Comments on: The legend lives on.

By: Lex

Lex — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 20:31:16 +0000

Actually, down in those ice-water mansions, it’s a near-constant 41 degrees F., which helps explain why so many Great Lakes shipwrecks are so well-preserved.

By: Brian Saunders

Brian Saunders — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 02:43:48 +0000

10 comments and nobody mentioned the steel guitar?!? Shocking…

By: danno

danno — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:05:49 +0000

So Ash, you and Jen have coffee lately??!!
Marci, thank goodness you were saved from the likes of New Kids!!

The fact that it occured at night was always spooky to me. Being out in any body of water at night makes it ten times more scarey!!

By: ashley

ashley — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 19:37:08 +0000

I had tix to see Gordon once, but he had to check into rehab.

By: T

Thu, 06 Nov 2003 18:57:10 +0000

Spooky song. I always think of the irony of how healthy they were, strong & fit but all running to their ruin. They were “geographically sick”- stuck mid-Superior in a gale come early.

By: Marci

Marci — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 18:10:02 +0000

Danno: Well, it was sorta oddball for someone my age. Technically I should’ve been listening to the likes of New Kids On The Block back then.

By: danno

danno — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 17:52:50 +0000

The thing about that song is the feeling it evokes when one listens to it. You can sense the loneliness and despair in those words and that music.

Marci, by the way, all those artist you mentioned are quite mainstream. Oddball would be more along the lines of Tiny Tim!

By: anne

anne — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 16:28:29 +0000

I�m JC�s wife Sam�s friend and I do come from Sault Ste. Marie although my main residence has been in A2 for the last 24 years, actually a block away from Nancy�s house. My brother has always been an avid lake boat watcher and in 1975 he had a radio in his room that picked up ship transmissions. The night the Fitzgerald sank, we were listening to it and we could indeed hear the Anderson calling.

Our family owns a beach 6-7 miles upriver from the Sault where we have a summer cabin and several other relatives live year-round. I didn�t get to see how big the waves were that night but when I visited my aunt afterward, the beach was completely bare — all the logs and everything else had been blown or washed down to the end. It is a relatively isolated beach with no access at one end and I remember being a bit nervous about walking on it alone for a while after that storm. It was creepy even though we knew it was very, very unlikely that bodies or debris would wash up there!

In honor of the Fitz, I just put a picture of our beach (on a much calmer day) on my very haphazardly maintained web site at http://www.ababsurdo.com. Thanks for the memories!

By: Marci

Marci — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 14:39:13 +0000

That song used to give me chills, too, when I was small. My dad raised me on a good diet of oddball music (Kansas, Molly Hatchet, Elton John, Gordon Lightfoot, Genesis), which probably explains my own strange tastes.

One of my high school english teachers made us listen to Gordon’s music as an example of medieval-style ballads. If I remember correctly, those sorts don’t have a vocalized chorus, or if it is vocalized, it’s done with humming or nonsense words like “Hey nonny nonny with a hey nonny neeeeee” or something. Heh.

By: Nance

Nance — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 13:55:53 +0000

Yes, I did know the Arthur Anderson is still afloat, but that’s not too surprising. Ore freighters of that size don’t grow obsolete overnight. And I’ll have to clarify this with J.C., but I think I remember his wife’s friend Anne, who lives in A2, was up there that night, and they could hear the ships’ radio traffic on their scanners. They actually heard the captain of the Arthur Anderson hailing the Fitz and getting no answer. (I think.) That would be creepy.