Posted on 11/09/2008 8:44:08 PM PST by Joe 6-pack
gordon lightfoot did a song.
About this wreck?!?! Really?
i apologize.
i did not see your link out there in the middle.
LOL....It's easy to get lost when the gales of November come early.
The wife and I drove up to Whitefish Point 5 years ago when she was “just” the girlfriend at the time. We drove across the Mackinac bridge and stayed in St Ignace for the evening.
That night, there were 105 MPH winds which swept through the lake and there was a steady head of wind when we made our way to Whitefish Point the next morning. As we walked the shores in front of the Fitzgerald memorial, powerful 12’ rollers crashed into the polished rocks lining the beach. Out in the distance, there was a lone freighter making its way through the powerful waves...I will see if I can find a pic of the ship.
Nothing makes a more solemn impact than standing on those shores with powerful weather blowing in your face.
I thought Edmund Fitzgerald wrote the song about a ship called the Gordon Lightfoot, and it was rammed by the Cat Stevens.
wow!
I hate that song. Three notes repeated endlessly in a drone. If the Obama Administration ever needs to torture me into a false confession, all they have to do is play that thing over and over.
Interesting. I always thought it capsized due to ice buildup. I don’t know where I got that idea. Maybe I’m confusing it with some other sunk ship.
Nope...the Cat Stevens was reflagged as the Yusuf Islam. The George Michaels did most of the ramming.
It seems to me the ship, heavily laden, found her bow and stern riding the peaks of two big waves with virtually her entire keel unsupported over the trough between them, and she snapped in two.
i like that.
statement of fact, funny sometimes.
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
by Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call 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 - 26,000 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 Wisconson
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
With a crew and the 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 ships bell rang
Could it be the North Wind they’d been feeling.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
T’was the witch of November come stealing.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane West Wind
When supper time came the old cook came on deck
Saying fellows it’s too rough to feed ya
At 7PM a main hatchway caved in
He said fellas it’s been good to know ya.
The Captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the words turn the minutes to hours
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d fifteen more miles behind her.
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the ruins of her ice water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams,
The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed, ‘til it rang 29 times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.
Uh, that’s supposed to be funny?
Thank you for posting this. It was nice that you remembered the Edmund Fitzgerald. We lost all of those men that day in that tragedy. I like the song, too.
LOL, quick you are.
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