The calliope shrieked; the twelve-piece band blared; the popcorn vendors hawked their wares. On stage, the actors hammed their way through Ten Nights in a Barroom. It was melodrama at its drammiest that was being performed in an Ohio river port last week. And that was just the way the professor wanted it. Professor Harry Wright of Ohio's Kent State University had gone to a lot of trouble to get the right atmosphere.
For months, he had worked on a Ph.D. thesis on "River Showboats and Their History." Burrowing through books, and wandering 20,000 miles...
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