My original intention was to write this piece the Saturday (November 26th) after Black Friday, 2011 but damn, I was having sucha good time on my Thanksgiving vacation that I thought to myself "Eh, it can wait." Yet on my FB wall during that same time period, I came across more than a coupla posts heavily condemning America regarding the annual retail season gauging frenzy that takes place every year on the day after Thanksgiving, hence the nickname "Black Friday." In fact, I noticed a great deal of such criticism coming from our neighbor to the north, Canada. Now I love all my friends in Canada and the country itself but I thought to myself "Now waita second, America is NOT the only country that goes through this annual indicative milestone of the holiday shopping season, the rest of y'all do it too so knock it off with the finger-pointing, thank you very much!" Why the nerve.
In other words, Canada, dont be making America out to be the bad guy on any of this retail crap because not only are you Canadians guilty on this count too but so are your mother countries of France and Great Britain as well as practically every other nation that is part of Western civilization as we know it. Guess it goes to show you that in every family, even amongst nations, there is always someone pissin-n-moanin about something. Pffft.
Anywho, I have not gone Black Friday shopping in about a good 15 years or so but I decided to go this year because I was staying with friends in the Ashland and Framingam areas of Massachusetts and lemme tell you, I may have only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before but mannnnnn, I had sucha blast! It was great, it was fun and I hadda sucha good time! I really did.
I'm not saying that because I love go to shopping either, though I'm sure that being totally kewl with shopping did prevent me from having some of the shopping aisle-rage that plagues alotta shoppers on sucha momentous retail-day as Black Friday. The crowds, nor the traffic jams, nor the long lines didnt upset me in the least.
I've said this every day of my life since I moved to the Boston area back in '95 and I'll probaly say it till the day I die - Boston and its suburbs are some of THE BEST places to shop on the entire planet, both during the holiday season and off-season. The variety of stores, the selections of items and the competitive prices - you just cant beat that. With the exception of NYC, other great shopping meccas such as Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis and Denver just dont impress me. Y'all are great but you just aint home on any of this.
As to where I went for Black Friday this year, my friends and I mainly stuck with the Shoppers World shopping plaza in the Framingham-Natick area, as well as the various stores on both Route 9 and Route 30. As I previously mentioned in one of my Facebook posts, I'm not gonna be able to afford much for Christmas this year so I mainly went window-shopping for myself for some badly needed clothes and for my Gram's Christmas gift (come hell or high water, I always get that Dear Lady something for Christmas, no matter how bad or good things are financially for me at that time of year) and l gotta admit, it was a lot of fun - the throngs of people scurrying all over the place, the silly melodramatic scenes of people panicking over locating and purchasing this-or-that item(s), the joking around and laughing heard everywhere, the pretty Christmas lights, the endless supply of fresh coffee being sold (or in some cases, handed out free) on every shopping alcove and quite frankly, just the rush of it all. If you like that kinda thing like I do, then it's the ticket, that's for sure.
In addition, I do have a coupla awards to give out regarding that day....the Best Store with the Best Front Door Customer Reception? That award would have to go to HomeGoods on Route 30 in Framingham. Omfg! Get this - upon walking across the threshold of the store we were greeted by an employee who offered us standard-sized cups of freshly made Dunkin Donuts coffee (none of those puny styro-foam sized cups), fresh, full-sized Dunkin Donuts donuts(which I avoided due to the diabetes, but still) AND a free semi-vinyl shopping bag available in 2 different designs - one with the store logo on it and the other in a bright pink color with a golden crown on it with the words "I'm a Chocoholic - Finding Happiness One Bite At A Time!" emblazoned upon it. Needless to say, the bag was truly fit for a Queen! Now I know some folks arent the least bit impressed with stuff like this but for a kid that grew up poor in the Midwest, walking into that store was like celebrating the Christmas spirit a whole month in-advance. It was really nice.
The Best Deal I came across was going into a store called "Five Below" on Route 9 and buying something that was not clothes, nor for my Gram, but rather something on my secret Christmas wish-list. I bought, for only $5 exactly a piece, the following films on dvd, "Twillight," "Twilight: New Moon" and "Twilight: Eclipse!!!" - all 3 films in limited edition formats! Yes!!!! Now I have all the "Twilight" films made prior to the one currently out in theaters, "Twilight: Breaking Dawn: Part 1" and I couldnt be any happier about this than some fat kid eating a piece of cake! The rest of my private wishlist consists of ALL the soundtracks to each of the Twilight films and ALL of the books that each of the films were based on. Give me those, one good-loving man and a bottle of Bleu de Chanel and my Christmas wish-list will be complete!
