It was an early morning in December of 1976. I was sitting at the kitchen table trying to warm my insides with a breakfast of oatmeal and peanut butter toast as the Gordon Lightfoot song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, played from the AM radio.
As an elementary school student I was fascinated by ships. I built models and drew sketches of as many as I could find in books and magazines.
These ship projects were a great way to occupy myself on long, cold, snowy afternoons.
It was only a year before, on November 10,1975, that the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a storm on Lake Superior.
It was carrying a full cargo of iron ore pellets and all 29 hands onboard were lost.
The song had a mournful yet soothing sound, as if it was written by a family member who needed to say goodbye.
The tune haunted me. It stayed in my mind and I found myself humming or whistling it every place I went.
Later that morning I bundled up against the fierce wind and spitting snow and took a short walk down to the lake. Continue reading
