Today marks the 39th anniversary of the disappearance of the Great Lakes iron ore freighter, the Edmund Fitzgerald. If you are unfamiliar with this event in history, google it. You may remember the song recorded by Gordon Lightfoot shortly after its sinking which was popular in 1976 and beyond, a classic among folk songs, I suppose.
This blog post is not really about that tragic moment in my personal history, or at least as personal as familiarity with Lake Superior, some of the folks who worked in mining or shipping in a part of the country that supplied tremendous amounts of hematite and taconite that fed the steel mills of the north. All became part of the great “rust belt”, eventually. Ore boats still ply those waters and on my occasional trips to the land I first called home, the sight of them always evoke memories of that day in November.
The memories also connect me to a high school friend, a woman with whom I lost touch over the years and found again on Facebook. When I signed up for a Write-A-Thon several months ago, she was the first to donate to the fundraiser which helps out the writers’ group I had recently joined. Just today she commented on an item I shared, a recording of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” It confirmed a small part of her personal history she shared with me shortly after that fateful day. I couldn’t exactly remember how she was so closely connected to that event, but it impressed me and has stayed with me since.
When faced with the prospect of writing for 2 1/2 hours I wrote mostly about the folks who pledged money for the event. This is a small part of what I wrote that night:
SML was the first to donate and it was a delightful surprise
when an email informed me of her generosity.
A high school friend we, of course, reconnected on Facebook. I marvel at this modern vehicle for social
interaction, smitten with its capacity to compress the last 40 years or so into
snippets of photos, sample details of lives long remembered but rarely
recalled. Memory informs, awakens
friendships that were perhaps not often deeply intertwined, but neither ignored
or forgotten.
I remember when the iron ore freighter, Edmund Fitzgerald,
sank in a horrific storm on Lake Superior—and that memory includes SML. Perhaps we talked of it, perhaps she knew a
crewman or had a close family member who worked on the great ore boats that
plied their cargo in the great lake’s tumultuous waters. I don’t recall, but there was something in
that tragic loss that gripped our hearts like November’s cold and drove like
the hellish wind into our souls. We
wouldn’t forget, our shoes bore the soil’s stain of hematite, our faucets ran
rust red, we bled in song and prayer and peals of bells. When I think of that day, I think of SML.
...And here is the comment my friend Sandie wrote, in response to today’s sharing of that classic ballad:
Sandie Milakovich LaVoy I remember also, my dad was still out on the lakes and had just passed whitefish point a couple hours before the Fitzgerald!! Long night for families of any men on the boats!
Thanks for clearing that up Sandie, and for reminding me of how we all connect through the times and events of our lives. We are all far closer to one another than we think and we share lives that are diverse and yet similar--amazingly similar.