So all in all, I did have a wonderful Black Friday experience and with the exceptions of the blatant overcommercialism and retail hyperole, I think that day is just like any other day and/or event of the year - it's totally what you make of it. All I wanted to do was just relax, hang out with my friends and maybe find a great deal or two if possible and I not only did one of those things, but I did all of them and all on Black Friday. Will I go out again on that most heralded of holiday shopping extravaganzas? Perhaps if its with friends again or if there's an item that I want really really bad for gift-giving or for myself (hey, better to be honest than lie!), but either way, I think it'll all depend on how I feel about it at the time. So whether you do or dont go out on Black Friday, I dont think it's as much of a crisis-period as the media and folks in general make it out to be, I think it all depends on how you look at it. Thank you for reading.
So, either before or by the weekend I plan to start writing again, not because I feel I have to but because I want to. I do miss doing my writing and now that things are becoming more even-keeled with my current life schedule, as they say, I look forward to returning to it quite soon.
In regards to that, I know there is one that some people might find a bit boring because I've already written on it 3 times this past month - the EDMUND FITZGERALD sinking. As with all of my pieces, if nobody cares to read about that subject anymore, I'll totally understand, but it's one of those pieces I need to write for myself, a piece I'm hoping will FINALLY give me that last dose of emotional/mental closure that I need regarding that tragedy.
World AIDS Day is coming up in 2 more days and though that is a very important date to me, as well as to everyone who is living with Hiv/AIDS, I most likely will not be writing anything for that date because not only have I written several times on that subject but quite frankly, I live with it every day. And, I know there are gonna be a ton of folks - as there are every year at this time - who are gonna be flipping out left-n-right with the Red Ribbon craze and hey, that's totally fine with me, I'm extremely proud of that symbol too; but, for you overboard fanatics out there, I wear that Red Ribbon symbol every single day as HivSpice, so I therefore do not require anyone with borderline psychotic tendencies to jump all over me since I do have the Red Ribbon proudly displayed on my Spice logo as well as my Facebook profile pic - as it has always been and as it always will be, thank you very much.
One of the greatest things about the world of modern technology in which we live in is the fact that new information - or information we didnt realize was there to begin with - regarding everything under the sun is constantly being located, processed and then shared with and brought to the attention of the general masses, which of course explains why I am writing yet another piece regarding the EDMUND FITZGERALD sinking of November 10th, 1975.
This morning I stumbled across a 1993 video interview of Captain Bernie Cooper of the Great Lakes freighter ARTHUR M. ANDERSON, the very same ship which was traveling about 10 miles behind the EDMUND FITZGERALD the night she sank. Here is someone who was actually there, whose ship was definitely closer in proximity to the FITZ and the conditions she experienced better than anyone else out there. In a documentary regarding the tragedy which I watched a few years back - I apologize for I simply cannot remember the name of this documentary - there were clips of this particular video in that specific documentary; however, what I saw this morning was the entire video of the interview with Captain Cooper which took place right before his death in 1993 and lemme tell you, this entire interview contains some excellent, probable explanations as to what most likely happened to the EDMUND FITZGERALD and her 29 crew members. 
As a matter of fact, much of what Captain Cooper stated in that interview even addressed some of the things that I was greatly concerned about as a child regarding the ships' sinking. Now granted, there is more than one theory out there suggesting what exactly happened to the EDMUND FITZGERALD but judging from the explanations that Captain Cooper provided, I personally agree with his reasoning on practically everything he said. Bottom line, the man knows what he's talking about.
