The Gales of November

I've realized that as a parent of young kids you get the chance to learn (or sometimes relearn) all kinds of fascinating facts and pieces of information as your kids develop interests in various things. For example, I can tell you alot about dinosaurs, trains and creatures of the ocean deep. And most recently I've become quite an expert on Great Lakes freighters and the Edmund Fitzgerald in particular. It started in early August when we are on vacation at my family's place on Lake Superior. The freighters pass by there and most of the young kids in our family take an interest in them at one time or another. He gets excited whenever a freighter goes by and has a well worn copy of Know Your Ships, which is like a field guide for Great Lakes Freighters. Owen has heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald before but one night when we were down at my aunt's cabin she broke out an old record player and some old records - yes actual records. One of the records was Gordon Lightfoot. We listened to "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and Owen was hooked. The next day I remembered my Dad had a copy of a children's book about the Edmund Fitzgerald (The Edmund Fitzgerald: Song of the Bell by Kathy-Jo Wargin) so I got it out and read it to Owen. When Owen takes an interest in something he doesn't mess around. He wants to read about it, talk about it, make-up stories about it, etc. all day and night. When we got home to Madison we checked the same book out of the library along with a documentary called the Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald. When we went back to the U.P. over Labor Day weekend we went to the Valley Camp, a retired freighter that was turned into a museum ship that now houses the 2 lifeboats recovered when the Edmund Fitzgerald sank. Owen was beside himself. Now here we are almost 2 months later and he watches this You Tube video about the Edmund Fitzgerald set to the Gordon Lightfoot song over and over and over and has his very own copy of the Edmund Fitzgerald book (thanks Grammy!). He can sit with the book and recite it word for word, which is no easy feat - it may be a picture book but it is long with lots of text. And if you've called our house lately (or skyped with us), you may have been lucky enough to hear Owen's rendition of the Gordon Lightfoot classic. And if you're really lucky, I might just sing along with him.

Owen standing by one of the Edmund Fitzgerald's lifeboats on our visit to the Valley Camp