have anything to do with boats. It was all casino. 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah, exactly. And that's where it is today. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: We had operating casinos and we leased out a couple of boats too. We had some dry holes that did, you know, it's very competitive for the licenses. We always did it honestly, but we had a boat in Davenport and the one in St.

Louis and one in Biloxi, Mississippi. Yeah. And all three of those were very successful. We could just run [00:35:00] those and not try to expand. Which still, maybe. Oh, I'm glad I'm not running it anymore. I 

Ben Bernstein: couldn't imagine the headaches of running a casino. Oh, man. Let alone a casino boat. Yeah. But a casino also.

Terry Wirginis: Every 50 check he wrote. Mississippi, I think. How much? For 10 years, I'd look through every check. Wasn't 50. Maybe it's a hundred dollar transaction every day, going back with records that are going to have, I remember trying to do that on the admiral where we're working in St. Louis the, the other scores of both that we turned into a casino and trying to get all this paperwork together with Mississippi was incredible.

And Terry, just for the audience to know. The President was a 3, 000 passenger boat and the Admiral was a 5, 000 passenger boat. 

Terry Wirginis: 4, 400. 

Okay. For those of you These were 

Ben Bernstein: big boats. Right. And most people are familiar with our boats. The Bell of Cincinnati is a 1, 000 passenger boat. That's right. To give you an idea of scale of size.

Well Now, I do want you to clarify Okay. You know, we start talking because we're all boat [00:36:00] people and we know what An H boat is okay. Can you explain just real quick? Cause I'm sure there's a lot of people saying, what the hell is an H boat? 

There are three classes of commercial passenger vessels. Yes.

There is a T boat, which is a small passenger boat under 150 passengers. That is considered a T boat. The good ship lollipop was a T boat. I think it was a hundred capacity, 105 some. Then there is a middle sized boat called a K boat. The letter K and that's four or five hundred passenger boat, not overly big, maybe a hundred and twenty feet, a hundred feet, I.

E. our river queen. I. E. our river queen is a K boat. Yes. And I would say most of Terry's boats are K boats, right? Maybe. I think all of Terry's, oh no, he has an H boat. Yeah, but he doesn't run it. I have an H barge. He has an H barge. No, I have an 

Terry Wirginis: H barge. I don't run the H boat. I'm looking right out the window at my old majestic right here.

Oh boy. Storage now. I was in the [00:37:00] storage room. And for those 

Terry Wirginis: Go 

Ben Bernstein: ahead, Terry. 

Terry Wirginis: Our main galley's still in the boat and we are Terry, you and I have had a lot of discussions about why that galley's there and what you're going to do to us 

Moderator (3): in the long run. 

Terry Wirginis: That's all there is. But no, so we had a, we had that and we had another thousand passenger boat that we took from Pittsburgh to New York back in the early 80s and started world yacht cruises up there.

We had five vessels, ran them from 84. We put so much money, it was such a bad boat when we got it. We put so much money on it, couldn't afford to run it in Pittsburgh. So John Connolly found a place to put it on the, up on the Chelsea piers. 

That was the old spirit of Norfolk. 

Terry Wirginis: Right. Spirited off. Exactly.

Yes. Which went to Miami in the winter time. Yep. And what Coe Sherrard was part of that. That's right. That's 

right. 

Terry Wirginis: And what's his boss's name? David Talashe. 

Not you're, you're close, Terry. You're, you're real close. 

Terry Wirginis: So, the guy got together. In 81 during the Cuban influx when Castro was open in the jails let people come, a guy and his [00:38:00] girlfriend were at the, sitting on a park bench in bicentennial park in Miami.

And the boat was right there. And, and the guy came along and killed the guys. It it's supposed to be a drug deal, but it's a case of mistaken identity. So because boss said, we're selling the boat right now. And so John Conley bought it off that boat. 

You had armed guards. They were armed, I mean, they used to wear guns.

Terry Wirginis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we got the boat out of there, brought her up here. She was an old Navy old army LCI landing craft infantry. She'd had spots and put it to the outside. And she was she had two. It's just shafts with variable pitch propellers and four H71 GM engines on both shafts. Only one of them had a starter on it.

So you had to start that one. And then the shaft starts spinning and then you put the clutch in and engage the other ones. Trying to think those, those things, trying to keep them all temperature was an interesting process. My 

bad. So T are the small boats. K is the medium size. K is the middle boat. And H Were large passenger [00:39:00] vessels over a hundred gross tons.

And and you had to, had to manage the boat as a big passenger boat and explain why. I mean, regulation, there's fire, there's fire protection added on, and there's redundant redundancy with pumps. Yep. And engines and steering steering and all kinds of. redundancy, but H boats really, they weren't really meant for the river.

