In 2008, professional photographer and jazz musician, Joseph Crachiola,
spent a year living on his sailboat, the Half Moon, berthed in a slip at a marina on the Detroit River. The Half Moon, a 28-foot Newport sloop, is a self-contained vessel with a sleeping berth, galley and head. To weather the winter months, it was shrink-wrapped with a door cut and fitted with a zipper and a bubbler to keep the Half Moon free from the ice.
At about the same time each day Joe would photograph his surroundings. He shot skylines, cloudscapes, waterfowl, ice flows, regattas and freighters from a distance; up close he shot things like dock details, rigging flotsam, boat and marina minutia. Then Joe would share his photos by email with a few of his friends, including Bob McGowan.
On his farm about two hours north of Joe’s river-berthed boat, McGowan, an OU alumus, would open his email and see what Joe saw. The photos revealed some of Detroit’s most natural beauty from a unique perspective and inspired Bob to write several poems about many of the photos. The photos and poems became, A Year on the River, a beautiful full-color, hard-cover coffee-table book. According to McGowan, “The book should hold special appeal to nature lovers, boaters, 
and people wanting to see and show a positive view of Detroit. The fact that A Year on the River was written, photographed, printed, and bound in Michigan may give it special appeal in these trying economic times, when folks prefer buying locally.”
Bob McGowan, CAS ’72, ’67, is a 2001 recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, OU's highest honor for volunteer leadership in service to OU or its alumni association. He lives with his wife, Barbara, on Bittersweet Farm in Clarkston, Michigan. After retiring from a successful career in advertising, Bob is active in his community, is a master gardener, National Garden Writer member, and for many years was a member of Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan Board of Directors, and is currently on their advisory board. He is also founder and executive director of Bittersweet Farm Plant-A-Row Community Garden that, for 19 years, has supplied the food bank with organically-grown vegetables - 5,590 pounds in 2010. He and his garden have been the subject of dozens of articles in local, state and national media.