Captain Cooper provided more than one legitimate, plausible explanation of what happened to the EDMUND FITZGERALD but the one I agreed with most is the following. Based on the conditions the ship herself experienced right before she sank - missing fencerails, a slight list to starboard (right side of the ship) and the fact that a couple of rogue waves were spotted behind her path that night - Cooper theorizes that the water combined from those 2 giant waves and the water already building up in the bow section of the ship caused her to literally dive to the bottom of Lake Superior. The weight of all that water brought on by the hurricane-force storm literally pushed the EDMUND FITZGERALD into a nosedive from which she never recovered from. In other words, her bow hit bottom while her stern was still above on the surface. Whether she broke in half in this position or after she totally sank is still somewhat of a controversy; but, the way in which her 2 seperate hull sections are resting on the bottom of Lake Superior suggests a tremendous amount of creedence to Captain Cooper's theory that she began to break in half after her bow impacted on the bottom of Lake Superior..jpg)
In addition, Captain Cooper's last radio conversations with Captain Ernest McSorley of the EDMUND FITZGERALD even further substantiate the aforementioned theory because they shed a great deal of light on something I never knew, something I could've never possibly imagined was even true - there was no pre-sinking panic on board the EDMUND FITZGERALD that night. Even though every one of her 29 members definitely felt what is was like for their ship to be tossed about like a matchstick on the water, there was not one single hint of panic in Captain McSorley's voice whatsoever. In addition, when Captain Cooper asked him how things were going he merely responded "We are holding our own" which clearly and unequivocally indicates that Captain McSorley himself had no indication whatsoever that his ship was going to sink. Yes, he knew that the EDMUND FITZGERALD was in a shitload of trouble with the hurricane-force storm that was relentlessly battering the living hell outta his ship; but, because there was no panic in Captain McSorley's communications as well as his actual voice, that could only mean one thing.
The exact same thing that Captain Cooper implied next in the interview, which is that it is highly probable that Captain McSorley himself didnt even know his ship sank until her bow actually hit the bottom of the lakebed. As with most sea captains, both those who serve on the Great Lakes and the oceans of the world, McSorley was most likely thinking "Okay, this is bad but we'll come back up out of it, just like we have all the other waves." But, sad to say, the EDMUND FITZGERALD never recovered from that last set of waves that hit her..jpg)
In addition, all of this explains why there were never any distress calls from the EDMUND FITZGERALD; after all, how could there be when her sinking happened so fast that no one knew they were in immediate grave danger to begin with? No captain of any ship sends out distress calls and/or emergency rockets/flares, unless it's pretty obvious that his/her vessel is encountering some serious danger. Even if you're notta ship buff or havent studied ships a good part of your life as I have, you gotta admit it ALL makes perfectly logical sense. Of course there were no distress calls or anything like that - McSorley had no reason to believe that his ship was gonna sink, he most likely thought the FITZ was gonna make it through, as she usually did..jpg)
I'm not stating that Captain Cooper, in his interview, answered every single pondering question that I posed in the piece previous to this one; but, I gotta admit, he did put more than several of my unanswered questions regarding the EDMUND FITZGERALD sinking to rest. Regardless of how fast the FITZ sank, I now have good reason to believe that just like with Captain McSorley, not one of her crew members had any reason to believe that the EDMUND FITZGERALD would fail them too. In other words, there is also a very high probability that the majority of the crew members, if not all of them, were NOT in a scared, huddled mass of humanity holed up in this or that part of the ship waiting to die because chances are extremely high that they were doing exactly what they were suppose to be doing in the first place - their jobs of taking care of their ship and doing what they could to keep everything together. Now whether or not that was indeed the actual scenario, I may never now but I think it stands to reason that no matter how distraught anyone could be in such circumstances, when you're manning a ship that size, business is probaly as usual unless you're told otherwise.
In singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot's song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" (1976), he mentioned/implied how Captain McSorley allegedly said "Well fellas, it's been good to know you" which is something I dont doubt he could've said; after all, if any one of us had been in McSorley's position, dontcha think we all woulda said something very similiar to the crew members too?, Captain McSorley was a good captain and a good man but just because he MIGHT have said something like that does not mean that he thought the EDMUND FITZGERALD was gonna sink, which yet again explains why he never sent any distress calls or emergency rockets out - because he simply had no reason to believe he needed to do so.
I'm not saying that the Captain Cooper interview explains all the mysteries of the EDMUND FITZGERALD sinking but every one of his logical explanations as to how that ship could've sank does indeed make good common sense. Quite frankly, I dont think the controversy revolving around the FITZ's sinking will ever die but I think that's kind of a mute point in a way because as long as it keeps the memories of her captain and crew alive as well as allows her story to be told, then those controversies are truly serving a positive purpose. Thank you for reading.
