Night. You took a few days off to visit with three other couples, old friends. Last year it was Washington D.C., this year you met at a private cabin along Burt Lake in Michigan. Place names will suffice for the travel, otherwise it was sitting in easy chairs and polite discussions spotted with honest humor in a windowed view of Burt Lake in morning and evening. Petoskey, Charlevoix, Brutus, Afton, Aloha, Cheboygan, Cross Village, Mackinac City, Mackinac Island, Tahquamenon Falls, Whitefish Point, Point Iroquois, Sault St. Marie and the Soo Locks along East Portage Avenue.
One of the boats you happened to witness moving west through the Soo Lock was a 1004 foot long and 105 foot wide bulk carrier, the Edgar B. Speer (a similarly classified bulk carrier was the famous SS Edmund Fitzerald [which sank November, 1975] whose recovered ship's bell [1995] you witnessed at the Sea Wreck Museum at Whitefish Point)
“The bell was transported aboard HMCS Cormorant to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where it was respectfully displayed to the public. On Friday, July 7, [1995] the bell was formally presented to the family members by Diane Cunningham, Ontario Minister of Inter-Governmental Affairs. In a ceremony titled "Call to the Last Watch" the bell was then tolled 30 times, 29 for each man who lost his life on the Fitzgerald, with the final toll for all sailors who have died on the Great Lakes.”
[Note and photo from: the Whitefish shipwreckmuseum]
While this was not your intent for today’s entry your respect for the Dead goes deeper than the trip as a whole; but not deeper than the friendship for those three other couples on this year’s Fall trip. – Amorella.
I do not consciously know the depth of my respect for the Dead or of my depth of friendship for any of my dear close friends. - rho
Therein lies the rub of much of these notes and the Merlyn books too, orndorff. You cannot consciously know such things, at least not while living. Something more for you to think about, boy. – Amorella.
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