MUSKEGON, Mich. — Docked in Muskegon Lake is a piece of history called the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper. The preserved steamship is a national historic landmark. It shut down back in 1970, but it still has a captain at its helm.
Believe it or not, that captain is 99 years old, and he still visits his beloved boat just about every day, and he's about to celebrate a big milestone.
Captain Bob Priefer spent most of his life on the clipper. "24 hours, 7 days a week. When you're the captain, you're on watch all the time," said Capt. Priefer.
"It's just good genes, I guess. He comes down to the ship, I mean he has more energy than me sometimes. I'll see him working up towards the bow and here I am out of breath I'm just doing a chore and he's ready to walk around the ship again. I don't know how he does it, but he does," said Brock Johnson, volunteer coordinator at the S.S. Milwaukee Clipper.
Johnson is the captain's apprentice if you will, the ship's next generation. "All of us are getting a little bit tender, I don't want to say aged," said Priefer.
But he won't leave Brock to tend the ship before she imparts what he calls some old "fish tales."
"Just walking through the rooms, he has those memories of what used to happen aboard the ship and we're just happy that he has those memories, and one day I hope to have those memories as well," said Johnson.
Priefer is a World War II veteran who started on the luxury vessel right after the war. Taking trips from Chicago to Muskegon and Milwaukee, at the time the boat was the equivalent of flying first class.
"Back in the 40s to go from Milwaukee to Muskegon was like today's taking a cruise to Hawaii," said Priefer. He added, "we were the first commercial vessel to get radar."
Not only did he spend much of his life aboard, he forged many family memories too, "my granddaughter, I married them aboard this ship. My granddaughter, and now I've got a great granddaughter, she was down here the other day."
The almost-centenarian still somehow has a to do list aboard. "I would still like to do a lot of things on the ship. But the mind is willing, but the body is weak."
Before he gets going on all those tasks, his crew thinks birthday celebrations are in order first. "8-8-22. Next month I'll be 100. I never thought of it as that. It's just another day. I'm looking for 100, I'm looking for 110! Nobody in the family ever lived to be 100," said Priefer.
We asked Priefer to sum up the days, the hours, the months' worth of trips on the big lake and beyond, and he couldn't quite calculate. But he did share this, "That doesn't make any difference how many days, it's how much you accomplish, what you did. We've done pretty well I think."
You are invited to Captain Priefer's 100th birthday party! It is Saturday August 6 from 6 to 9 aboard the ship. It's completely free to come out and take a tour and give your captain some well wishes on his milestone celebration.
The S.S. Milwaukee Clipper is docked at 2098 Lakeshore Drive, Muskegon MI. For more information on the party: call 231-683-1590 or visit https://www.milwaukeeclipper.com/