I actually wasnt going to write a companion piece to last night's piece regarding the 36th anniversary of the sinking of the EDMUND FITZGERALD but in the days and weeks that followed the tragedy, even as a young kid of 10 years old, there were so many questions that entered my mind. I've lived with those questions for almost a full lifetime now and tonight I feel compelled to validate them via the written word, as they say. It's not just because the FITZ was one of the largest Great Lakes freighters that ever existed that made the her sinking so famous but also the fact that even for as technologically advanced as the world was back in 1975 in terms of things such as sonar and radar, it was totally unimaginable that such an event could even happen in what was considered "these modern times." And it's because of such factors, that I myself have a ton of unanswered questions regarding what happened on the night of November 10th, 1975.
I use to lay awake at night before bedtime while saying my prayers and I always added an extra one or two just for the sake of the captain and crew of the EDMUND FITZGERALD. I kept thinking of how much their families must miss them and I also kept wondering, had they too finally given up hope as well? As a kid I already knew that they probaly had but my focus went from those emotions to all the unanswered questions I still own to this day.
What really really happened to the 29 men aboard the EDMUND FITZGERALD that night? Both right before the ship broke apart and even during that process, where were they all when it happened? Were they at their posts in all the vast areas of the ship doing their jobs, or were they huddled together in groups at her bow and stern cabin sections? I remember back in '75 I'd hear the adults say "Oh it probaly happened so fast they probaly didnt even know what hit them" but as a ship buff and a fairly intelligent kid I knew that was pure bullshit. It doesnt matter how fast or how slow a ship sinks, I shudder to think of what musta been going through their minds when their ship started to break apart and sink. I found (and find) myself wondering "What were they thinking? Did they know they might not make it or did they have complete faith that help would reach them in the nick of time?"
Back in 1975 and even recently, I always reviewed the crew members names, their ages, their backgrounds and I kept thinking of the 4 to 5 crew members who were only in their early 20's when the ship sank and I thought to myself "Oh my fucken gawd, they didnt even have the chance to really live their lives at that age" and I kept trying to imagine what was going through their minds and how they felt about what was happening to them. Most adults back then, and probaly still to this day, use to say "Well, those young men knew that being at sea could be dangerous so they probaly didnt think twice about it." Oh really? I disagree because like with any human beings, I cant imagine them not thinking "Damn, whatta cruel joke this is. My life is just starting out and now this happens." True, bad, horrible things happen to people of all ages and hey, that's just the way life is but it still doesnt change the fact that there is an unspoken, yet highly felt, remorse over those who lose their lives at sucha a young age as that.
Regardless of what those younger crew members as well as the other members of the EDMUND FITZGERALD were thinking when they knew their lives were in great danger, my only hope that I had as a child of 10 was this "Oh God, I just hope they werent scared, I hope they werent alone when they died. I hope their fellow crew members were nearby them." But naturally, as an adult, I realize that hell yes they musta been frigthened by what was happening, downright scared shitless even; but, still, I hope they were somehow together, that they didnt feel totally alone when their lives were ending. I suppose that sucha thing doesnt make one's impending death any easier to accept but I would like to think that it does indeed make a difference.
And I think about Captain McSorley. I think about him a lot. Back in '75 it was implied that when he knew exactly what kinda danger the EDMUND FITZGERALD was in, his immediate gameplan was to try to reach Whitefish Point where the ship might find safe refuge from the hurricane-like storm. Naturally, he had to be extra careful with sucha approach due to all the dangerous shoal areas in that part of Lake Superior but I truthfully believe that that man did his best in trying to get that ship to safety. He was an experienced captain, a good captain and I have no reason to believe otherwise that he did everything in his power to save his ship and thus her crew members.
I've even gone as far as to try to put myself in his shoes and have tried to imagine what I woulda done differently in his situation because it is true what they say - we can say what we woulda done and what we wouldnt have done in all kinds of such scenarioes and situations; but, in all actuality, we'll never know how we would have reacted because we werent there. 
