At one time, Jim Coomer was as much a fixture on the Ohio River as the towboats he navigated and the barges he pushed.

        In fact, he was a third-generation towboat pilot — his father, Jim Coomer, and his grandfather, also Jim Coomer — churned the same waters before him.

        And so he grew up on one boat or another, becoming part of the river's history and lore.

        Capt. Coomer, as he was known by one and all, died Saturday, three years after suffering a major stroke. The Clifton resident was 75.

        He was really a river rat, but he parlayed decades of river adventures into other careers such as newspaper columnist, author, teacher and boat builder. The subject of many articles through the years, Capt. Coomer once told the Enquirer that he “always did what my mind said to do.”

        And his mind took him many places.

        His journey began when he was still in high school and yearned to be a sailor. He ran away from home many times to join the Navy during World War II, only to be turned away because of his age.

        Finally his exasperated parents allowed him to quit high school and signed the papers for him to go. He was 17.

        Capt. Coomer would later serve with the Army during the Korean War, and get his GED when he was nearly 50.

        In 1948 he took his first job on the river — as a deckhand on the harbor tug Pat Murphy. He started out at $1 an hour and the hope of advancement. He quickly became manager of harbor operation.

        Later, Capt. Coomer became a pilot of the line-haul towboats operating between Pittsburgh and Cairo, Ill. But desiring to come home, he decided to build his own boat, which he named the Vulcan, and go into business for himself in Cincinnati in 1965.

        At that time, he also taught river commerce skills in Cincinnati Public Schools' vocational system. He lived in various apartments while remodeling them, then moved.

        In 1984, Capt. Coomer and a crew of his students built a flatboat named the Adventure Galley II and rowed it from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. During the '70s, Capt. Coomer wrote “Riverman,” a column for the Kentucky Post, and served as community education director for the Northern Kentucky Legal Aid Society.

        In 1983 he operated an iron sculpture studio on Mount Adams, where he created iron gates, fences, medieval weaponry and furniture.

        Capt. Coomer suffered a stroke in the mid-'80s that slowed him down. Although he lamented that he had to give up riding his motorcycle, he invented and patented a physical therapy aid to strengthen his left arm and had his memoirs, Life on the Ohio, published in 1997 by University of Kentucky Press.

        He also narrated two films that aired on public television, We Listen To The Water: Ohio River Voices, and River Calling: Flatboat To Towboat.

        Capt. Coomer's last job was working as a librarian for the Cincinnati Travelers' Aid Society, which he did until his second stroke in 1999.

        He was preceded in death by a daughter, Jennifer.

        Survivors include: two daughters, Susan Kelly of Benton, Calif., and Melissa Bellen of Bellevue; a son, Jim Coomer Jr. of Fort Thomas; a sister, Dorothy Weil of Clifton; and five grandchildren.

        A reception to celebrate Capt. Coomer's life is 2-4 p.m. Saturday at the home of Dorothy and Sidney Weil, 8 Belsaw Place in Clifton. The remains were cremated.

        Memorials: Hospice of Cincinnati, 4310 Cooper Road, Cincinnati 45242, or Clovernook Center for the Blind, 7000 Hamilton Ave., Cincinnati 45231.

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