The river was a real anomaly for H boats. The H boats were intended to be ships, big, like you see carnival cruise lines and that kind of thing. But that industry all dried up. And the only H boats that were being built were excursion boats were, you know, for our industry. So 

Terry Wirginis: There are too many of them left.

And again, it's not a measure of weight. We should time. It's not a thousand, 2000 pounds. You, this is a, it's a measure of volume and you can, right, 

[00:40:00] right. 

Terry Wirginis: Except certain areas of vote from volume by. Making tonnage openings. And it's an ad major. I have to come in and decide how big your boat really is or how much, how many tons.

Yeah. And they call it marine science is what they call it. And it is science because I don't think anybody can really, I'm not even sure that Andy Labay could tell us an explanation that we could understand Andy LeBay's and he knows the voodoo science of marine science. So if you really want to, it's volume, it's not tonnage.

Like you would think. Well, a hundred tons, you know, that's 

Ben Bernstein: no, that's not, it has 

nothing, yeah, it has nothing to do. It is actually has to do with space for cargo or, or space for like Terry said, volume, volume. Yes, yes, yes. So those are the three types of passenger boats. Still in the United States today, in the regulations.

Ben Bernstein: I wanted to make sure we explained that because a lot of [00:41:00] times we will go and, and just start talking boat talk. Is there 

anything bigger than the H Boat? No. Unlimited. An unlimited H Boat is as big as you can go. Okay, so there's not another class about like for the Huge ships. Is there? Well, I guess And all that there are a few american it really doesn't it doesn't matter anymore it's it's a big that's a big ship but What I wanted to say is not only do you go up in in regulations?

With fire and fire protection and all you go up with crew you go up With licenses and officers. So an H boat has at least two officers, the chief and the master. And maybe on most of those gambling boats, they had a lot more than two. They had the assistant chief and oh my God. 

Ben Bernstein: The station bill is a document that outlines what job, what job everybody has on board and what the required jobs are. On board a casino station bill is [00:42:00] very hard to even conceptualize how many people are required. 

Terry Wirginis: So, so when we started out though, back to the reason for an H boat, I'm very impressed that you all can keep one maintained very well and keep her operating the way you do.

We built our H boat, the Majestic, in 1987, I've got her back in operation. I can tell you a couple times during that time, she was down at Patty's Shipyard. and what Pensacola, Florida and a couple of times it was hurricanes. I said, please dear lord, just let that hurricane take her.

But we did finally get her finished. She got her up here and she ran with us until night. In 2013, I said, just, its getting too hard and, and a lot of the ballparks and a lot of different boat spaces that opened up for 600 to a thousand passenger dining, and not passenger, but guest dining.

So I, we did a study, we only bought 30 some cruises that in 2013 that we couldn't have put on a smaller boat. And and actually we actually made money on, we ran our 200 300, I think three 80 times or 30 of those were, the year we [00:43:00] did, but so I said, let's tie her up and we'll use her for galley and I'll buy another cable by that time.

So that's what we thought that the queen, they're on the Arkansas River Anyway, we bought her a little North Little Rock, Little Rock, Little Rock, Arkansas. Now we're going to buy her a Blomstall boat sometime.

Goodness, I think about her every day. She's a beautiful boat, 330 passengers. We actually make money now, so. 

Yeah, 

Terry Wirginis: yeah. 

And Terry, I remember we were at a PVA conference. I don't remember where it was or where we were, but you got a call that said your dock had sank. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that was on fire.

It was on fire. That's what it was. It was on fire. And the building was burning down and you and Zach got up from the table and we didn't see you anymore because you were gone back to Pittsburgh. You were. You were out of there, but I don't remember that or they were at the bar celebrating.

Well, maybe yeah. Yeah. Yeah We haven't had any of those kind of successful fires. No [00:44:00] But I'm 

Terry Wirginis: gonna have st. Barge in building today. Yeah, I Walked past there. Nobody ever know that the roof you gotta like she walks through the main part of the office and there was it No roof, but also

Are you allowed to swear a little bit on this? I can't think of it. Oh, sure, sure. 

Yeah. We are not FCC monitored or whatever. I don't know. 

Terry Wirginis: So Barbara is the one that she boo called me about that far. She, she told me when she found us in that restaurant, somebody had to really work on it.

This is before cell phones. And so when somebody, we're like ways out there with Marsh McClennan, there were other insurance people and Somebody comes to the table. Is there a terry here? And I saw my gosh, what could happen? So but nobody got hurt the fire was put out It worked out over, you know, we we made it through it all another interesting experience But like I say everything's okay till it's not but so henry gusky, which you all know very we've done a lot of contracts He was he was I inherit henry from my grandfather great attorney.

