Oh, I didn’t know that.
I was listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on youtube, and browsing the comments several people mentioned …
Okay. The song is about the real sinking of the freighter the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in 1975. And there’s a line in the song:
“In the Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral,
The Church Bell chimed till it rang twenty nine times,
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”
Which references something that the actual Maritime Church in Detroit did in honour of the ship’s crew. And I just found out in those youtube comments for his song that when Gordon Lightfoot died in May last year (2023), the Maritime Church rang those bells again, this time 30 times. Once for every man on the Edmund Fitzgerald, and once more for Gordon Lightfoot.
That’s … That is a memorial I would be proud to have earned. And proud to give. I do like that. A lot.
Apparently, the Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior also lit its beacon in honour of him.
Sorry. I’m having … extremely maritime sort of feelings over here. Songs and memorials, bells and beacons, and the ways we carry memory forward. That’s … that’s a good memorial. I like that.
