M.E. - The Night The Edmond Fitzgerald Sunk

I went to college at Lake Superior State University; it is a small college of about 3000 students at the tip of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The college is on the outskirts of a town of Sault Ste Marie with 16, 000 residents, home of the Soo Locks.

While at college I took full advantage of the opportunity and maybe too much of an advantage. In my first year I carried a full load as a Math Major – 22 credits, played collegiate basketball and softball, played the clarinet in the concert band and was enrolled in ROTC. Too bad I had calculus at 8am, because that was the one class that because I opted to miss too much and flunked it the first semester, you see I had passed calculus in High School and didn’t feel I needed to go. Doesn’t look good if you flunk the classes you are majoring in.

The second year I learned not to over do it and dropped band, didn’t schedule the early classes and backed off some of the nightlife. Yes, that was at a time when I was out most nights playing pool and dancing at the local disco – “ The Back Door”.

The third year I dropped softball and ROTC – I had developed an ulcer and the Army rejected me. This was also when I changed majors and switched to Mechanical Engineering. The Math Department didn’t like me taking classes in two areas and asked me to pick between the two, so I picked Engineering.

The forth and fifth year (I delayed leaving college and got an extra degree in the fifth year) I stayed the course, finished my eligibility in Basketball being the first woman at the college to earn a four year ring and graduated with two degrees and over 15 job offers.

College was an interesting time in my life and one of many experiences but truly the night the Edmond Fitzgerald sunk was one of the most unique. Maybe it was because of the ‘yard sailing’ or maybe the Gordon Lightfoot song, but to this day I remember the feel of the wind and the smell of the wet grass. Maybe it was because as we were having such fun while out on Lake Superior just 60 miles away there were 29 men that lost their lives. It is almost incomprehensible the strength of the wind until you have been in it.

Some of you are probably wondering why the “Edmond Fitzgerald” sounds familiar; it is because you probably were around during the mid-70s and listened to pop radio and the song by Gordon Lightfoot called “The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald”. That song was written about a ship that sunk in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. I remember that storm well. We are not talking a small windstorm; we are talking two days of winds that were sustained at 50 mph and had gust of up around 90 mph. The wind that night would have been classified as a Class 2 or 3 Hurricane had it been on an ocean. I remember trying to walk across campus that morning and not being able to get very far very fast. You would take one step forward and two steps backwards when you were trying to walk into the wind. Now if you were lucky enough to be walking with the wind it was pretty easy sailing as long as you could keep your feet.

Speaking of sailing that night I got to participate in ‘yard sailing’. It was the one and only time I have every seen this done. Along with the wind was rain and after a time the rain began to soak the grass out behind the student cafeteria to the point that the ground was saturated. So what we did was put on tennis shoes, grab old blankets and then you would run with the wind, quickly hold up the blanket and plant your feet. The blanket would act as a sail and the shoes were as skis across the wet grass. It was like you were an iceboat shooting across the lake. There were only two problems with ‘yard sailing’ 1) the blanket got soaked in the rain and was hard to hold up, and 2) if you were good the wind would carry you into the brick wall of the cafeteria because you couldn’t see through the blanket.

During my college years I learned to live on my own and to make hard choices in life as well as paying the consequences for your actions. Flunking a math class was a new experience and one that I sure didn’t repeat.

The Next M.E. – Mackinac Island