He's passed away a couple years ago, but He was in the grant building across the river and he used to be a smoker and he comes out [00:45:00] on one of the open patios outside the one of the taller buildings in Pittsburgh and he looks down at the boats. It's right before dusk and he sees smoke coming out of the out of the office because we're right there below on the on the river and he said, oh my god, he runs.

He trips over the the crossing right there. He falls down. He comes back to his office. He calls the main office, the number and whoever answered he says, you're Oh, it's on fire. And the guy says, no shit, and he hung up.

Kids, you may not know the expression of Philadelphia. Lawyer, they were tough people. If you were considered a Philadelphia lawyer, you were just a tough person. And Henry was probably one of the toughest Philadelphia lawyers I have ever met. Dad wasn't overly Concerned about you know Henry, but I got to know Henry pretty well.

Henry and I became pretty good friends, [00:46:00] but yeah. But he's a tough lawyer. He has served Mr. Connelly and Mr. Virginus very well. Very well. 

Terry Wirginis: He suffered no fools. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. So that's the, that's a bit of the story of our relationship together. Kind of the history of our two companies.

The beauty of it all is that it continues every day. One of the great things that came about. From COVID was we started a group during COVID at that time was a weekly group. Yep. It should have been daily from that, from at that point, when all the businesses were being shut down, , we started a zoom call.

That was kind of spearheaded by obviously my father, no, it was Terry Bernstein idea, but Terry was part of it. Oh, absolutely. Every week was really, 

Terry Wirginis: it was really your idea. It was something that I bought this one call, I think it may be two calls in these last four years, but 

Moderator (3): yeah, 

Terry Wirginis: it's a lifesaver, but there's a lifeline.

for all these operators to get together and do that was just tremendous. And [00:47:00] Alan, I always felt better when we're all together. We talked about our miseries and our successes and all forth. And in those early days, I always felt better than I did after we finished because I knew that Dan Yates out in Portland, Oregon was a lot worse.

Dan makes us all feel better. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, but it really is the beauty of our industry. You know, there are a lot of family businesses in our industry. And Terry's family, our family, we very routinely, in fact, on Sunday, I assume you're probably going down there, Terry, but we're flying to new Orleans. We have a region meeting and all of the kind of meeting season is upon us given that all of us are on our way to our off season, our downtime.

But it's the beauty of it all. You know, there's no hiding secrets in our industry. , we sit and we bounce ideas off each other. In fact, a lot of the great things and great successes that you've seen at BB Riverbose, for those of you who are listening. A lot of that started from Gateway Clipper or another operation [00:48:00] around the country.

And that's what we do. We try to make each other 

better because if, you know, somebody comes to BBR Boats and they enjoy their cruise, when they go to Pittsburgh, they're going to, Ooh, let me take a cruise. Right. And I recommend all of the friends around the country operation.

When people say, I'm going to San Francisco, I, hey, go down to the Blue and Gold Flater. Go down to the Red and White there's, I have good friends there. Alaska, I've sent a lot of people. To the discovery crews up in not Anchorage Fairbanks, the Binkley family, the Binkley family. Yeah. I spent a lot of time with the gateway Clipper people.

Yes, you do. You do. And, but that's good because at least they know what you're talking about. You talk to a restaurateur and they have no idea. 

Ben Bernstein: None. A lot like our listeners who listen to us probably have no idea. We're, 

we're, 

Ben Bernstein: we're 

going to teach them by the end of the podcast. Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Al in those early years.

Well, let's say in the late 80s, you'd already been president. [00:49:00] What year were you president of? 

1988. Okay, and 

Terry Wirginis: I was president in 1993. Yeah, you were 

right behind, yeah, yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: And all those old timers, all the old presidents said, We can't change the name. It's not, it took a little bit, I'll 

Moderator (3): say so. 

Terry Wirginis: But we took a lot of heat, but we got it changed over because it represents so much more than just the owners.

Right. That was past their best owners. Because there's so many trades involved and one of my captains who's been with me for more, almost 37 years, the incoming president this year Captain Steve Jones, and the work he's done for the passenger and vessel association over the last, probably, he's been on the board for six or seven years, is tremendous, so.

The Coast Guard in its infinite wisdom way decided that they were going to change the rules and they were going to do a rule making and change T and T.

K and because it was regulations behind the vessels that we have, right? Because in the old days, when we started, when Terry's grandfather, it wasn't a T and K, it was a T [00:50:00] small S or a T large K boat. So they decided that they would take the T. large and make it K and then only small vessels represented T.

