A Junior in high school.

Starting my second semester at U of MD. I do remember the song, over and over and over.

1975, right? Out of college and knee deep in alligators in my first job. I don't remember the wreck happening, but like Joe I couldn't escape the song.

In college. Had a buddy who was on nearest Coast Guard ship. They never made it out of harbor for rescue attempt as water too rough.

Not even born yet, heck parents not even married yet in 75’,

On my way back from WestPac. Don't remember hearing about it until the song came out.

That would have made me a Junior in High School. You don't hear much about the Great Lakes on the West Coast but Gordon Lightfoot certainly memorialized the event that song.

I just googled the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, it sank November 10, 1975, which was the Marine Corps 200 Anniversary. I took leave from the USS Mobile which was in Hawaii and caught a flight back to March Air Force base to try to make the Marine Corps birthday ball in San Diego but got in too late.

I was in Dayton, Ohio working for Control Data Corp. at Wright Patterson AFB. I was a young engineer on my first job in the magic world of computer mainframes. Heady days...

I remember the incident very well and I am a big fan of Gordon'ts work. My handle 'Lightfoot' is however a throwback to the days of the CB radio. I was really a Leadfoot in those days and got a chuckle out of the contrast.

I was in 11th grade when it went down, I remember every one glued to the news casts for days hoping they would find survivors. I think a lot people in other parts of the country don't realize how big and and dangerous the Great lakes are. Had a relative visit from Virginia and she was surprised that she couldn't see across Lake Michigan when we took her to Grand Haven.

Lee

I was going to the UP to go deer hunting. I was 26 at the time!

Starting junior high, and I have to admit I didn’t know a thing about it for years.

I had been out of high school 5 years,married and working full time at a local ski area,mech, and heavy equipment op. Don

I was 3 years old living in NE Kansas.

Senior year of high school. Remember hearing about it.

setting chokers and chasing landing outside Eugene Or. my last year Logging

Not even in kindergarten.

“Fellas it’s been good to know ya”...

The most moving part of the song.

Building a Nuclear powerplant in N.Y.

Out of the Navy and married 7 years. My son was five years old. Other things going on of a personal nature.....gosh, maybe, I'm starting to get a little long in the tooth.

26 yrs old, patrolling the streets of a midwestern city in Central Iowa as a Police Officer. It was a Monday evening, so if I wasn't on duty, probably sitting home watching ABC Monday Night Football. Kansas City Chiefs beat the Dallas Cowboys 34-31

Jesus, you guys! I can barely remember the year let alone a specific day! I was probably more concerned with doing something critical under the hood of the '64 Triumph TR-4 which was my daily driver than I was about an horrific incident on the high seas of Lake Superior. Either way, it was "long ago in a galaxy far away".

On the other hand, Rory, what were you doing when you heard the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor?

I was busting my butt trying to get fiscal year end work done so I could get away to the UP for deer season. Fiscal year ended 10/31, and I had a mountain of closing stuff to get done for corporate. It was always a near thing, but I always made it.

I think my mom was still in diapers...
But I’ve been called a Pearl Harbor baby my whole life. I’m sure I heard that before I could even talk.

I do remember where I was when I heard about the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor. (Classic movie reference)

Had just finished the summer shearing run in Western Australia and was about to head back to New Zealand

I was a junior in college out in NY

Lake Superior is the largest lake in the U.S. ~400mi. east-west, ~120 north-south & 1300 ft. deep.
The Fitz made it 375 of 400 miles to safety at Sault Ste. Marie, MI.

That lake affects all weather in the area. It's cold water. A typical June day in WI near the Apostle Islands may be sunny and 70's. If the breeze is out of the NE it's low 40's.

On my first tour in Germany riding tanks.

I did not know that it was that close to making it to port

Would have been in 9th grade but don't recall the event, just the song.

Dale

10 years out of school, 5 years out of the navy, 3 kids, a house and a mortgage. The song still gives me shivers. We were in a typhoon in 1968 between Nam and Japan and were told waves broke over the bow of the ship. USS America, flight deck 90 feet above the water.

Mike

I was in 6th grade.

Probably heard the song 300 times before I realized it was about a real shipwreck.

Wasn't big news in (very) rural upstate NY I guess...

I was 4 years old. Living in Northern Wisconsin with the UP just a stones throw away, I’m sure it was a big deal, but I have no memory of it.

I was in the eighth grade chasing skirts.

"They'd have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put fifteen more miles behind her."

I am no mariner, but it looks as though if they hadn't gone to Canada, they may have been better off. Is there some nautical/navigational reason for swinging wide there? Trying to get out of the deep water? In my very limited experience it seems shallow water makes bigger waves.

Monday morning quarterback, I know.

Not trying to judge, just curious.

Doug

Not a sailor either, but as I understand it the wind was out of the North, waves build across the lake North to South with the largest being in the South so the idea was to "hug" the Northern shore in an attempt to avoid big waves. There is also a theory that due to the Northern route the ship scraped bottom while passing an island which may have caused the ship to take on water. Hard to say...

I was in Quinhon, Vietnam in 1968 when a typhoon was close. Thought I was going to freeze, although it was not that cold, but the temp dropped about 40 degrees. miles

I was stationed at F.E. Warren AFB, Cheyenne, WY Minuteman III missile site manager. Worked 3 days on and 6 days off. Loved the time off for hunting and fishing.

I was 9 years old in 1975. I was probably climbing trees in the orchard, shooting salamanders with a homemade arrow with a dart tip, sending golf balls into the stratosphere with a baseball bat, chasing pheasants in the pole field with a Crosman BB gun, throwing hatchets at the big fir tree in the grove, fishing for rainbow trout in Mosby creek, dressing up like hippies and riding my bike in the rain, or something like that.

Did I ever mention that I majored in oceanography in college. When the circular motion of the wave (water in waves that aren't in shallow enough water travel in circle) starts to hit bottom the energy starts to cause the water to move in an ellipse and the energy pushes the surface up. That is why the waves get bigger near shore. When you're at the beach the waves out quite a ways look small then they get bigger near shore. The water that spills forward on the beach is the ellipse falling apart. Once it runs out of energy the water recedes before the next wave comes in. The bigger the wave the deeper the water has to be for the water to move in a circle. If the Edmund Fitzgerald was in shallow enough water that was getting the burnt of the wind it would have been better off further off shore.

I'll stick to shooting salamanders.

I was a senior in HS as well.

A little over a year later I was crossing the Atlantic as a young Marine, in 35 foot seas. Ship bottled up tight as a tick for 3 days.

Oh yeah...the Edmund Fitzgerald was on my mind!

I thought that was a little too much info.

I was two years out of the Army, a 3rd year medical resident working what seemed like 20 hour days, with two more years to go....doubt I heard much about the loss of the ship, but remember the song well.