Sixty Years Ago, Today

Today is the 60th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald 300-word flash

Sixty Years Ago, Today

“Do you remember when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down with all hands, Sid?”
“Do I have to?” groused the old fisherman.
“We was so much younger then,” continued Bernie.
“Ah, we were! Sixty years ago today, if I recall,” Sid mused.

“Lake Superior still has her moods, especially this time of year!”
“You’d not catch me nor me boat on ‘er in November. Ye never know when them gales will come early.”
“That ship was coming from a mill in Wisconsin. She was bigger than most and on top of it all, had twenty-six thousand tons of iron ore on board.”
“The witch of November hit her on the way to Cleveland,” Sid put in.
“Freezin’ rain and a hurricane force west wind will do it every time,” Bernie said sagely.
“By seven that night, the main hatchway caved in. By then, the captain was forced to wire in that he was takin’ on water.”
“The searchers agree if they could have made White Fish Bay, they’d have been fine! She must have split up or capsized or maybe both,” Sid went on.

“We went to Detroit, remember!” Bernie said.
“Aye, to the Maritime Sailors Cathedral. I still remember the bells there ringing twenty-nine times for the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
Both Sid and Bernie paused to bow their heads in memory of all those lost souls. The prayers were silent but heartfelt, from fishermen to mariners.
“It were a harsh lesson all right, best heeded even today,” Sid reminded Bernie.

“Someone should write a song about it,” Bernie said.
“That Gordon Lightfoot fella already did,” Sid told him.
The old men raised their beer mugs to all those who toil in rough waters and to those who never return home in the end, ever.