Book Review
Uncommon Carriers By JOHN McPHEE
Reviewed by PEGGY BARNETT
John McPhee, a journalist and staff writer at The New Yorker, traveled extensively in ways that most of us do not experience. His latest book (he has published over 25) is about a few of those travels. He seems to findarticulate and interesting people wherever he goes.

Don Ainsworth owns and drives a 65-foot chemical tanker. McPhee calls it the most beautiful truck in the world, and Ainsworth takes proper care of it. He also teaches McPhee (and us) about long-distance hauling and the difficulties of "hazmat" loads.

We lesser folks are referred to as "four-wheelers," and are advised to be cautious around trucks like Ainsworth's." If you pull any stunts around the big trucks, you're likely to die. I'm not going to die. You are." McPhee travels across the American continent with him.

His second section recounts the training at Port Revel in France, where ship captains and ship pilots from all over the world take a five-and-a-half day course in ship handling. Port Revel is a pond, and the training ships are models based exactly on real ships. Everything is to scale, and the captains report that the models feel and respond like real ships. (Did you know that Europeans say "port" and "starboard," while by law Americans say "left" and "right" in piloting situations?)

McPhee laces his information and facts with quiet humor: Philippe, one of the captains, "in white shorts and a striped shirt across a wide space that has processed a lion's share of exceptional food." He tells about superstitions in different occupations and areas. For instance, Great Lakes shippers believe that you never leave a repair yard on a Friday.

From France, he takes us back to the States for a trip on the Illinois River with barge tow boats. McPhee admires the pilots whose task is challenging, but he also has respect for the hard-working deckhands. A pilot says, "There's a lot of kids out here right out of McDonalds, and they'd be better off if they'd stayed at McDonalds. But if you can handle this work, you can make 50 to 80 thousand a year without a college education or even a high-school diploma."

Life is calmer in the next episode. McPhee and his son-in-law spend fivedays on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, tracing the path of Henry Thoreau and his brother in 1839. Much has changed, of course, but much is the same. As they navigate white water hanging on to the canoe, they sometimes step in holes up to their armpits. "Among armpits on this planet, mine do not imply great depth."

A final adventure is on a coal train in Kansas. (Plant Scherer in Georgia is the largest coal-fired power plant in the Western Hemisphere.) In each story, the reader encounters painless history lessons and meets delightful characters.

Uncommon Carriers, available at the Mary Willis Library, is uncommonly good.

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