And that took 12 years to get done. We spent a lot of 

Moderator (3): time together on 12 

years. We had special meetings and oh my God, it was Pamela. 

Terry Wirginis: My, my wonderful wife is put up with C so much. The first conference she went to was in Boston. in 1990 and we're at the Copley Hotel and I, I take her in there and she's there with me and she didn't see me then for a week where I was at literally 14 to 16 hours a day every day with you, Alan.

Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: What, what do you guys, I said, we were going to go to, next year we're going to Hawaii, right? That was next year. They're handing out delays and stuff at the final banquet. And she looks at me and said, what are you guys doing? I said, well, [00:51:00] we're going to take everybody to Hawaii. And I said, why don't you just get a hotel right near the Chicago airport and have a meeting.

Don't worry about going to Hawaii. But no, we, 

well, because we never left the hotel anyway. I mean, we were always busy doing stuff, but 

Terry Wirginis: yeah, yeah, 

yeah, yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: We have pretty good post conference I can remember I went out on Thursday afternoon, we were there all week, never came outside again. I did step on the beach one time and put my foot in the water on Thursday afternoon.

Yep. 

Terry Wirginis: Okay. But one more thing I have to say though about PBN. I think one of the best things we ever did, Alan, you've done many, many good things, but was how they, we got put in charge of interviewing technical advisors. Yeah. Pete Larson. Yeah. Yeah. This is how we got to where we are today, I think.

There's so many good people that have worked with our association. There's so many good staff members. But Pete's the one who really brought it together. We, he is. They put us, what, we had like 57 interviews. And we set up two days of interviews. And people were always trying to tell us they'd come in, at that, on K Street, down in that office in K Street in Washington, D.

C. And we talked to [00:52:00] people and they were telling us how they thought they should do it. Pete came in and listened. 

They should run PVA. Or NACO at 

Terry Wirginis: that time. He came in and listened and he translated back to us and I said, we have our guy. Yeah. He was a captain of the Coast Guard and we are still together today and he is a wonderful blessing for, for our association.

Is Pete, 

has Pete hit 90? I think he's, yeah, I think he's close. I think he's close. He's still sharp as a tack. Oh, he is sharp as a tack right now. I heard him today. He was on the on the conference. He might be a little more put together than you are. Yeah, maybe. I'm very, very much so. 

Ben Bernstein: All right. Well, Terry, before we go, number one, thank you very much for for coming on but for anybody listening who is going to find their way in Pittsburgh, why don't you give a, right.

Why don't you give a little 32nd commercial of the gateway clipper fleet. 

Terry Wirginis: Well, if you haven't seen Pittsburgh from the river, then you haven't, it's the most beautiful city of any city I've [00:53:00] been to in North America and several in Europe. You can actually reach out, touch the buildings. 

Other than maybe Cincinnati.

No, no. Let it go. Let it go. Yeah. The 

Terry Wirginis: advantage that we have is we have this beautiful mountain on the, on the long, but on the Hill River, it's all green. And the trees come right down to the riverfront. We don't have the Up and down on the water that that you all have there are down and lower up our pool State's pretty stable for 48 weeks out of the year And you can just actually to reach out and touch the buildings and the cruisers really sell themselves that's our main reason to be we're doing a little over 300 000 passengers last year, which I know you guys know That's a lot of that's a lot of people and that's Especially when your season is you're not running.

Well, we have one boat right now. We have a dinner cruise tonight but November, December, November, January, and February. Pretty slow. 

Yeah. 

Terry Wirginis: Yeah, but we do sightseeing cruises dining cruises private events of any sort. A lot of stuff, the university committee here, a lot of community weddings.

It's wonderful to get married down in front of the point with a fountain going in the seat in the background. We just had a beautiful one last [00:54:00] weekend. The weather was perfect for it already in November. And We're one of the icons of Pittsburgh. Yeah, it's 

a have to do when you go to Pittsburgh is get on a gateway clipper boat and you run a tremendous schedule in the summer.

So you will find a time that you can go on gateway. 

Terry Wirginis: I got crazy enough to buy the boat operation from my grandparents in 1996. So it's almost 30 years for me to do that. It's actually. And I can remember being at the Tampa Convention back in 2020, right before COVID hit, and I was actually bragging to all of you about how I had made my last capital loan payment on February 29th, 

Moderator (3): 2020.

I 

Terry Wirginis: My line of credit was going to be paid down by October and the first time I didn't have any debt. Well, I'm never going to say that again. 

