There are many things I don’t understand. Some are common, like the mystery of airplanes able to heave their loaded bulk high above the clouds, coming down a million miles away with (almost) never a mishap.
Or communications. How did Morse Code technology work, and after that the telephone? Then came radio and CB radio and iPhones. I could not compose a single coherent sentence explaining any of it.
Or electricity. I’m in my eighth decade and all I know about electricity is how to spell it.
This column touches upon things that don’t make sense. It mostly concerns a fine book called ‘Gales of November’ by John U. Bacon, an account of the Edmund Fitzgerald ship and its sinking in November of 1975.
Unlike electricity, a sunken ship makes (tragic) sense. The book details the treacherous history of sailing and shipping on the Great Lakes by hammering home the argument that the Great Lakes are far more dangerous to sail than the Pacific Ocean, and has the shipwrecks and dead sailors to prove it.
‘Gales of November’ also provides tidbits about the Great Lakes including its collective water mass which, if drained, would cover all of North America and all of South America under water two feet deep.
And: Beneath Lake Huron lies the world’s biggest salt mine.
And: The world’s largest freshwater lake is Lake Superior, and upon it is Isle Royale, an island big enough to contain its own lake with its own island. On that island is another lake with another island inside it, and on that island is another lake with its own island.
Storms on the Great Lakes are infamous, fearsome and frequent. Waves have topped 85 feet and winds can exceed 100 miles per hour. One of the bigger storms in Great Lakes history resulted from warm weather blowing north out of southern California until colliding with an icy Canadian storm on November 10, 1975. Also present at the catastrophe: the Edmund Fitzgerald.
At ship’s helm was a longtime veteran known as the most knowledgeable and experienced navigator on the Great Lakes, Captain Ernest McSorley. He’d announced his retirement weeks earlier, and said this would be his final voyage. It was. And also for 28 crew members.
The ship, 729 feet long, was Detroit-bound, carrying 29,000 tons of iron ore. It sank in Lake Superior 17 miles off Whitefish Bay and came to rest 530 feet below the surface.
And this is what I don’t understand:
Why, when a ship at sea or large lake goes down, is it instantly and forever termed a “watery grave” and off-limits to retrieving bodies? By contrast if an airplane crashes into a mountain or a train rolls off a bridge or six buses go over six cliffs in Peru, the dead are identified, their families notified and given proper burials or cremations.
But not drowned sailors or common citizens. Go down with the ship and suddenly a chorus insists the broken boat and all the drowned bodies must lie undisturbed.
Forever. Or until pirates and looters find the pieces of boats and victims and make off with souvenirs and jewelry.
Following a plane wreck or car wreck the deceased are treated differently. Their survivors are able to recover precious mementos (grandpa’s gold watch, the $64,000 in mom’s leather purse) but if submerged underwater, must lie forever ‘neath the icy waves until a whale comes along and eats everything including the ship’s brass bell.
Ahh, the brass bell. When a proposal to bring the Edmund Fitzgerald’s bell up and mounted in Michigan’s Great Lakes Sailing Museum there came predictable cries of “watery grave!” and complaints the dead must be left undisturbed. After more than 20 years of wrangling the bell was retrieved and is on display at the museum.
A replica of a bell was taken to the bottom of Lake Superior and affixed among the sunken wreckage, allowing the beloved Myopic Mackerel of Lake Michigan to enjoy their murky reflection in the brass bell shell. I doubt the new bell brought joy to the dead sailors, but at least they have their watery grave.
Is there another road to death that results in a corpse being denied the dignity of a burial where family might solemnly gather? Suicide? Firing squad? Buried alive? None come to mind.
Oh wait! Now I remember: Electricity is a form of energy resulting from the existence of charged particles (such as electrons or protons) either statically as an accumulation of charge, or dynamically as a current.
(Tommy Wayne Kramer reminds his many readers that it’s the holiday season and the ideal time to reward local op-ed writers with gratuities to show your appreciation. Remember, as Tom Hine often says, you can judge a society by how it treats it columnists.)
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