Damien marks the 30th anniversary of the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald with an iPod coincidence:
Edmund Fitzgerald. Thirty years ago today, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. My iPod (with 800+ songs on it) played Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzerald" it this morning in random shuffle mode during my subway commute. Coincidences are so eerie. [mrbarrett.com]
The linked USA Today article does a nice job of explicating the power of Gordon Lightfoot's signature song. It still grabs me every time. There is a small number of sailing songs that do that to me, including Fairport Convention's "Honour and Praise." Years after retiring from yacht racing, I still feel the sting of wind-blown salt spray in the words and music of these songs. I never had a boat sink out from under me, but I did lose several friends over the years who fell overboard and drowned. During a voyage from Tasmania to New Zealand through the tail-end of a hurricane, a boat called "Smackwater Jack" went down one night just a few miles from us, with its designer/builder on board. And reading The Perfect Storm choked me up quite effectively (the movie was a disappointment).
So here's to the memory of "the good ship and crew." And thanks to Gordon Lightfoot for keeping the memory alive.
8:28:47 PM 
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