Where were you 35 years ago today?

>Where were you 35 years ago today?

I was 7 and living in Marietta, OH... I'm guessing that I wasn't doing anything too important... I don't remember the wreck.

Sorry.

Kids! Can't live with them, can't get someone to change your diaper in the nursing home without them.

Gordon Lighfoot Says It Well In Song

A haunting tune that gives me shivers.

Paul in PA

When I was in High School in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, I worked for the Merchant Marine Library Association. My principle responsibility was delivering boxes of reading material to the ore freighters as they stopped in the locks to be raised or lowered to another lake level depending on their direction; up to Lake Superior to load or down to the lower lakes to deliver the ore. I provided books to the Edmund Fitzgerald on numerous occasions. There was always someone, as on every boat (they aren't called ships), that would say "Nobody here can read, boy." We would all laugh, the crew of deck hands and me, and then they would take my box of books and thank me.

Later, I shipped out myself on the U.S. Steel freighter B. F. Affleck as a galley hand. (ordinary seaman-wiper)

I was out of school and in California when the Fitz went down. I'll never forget. Thanks, Cow, for remembering.

Thanks for bringing it up Senor Vaca Sacre. At that time I was at Eastern WA University, starting my final year in college in the outdoor leadership program there. Within the year, I was learning the words to Gordon Lightfoot's song and playing it on my guitar best I could. It was an inspiration to me as a young man. Later, I went to sea for to make a living. Spent 20 years doing that, and had some very harsh days on the bleak ocean. Never forgot that song or that story.

see it here:

I was in Washburn looking at the lake the first time I heard the song. It's been kind of strange ever since.

I was 5 and mourning my grandpas death. 🙁

In OZ the Whitlam Labor government were turfed out by

Governor General for incompetent governance and replaced by the Liberal party.

All done with out an election, just the signature of the Governor General who was until that day on 11/11/75 a labor stalwart!

RADU

I was m scoping a pipeline just east of Sarnia Ontario and the same weather system was kicking up very strong winds off Lake Huron. I remember it well.

I clearly remember playing with my Tinkertoys in the living room.

I was in my first year of college and working nights and weekends as a gas jockey. I don't remember this hitting the news at the time, but when the song came out the next year I went to the wikipedia of the day (newspaper and periodicals archives at the public library) and caught up on the tragedy. A couple years latter a friend told me about seeing Gordon Lightfoot in concert and how Gordon was a total be-atch... starting to play the first notes of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" then stopping and scolding the crowd for not being quiet and reverent while he performed, walking off stage, coming back and just carrying on like a total drama queen. A brilliant song, a true masterpiece, but I never had a desire to see Gordon after that report.

I was living in San Diego and about a week away from turning 21.

There have been a lot of disasters of all sorts that I remember, but not this one. I read about it much later.

I was doing hydrographic work on Lake Erie.

When the storm came through, we just stood on the cliff above Rocky River and watched the Atlantic Ocean roll in. Well, it looked like the ocean. We didn't go near it. It was unique.

Gordon Lightfoot wrapped it up neatly.

Carl

I think a lot of us who've never seen them underestimate the size and depth of the great lakes and how big storms can get there. I've learned to just stay out of the Pacific when the waves get big. Close calls...

Brad

Recently licensed, I was in Boston working for an engineering firm, preparing to go to Indonesia to survey for the installation of a power transmission line. The plan changed and I was to stay in Boston for the time being. So I quit and did marine patrol on Lake Champlain the rest of the summer. Got in a few good survey jobs that fall and kept going with that to the present time.

I don't really recall the incident itself.
Only the aftermath.

But, 35 years ago today I was mystified by the Olivetti.
The beginning of a whole new era of crunching numbers and traverses.

I was living within a mile of Lake Michigan at the time. Flew over it many times. Never had the desire to be out on it, especially after the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

I lacked 1 year and 8 months of making it to Earth.

I Had 2 Years In At Bethlehem Steel

Because Bethlehem had it's own ore boats on the lakes the word got around the plant in a hurry the next day. At the time I got the impression that it was a U.S. Steel boat.

Based on recent weather/wave studies it is probable the 729' long "Fitz" hit bottom while surfing down a wave. The wind was fierce and blowing over 180 miles of open water. The boat was approaching shallower waters 530' and the waves became like breakers on the shore. The weather model predicts the wind was greatest and waves the highest at the exact same place and time she disappeared. A slightly smaller boat "Arthur M Anderson" following 10 miles behind was in radio contact with her, reported that the "Anderson" was hit by 2 large waves, saw the "Fitz's" lights and then saw nothing without another radio call. It was that fast. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She lays on the bottom in 2 large pieces. The bow portion at 276' sits intact upright pointing SE the direction she was sailing. The 253' stern portion lies intact upside down pointing ENE and about 200' North of the bow. The 200' missing part of the boat is nothing but little pieces. I speculate that the bow hit bottom and stopped, the waves were from the West drove the stern forward and twisted it to port, the center section exploded from the compression and twisting. The pieces of steel and the iron ore lay in a pile of about 300' diameter centered between the 2 intact sections. All indications are that she stopped abruptly and broke at her bulkheads on the bottom. Had she broken on the surface the debris field would be much larger.

May the "Fitz" and her 29 "Good Men" Rest In Peace.

Paul in PA