However, there is one thing I know for a fact I woulda ATTEMPTED to try to do, regardless of what it did to the ship itself. I dont care how big and heavy-laden the EDMUND FITZGERALD was that night, I woulda done my damnest to beach that huge whale of a freighter as quickly and as competently as woulda been humanly possible in sucha horriffic storm conditions. I'm serious. I woulda ignored all the danger signs of those shoals and I woulda rammed the FITZ into the nearest shoal-line as quickly as possible at the time. True, beaching a ship that size in a hurricane-like storm of such great magnitude woulda probaly broke her back and put her superstructure at terrible risks BUT at least she hopefully woulda been close enough to the shoreline to get every single man, including Captain McSorley himself, off of her and to safety on land. Granted, such an attempt woulda appeared nearly impossible to do, especially with the unimaginable storm and wave surges of that night BUT it woulda been worth the try. And, had McSorley been much closer to the shoreline than he actually was, I like to think that at the last minute, he woulda done the same exact thing.
What do I think really sank the EDMUND FITZGERALD? Quite frankly, a combination of that hurricane-like storm of November 10, 1975 as well as mankind's vanity towards something as powerful as Mother Nature Herself. No, not human error because her crew didnt batten down her hatches enough, for it's been proven they most certainly DID do so, or because she was an aging ship that needed certain repairs to her hull here-n-there; but, because back in those days, every freighter company was obsessed with making "one last final run" before the shipping lanes were closed due to the upcoming inclement winter weather which always took place on the Great Lakes. Their thinking was "Oh we can make it, just one more load of ore, just one more trip and then we'll be done for the season."
Even as terrible as the sinking of the EDMUND FITZGERALD was, the experts of today have stated that it's not an issue of IF such a tragedy could happen again but more of an issue of WHEN it will happen again. Whether for the financial profit that can be gained by that one last shipment before the shipping season ends or not, I pray that sucha event never ever happens again because no matter how much more technologically advanced we have become since the world of 1975, I still think that when it comes to the forces of Nature, we need to be just a bit more respectful and a whole helluva lot more cautious than we use to. Technology should never be a justification for complaceny, nor a subsitute for human safety. Thank you for allowing me to get all of these thoughts off my chest and as always, thank you for reading.
It's been almost 2 weeks since I've written in this blog and it's not that I havent been wanting to write in it, but with my health issues of this past month, working and trying to keep up with everything else in my life in general, I simply have gotten to it. Therefore, I think it's only fitting that I reinaugurate this blog by posting a memoriam piece in honor of the 29 crew members of the Great Lakes freighter EDMUND FITZGERALD which sank during a hurricane-like storm on Lake Superior on the night of November 10th, 1975. Though it's been 36 years since this tragedy took place it will always be in the "gone-but-not-forgotten" category of disasters for me personally.
I'll never forget that snowy, ice-cold morning of November 11th, 1975....I had just gotten picked up for school by one of the other military base mothers who lived 4 huts down from us and as me and 4 or 5 other children in that giant station wagon listened to the radio, we just could not believe what we were hearing....one of top 5 largest freighters on the Great Lakes, the EDMUND FITZGERALD, had gone missing the night before, with all 29 hands on board and all they found was a beat up lifeboat floating in the water....that was it!
I remember shivering in the backseat of that station wagon and as the group of us all began to talk about it, I said to the mother of my friend "If we're all freezing right now, then that means those guys on board the FITZ dont have much of a chance do they?" The mother responded "That's right Hon, so we gotta pray for all of them, we gotta have hope, somehow." It's kinda ironic in a way, but even as a youngster growing up in Western Ohio, I was always concerned about people being in a safe place and not being harmed. Granted, I had just turned 10 years old a little under 2 months before the EDMUND FITZGERALD disappeared and was already well into my love of the mighty ocean liners of the North Atlantic run; but, during those early formative years of ship study, I also read up a lot on Great Lakes passenger liners too, as well as any Great Lakes vessels period, so it really was a big deal for my peers and myself back then since the EDMUND FITZGERALD had been built right there in Cleveland. My heart went out to the families of the men who were on board when the ship sank that night - and it still does.
Normally with all my writings on ships I automatically include the statistics of every vessel I discuss but the mighty FITZ has been so talked about over the years that I figure if folks wanna check those things out further, they may feel free to do so themselves. As I mentioned earlier though, I do remember her being in the top 5 of the largest freigthers afloat at the time of her sinking and so many newspapers said she was the largest ship afloat on the Lakes at that time but I think a year or two later that was proved false. The only actual statistic I remember is that she was around 729 feet long, only about 60 or more feet shorter than the Cunard twin-sisters MAURETANIA and LUSITANIA of 1907. For a junior ship buff like myself back then, that was a pretty amazing fact!
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