11-10-1975

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RustyRatRod

RustyRatRod

I was born on a Monday. Not last Monday.
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....is the day The Edmund Fitzgerald went down in a big storm on Lake Superior, losing all 29 lives aboard. May they never be forgotten.

 
A sad day in maritime history. One of my most favorite songs!
 
The DJs at the local radio station got so sick of me calling to request that song. I still get choked up when I hear it and I'm just a dumb land lover from the California desert. RIP brave sailors Rest in Peace.
 
Yep...and now, 44 years later, another huge storm is now plowing down across Lake Superior.

“When the gales of November come early.”
 
Visited the memorial, saw the bell they recovered. Boys its been good to know ya.
 
Ive been to Whitefish Bay and toured the museum... brings a tear to the eye.

Two weeks after the sinking my idiot neighbor Bob woke me up at midnight... corralled me into driving to Detroit with him and his family to pick up a boat he just bought. I lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at the time.

On the way back I’m snoozing on an air mattress in the truck bed when I sense that I’m sliding towards the tailgate.

I was... Bob was going to launch the boat at St. Ignace and take a ride to Mackinaw Island.. with me, his wife and kid!!! Two weeks after The Big Fitz went down. In five foot seas... in an 18’ I/O!

After putting the boat in the water, he parked the truck and trailer in a parking lot two blocks away, and he returned to the boat ramp only to have me note that he forgot to put the plug in the hull and the boat was sinking with the engine half submerged in water!

I had never seen his *** run so fast as he did to get that trailer back under his boat before it sank into Lake Superior!
 
Krooser said:
After putting the boat in the water, he parked the truck and trailer in a parking lot two blocks away, and he returned to the boat ramp only to have me note that he forgot to put the plug in the hull and the boat was sinking with the engine half submerged in water!

I had never seen his *** run so fast as he did to get that trailer back under his boat before it sank into Lake Superior!
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My old man had a special place he used to put that transom plug so there was no way he could forget to put it in :lol:
 
My Grandma's cousin was married to the first captain of the Fitzgerald when she was launched. He retired shortly after that. I just remembered him as Bert and never new anything else about him until my grandma told me what he did just before her death.
 
Many times have I visited the great lakes. They really are inland oceans. Over a 1000 ft deep, so damn cold in the summer you can get hypothermia. Superior at least. Seen some pretty good waves on Superior and the northern shore of Lake Michigan near Gladstone and Escanaba.
 
My wife and I at whitefish bay in August this year in the ‘77 Ramcharger

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My mom was in the hospital when the Fitzgerald when down. On the same floor one of the crewmen from the Fitzgerald I don't remember what he was there for. He was supposed to be on board the ship then but he couldn't because of his condition.
My mom said he was so distraught about all his buddies and especially the one who took his place on board. The nurses had to keep an eye on him.

That was a nasty storm I had afternoon classes at the vocational school that was over at 7:00 pm. It was a white out driving home that night in my 2wd 69 Chevy 3/4 ton. It was a butt cinching ride home you could hardly see the road.

That big old lake can be so beautiful, but it can get so ferocious in a short amount of time.

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norshorblufish said:
My mom was in the hospital when the Fitzgerald when down. On the same floor one of the crewmen from the Fitzgerald I don't remember what he was there for. He was supposed to be on board the ship then but he couldn't because of his condition.
My mom said he was so distraught about all his buddies and especially the one who took his place on board. The nurses had to keep an eye on him.

That was a nasty storm I had afternoon classes at the vocational school that was over at 7:00 pm. It was a white out driving home that night in my 2wd 69 Chevy 3/4 ton. It was a butt cinching ride home you could hardly see the road.

That big old lake can be so beautiful, but it can get so ferocious in a short amount of time.

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That water is so clear. And cold, I'm sure.
 
My Dad was on the merchant marines with Cleveland Cliffs runnin iron ore on Superior at one time. Stories he could tell. The top 6 ft of water is all that warms up in summertime, if you're swimming and drop you feet down you get past the warm layer. When I toured the painted rocks in August there was still ice in the coves!
 
When we went out on Lake Superior, they said there were over 6000 known ship wrecks in the Great Lakes. Lake Superior has almost half of them.
 
318willrun said:
When we went out on Lake Superior, they said there were over 6000 known ship wrecks in the Great Lakes. Lake Superior has almost half of them.
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One, the Island Queen, was sunk in Lake Erie in 1864 by my cousin, a Confederate Naval Officer. They were on a mission to liberate a prisoner of war camp on Johnson's Island. He was captured, tried, and executed few months later.
 
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