Well, what makes me jealous as hell is when he says. Well, we only pulled 150, 000 over to the stadiums for football and baseball, I'm, I'm going only 150, 000?

Ben Bernstein: We do 150, 000 in a year. Yeah, they do it for [00:55:00] just the 

Terry Wirginis: shuttle. I know. Shuttle, that's why we like to see the Panthers and the Steelers and the we don't know about the Pirates. We're going to get to the wind too. We're looking to have four to have Cincinnati up here with us this year.

Terry, just one, one short story. Terry used to call me years ago. He said, do you want to bet a hundred dollars on on the game? I said, sure. And I sent up so many hundreds of dollars. I think he bought a new boat on me. And I said, well, how stupid am I to bet on the bangles when we know that they're going to beat us?

Ben Bernstein: We are helping industry. I'd like to help everybody Well, terry, thank you so much gateway clipper. com If you find your way in Pittsburgh, please go see Terry. Tell him the Bernstein section. Yeah, tell him the Bernstein section. Yeah, . That'd be great. Yep. Terry, we will see you soon and the meetings coming.

We see you in New Orleans. Yeah. And we'll see you in 

New Orleans on Sunday. 

Ben Bernstein: Yep, absolutely. Okay. Looking forward to it. 

Terry Wirginis: Thank. Thanks, Jerry. Take care. Thank you. Good to [00:56:00] talk y'all. Yep. Take care, Terry. 

Ben Bernstein: Well, that's always nice to talk to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's move on. 

Moderator: Now it is time for rambling on the rivers.

Word of the day. 

Is this yours? 

Ben Bernstein: Did you come up? This is Ms. Terry bees. Are you done playing solitaire over there? 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: You were playing solitaire. That's all she does. Okay. And you wonder why she ask questions that we're already talking about. I'm kidding. Okay. Not only kind of kidding. Anyways, the word of the day is

hogwash. 

I'm glad you said it. I couldn't remember what it was. . 

Ben Bernstein: She 

is really locked in this podcast. Oh, I remember it. See, that would be me. I would say you know, what was the word? That's just how my brain works. As soon as you ask me, I'm like, So now, how do we 

Ben Bernstein: spell [00:57:00] hogwash, Ben? This should probably be the easiest one of the bunch.

Okay. Well, I would spell it. H O O G W A S H that's a Hogue. Yeah, that's, that's a, oh, 

Ben Bernstein: wash. 

Wash. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah. Like you're clearing phlegm out of it. . So what's what would be your definition of it now? 

Well I, Terry, we've, he already, we already read it. Well, when we were discussing this, she said, what do you think the definition is, is hogwash.

I said, well, I have to believe that it has something to do with cleaning hogs, you know for, I didn't know why, but to clean a hog, she says, you're right. I mean, everybody needs a shower. Absolutely. Especially hogs. They're dirty. Yeah. So to me, it's bullshit. You know, you're, that's what, that's what it means to me.

[00:58:00] Hogwash. Yeah. Well, what was your definition of it? It was something dirty it was it had to do with dirt, but I that's what no That was just my guess. I had no idea. 

Ben Bernstein: Yeah, I would I would agree with Terry That's all that's yeah bullshit. Yeah Okay, crap. Yeah, 

what is 

Ben Bernstein: the real does it real definition? The word hogwash first appeared in the 1400s and was written down by 1712 So I guess The word came out in 1400, they didn't write it down until 1712.

It literally meant liquid or refuse fed to the pigs. But a more interesting origin comes from the river in the 1800s when hogs that were about to be loaded were washed down by a deckhand, so the stench wouldn't offend the crew and passengers.

The mess that was left over was called hogwash and was not one of the more enviable [00:59:00] tasks to complete on the steamboat. The term eventually evolved into something that was worthless or untrue Or ridiculous 

hogwash bullshit. Yeah. But it's very interesting that there was a Marine connection to it.

Yeah. Yeah. 

Ben Bernstein: But yeah, there seemed to be a lot of Marine connections to a lot of things that we've talked about. Yep. Yep. 

All right. I mean, the Marine was a major mode of transportation for a long time. It was the only mode of transportation for a long time. Yep. Other than a horseback. 

Ben Bernstein: So I guess that's kind of the episode here. Yeah. I, I, do you have any parting, parting thoughts? No, no. I would do some editing here at the end, but , but other than that, we, what do you got there? Nothing. 

I gotta go. 

Ben Bernstein: Oh, yeah, I gotta go. All right.

Well, I guess that means we got to go to thank you for listening. We'll see y'all again next week.[01:00:00] 

Moderator: Thank you 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 and follow us on all your favorite podcast platforms.

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

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