OT: 50 years ago now

StickierBuns wrote:
Yep, it was a big deal in Upper Michigan. People don't understand that Lake Superior is no joke. Its massive and very deep. Ice cold water. And an iron ore carrier is very susceptible to massive winds and waves, especially when empty, because they are ocean-like sometimes on that lake the waves. And a great song by Gordon Lightfoot who I love.

I luv him too, he passed in 23 I believe...

They now ring that bell 31 times

29 for each member of the Fitz Crew
1 for all the other ships lost on Superior
1 for Gordon Lightfoot

When my son was working up in Duluth I had a live feed of the canal the ships would go through. It was a way to check the weather in real time but I liked watching the ships enter and leave the harbor and the people coming out to watch them. I'm also a Gordon Lightfoot fan and saw him live 6 times.

StickierBuns wrote:
Yep, it was a big deal in Upper Michigan. People don't understand that Lake Superior is no joke. Its massive and very deep. Ice cold water. And an iron ore carrier is very susceptible to massive winds and waves, especially when empty, because they are ocean-like sometimes on that lake the waves. And a great song by Gordon Lightfoot who I love.

That was my last year in Minnesota, before I moved to Upper Michigan myself.  I think the consensus of the news at the time was disbelief that it could possibly even happen to such a massive ship.

Yes, Lake Superior is to be respected.  There were plenty of stories of fishermen lost, because it is so cold.  Hypothermia can set in so quickly.  I remember stories of steelhead fishermen at the mouth of the rivers who slipped into the current, their waders filled up, they were swept out into the lake and never seen again.

It is an inland sea, that creates its own weather.  I lived in the snow belt along the south shore...200"+ snow annually.

One thing though Sticky...that big ore boat was not empty...it did have 52 million pounds of taconite pellets...as it says in the song..."a load of iron ore, 26 thousand tons more, than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty."

I heard a story on NPR yesterday that said in the 100 years from 1875 to 1975, there were over 6,000 ships sunk in the Great Lakes.  They said that in the 50 years since, that number dropped to zero.  

Footnote:  I know a guy up there who was the grandson of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  A namesake, in fact.  Still a Facebook friend.

We have Gordon Lightfoot's haunting tribute to credit for this memory to be fresh. Mostly nobody remembers this much more deadly accident:

The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915, the ship capsized while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. In total, 844 passengers and crew were killed in what is the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.

I was a sophomore at UMD, had just moved from Griggs to the Movillas, up in the wood above campus.  Remember getting up that morning and it was just dead still and the trees were covered with hoarfrost, just enjoying the view.  Then a roommate came out with the new's.

What's amazing to me is that the song, which sounds like an old folk tale about something that happened decades before, was recorded literally one month after the ship went down.

MaroonBells wrote:
What's amazing to me is that the song, which sounds like an old folk tale about something that happened decades before, was recorded literally one month after the ship went down.

ITs still sung regularly in those musty olde bars along the lakeshore...

It's a ballad full of historical inaccuracies, but we forgive them lol! 

I know he met with many of the surviving families and switched a few lines-up over the years out of respect.

MaroonBells wrote:
What's amazing to me is that the song, which sounds like an old folk tale about something that happened decades before, was recorded literally one month after the ship went down.

Had a musician friend explain to me when it first came out that it was a rework of another of his songs, "The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle".  The man was a great troubadour and could write some haunting songs.

Speaking of 70s music (and tragedy), I played this song for my 18-yo son who dabbles with guitar, singing and songwriting. Once I explained what an "operator" was, he was blown away by it. The lead guitarist in this, classically trained Maury Muehleisen, turned 24 the day before this video was recorded. He and Croce died in a plane crash 8 months later. 

MaroonBells wrote:
Speaking of 70s music (and tragedy), I played this song for my 18-yo son who dabbles with guitar, singing and songwriting. Once I explained what an "operator" was, he was blown away by it. The lead guitarist in this, classically trained Maury Muehleisen, turned 24 the day before this video was recorded. He and Croce died in a plane crash 8 months later. 

Saw Gordon when he was young and I was much younger and then not before he passed away. He was very frail but he played on
his feet for nearly two hours and voice still sounded strong and the same.  I do remember he said before he played the Edmund Fitzgerald
he stated "if there's one song from me to remember let it be this one". Really made you pause for a minute and I just knew we would never hear
him sing that again.