The Gales of November

We were living in Detroit in 1975 when the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in Lake Superior off Whitefish Point. The tragedy immediately became part of Michigan lore, celebrated in song by Gordon Lightfoot. Every year on November 10th the bells of the Old Mariners’ Church in downtown Detroit ring out 29 times to commemorate the crew of the freighter. Andrew has a large framed print of the Edmund Fitzgerald on the wall of his family room in Maryland, and the now-closed Great Lakes Maritime Museum on Belle Isle used to be high on the list of places to take visitors.

Until this past weekend, the lower peninsula had not felt the violence of the gales of November. On Sunday we were lashed by violent winds, maybe from the north, maybe a byproduct of the tornados, which hit some mid-western states. A number of people in Wayne County were badly affected and lost power. Damage locally was slight. We had the awning over the dining room window torn loose and our neighbor Dave lost some of his siding.

It was a day to stay inside with a cup of tea. The worst the storm could do to us was blow the carefully raked piles of leaves out of the gutters and back onto the lawns. There is comfort being inside a house, warm and secure, when the winds blow outside and “the witch of November” can’t harm you.