Monday, November 10, 2008

Remembering the Edmund Fitzgerald


Today we remember the Edmund Fitzgerald, lost with all hands on Lake Superior Novemeber 10, 1975. My late father, who was a ship chandler by trade at the time, knew some of the 29 crew and had boarded the ship regularly.

For an informative website on this fine ship, go to www.ssefo.com.

From "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot:

The legend lives on from the chippewa on down


Of the big lake they called gitche gumee


The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead


When the skies of november turn gloomy


With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more


Than the edmund fitzgerald weighed empty.


That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed


When the gales of november came early.


The ship was the pride of the american side


Coming back from some mill in wisconsin


As the big freighters go,


it was bigger than most


With a crew and good captain well seasoned


Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms


When they left fully loaded for cleveland


And later that night when the ship's bell rang


Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin?

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