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40 years ago today
pwillie
Member Posts: 20,253 ✭✭✭
Where were you?.....I was driving a truck,and listening to the radio about the Vietnam debacle......all the lost boys,and all the lost time in country...'67-'68
Comments
My Grandfather was First Mate on the Edmund Fitzgerald for years but he died in November 1974 a year before the ship sank.
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 twenty-six thousand 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 Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
Then later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
When the wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
'Twas the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck
Sayin' "Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
At seven PM a main hatchway caved in
He said, "Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
The captain wired in he had water comin' 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 waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put 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 rooms 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 twenty-nine 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 said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
I was 11 and prob. on Easter break from school.6th. Grade..
If you can't feel the music; it's only pink noise!
not as goofey as they used to be.[;)]
Looking forward to my 14th B-day, and noticing that girls were
not as goofey as they used to be.[;)]
[:D][:D][;)]
In VietNam, getting shot at! Unloading TONS of Steel Can Carling Black Label Beer, and Tons of AMMO and C-4 at Vung Tau...
The Girls in Thailand, MMMmmmm!!!! Tuk-Tuks!!
The Philippines!!! San Miguel!!!!
Samoa/ Tahiti.....
Australia, New Zealand!!!!
The year before, Integratation took affect and my Dad held me out of School. Even though I had a Tutor, they Arrested him and I spent 9 hrs. in Child Haven. I was told that I was the only kid in America to be arrested during, "Buss Out".
They dropped the charges when he agreed to put me back in School. I went the last 28 days in the 6th grade and passed to the 7th with D-s across the board on my Report Card.
The next year I went to a School in, "The West Side". On the first day, a huge Black kid was trying to kill a White kid about my age and size, (stomping his head into a locker), and I was the only one that stepped in! I told him, "Hey, he's had enough, how about a piece of me"?
The Bell rang, and a Teacher came running up to stop the Fight just as I said that but, I became the next target.
I found enough kids the were tough enough to "just" hold them off until the rest of the Whites started banding together to make it an "Semi" equal fight!
I had to fight all the way through the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade with chains, knives, and at one point, I took my older Brothers .38 to School just long enough to show it around, then ditched 3rd period to get it back home. Sure enough, the Cops showed up, searched me and my locker, and found nothing, but the whole School knew that I had one, and life got a lttle easier for awhile.
quote:DITCH-RUNNER Posted
.. how time slips by
Man, don't it though.
4th grade
Me too[:)]
YUMMY[}:)]
Wasn't even a thought in my parents minds yet.
+1
On a side note, last time I was home I went by my parents first house on Gale Ave in Peoria, IL and it looked so small compared to how I remembered it. Apparently when you're a toddler things look bigger than they are.
FYI http://forums.GunBroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=591736
I got out of the hospital and discharged from the Army November 12th, 1969.
W.D.