In my mind’s eye, I’ll never for get Nov. 10, 1975 standing in our living room at 208 Fortress on K.I. Sawyer AFB and my mom talking about the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

The winter storms in Northern Michigan are some of the fiercest ever.  The ones out on the Lake before they come ashore have claimed countless lives over time.   At times, sitting at Presque Isle in Marquette, you’d never guess that Superior could be so timid and so violent as well.

I was almost 10 when the Fitzgerald went down.  When Gordon Lightfoot released his song about the ship, radio stations in the UP played it probably more than any other song ever has been played on the airwaves of the UP.

Today marks another anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  And in my own way, I’ll always hold this day as a sad one.  Obviously, I never knew any of the hard working and brave men on that boat, but their loss of life lives on.

This past summer on our Traverse Adventure to Northern Michigan, my girls got to see the big ore dock in Marquette and see the massiveness of the ships that brave the waters of Superior year round so that we can have steel.  Countless unsung heroes have done this work for a couple hundred years.  But there are 19 who now live in song. And memories of those who can still remember that fateful day.