Detroit, MI–
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?
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.
Though our modern, PC-culture rarely mentions it, one of the sacrifices men make for their families is their willingness to do hazardous, demanding jobs so their families can have a better life.
Since the founding of the United States, an untold number of sailors have lost their lives at sea. Recently a reader sent me a moving video memorial to the sailors who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald (pictured) in 1975.
According to Wikipedia:
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald…was an American lake freighter, launched on June 8, 1958. Until the 1970s, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes. During a Lake Superior gale storm on November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald sank suddenly, without sending any distress signals…All 29 hands in the crew perished, presumably by drowning…
Calling for help, unless the boat was actually known to be sinking, was considered verboten [forbidden] in the very machismo-driven Great Lakes shipping culture of the middle 1970s…even if the boat had in fact called for help, it is doubtful, under the actual conditions of the gale, whether neighboring vessels would have been able to render any real assistance.
The video can be seen here or below. In the end it lists all of the sailors who perished, just as is done by many dock memorials to local sailors lost at sea all over the world. Much of the video is set to Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, whose lyrics are quoted above.
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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iquCHSkmUek]