Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 790: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Transcript

Ep. 790: The Sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is the me Eater podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear. Listening past, you
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: can't predict anything brought to you by first Light. When
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting, I need gear that won't quit. First Light builds,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: no compromise, gear that keeps me in the field longer,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: no shortcuts, just gear that works. Check it out at
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: first light dot com. That's f I R S T
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: L I T E dot com.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Guy, I got.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I got two competing ways I want to start the show.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: One I just have to admit that I'm so excited
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: I already wet my pants. There's one like this is
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: this is the one of This is one of the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: most exciting conversations for me because this is something that
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I like, I'll just come out and say, here, we're
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: here to talk about the the Edmund Fitzgerald, which is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: like weird, like I was one year old, but when
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: it happened, but it's it's sort of I don't know,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: man has haunted and inspired my whole life being from
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: that neck of the woods.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Sure. Uh.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: The second opening I was gonna use is how I've
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: never done this before, but I want to dedicate this
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: episode drows fits poot mcgoot, my brother Danny. This one's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: for you and everyone at the porthole in Sue Saint
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Marie Michigan side.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Been there, You guys better notice there are two talents
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: called Su Saint Marie right across the river from each other,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: because why wouldn't you do that?
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: One's us one's Canada. Canada produces NHL Hall of Famers,
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: the Esposito brothers, Tony and Phil, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Gretzky played there for a while. Uh. The American side
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: produces guys like us.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: When I went to one of the times I saw
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Uncle Gord was at at the hockey arena in Siue, Ontario.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I've been to that where the Greyhounds play.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: He Uh, I'll introduce you in a minute.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Don't worry, we'll get to that.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I tell the story every other episode. We're sitting there
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and we're watching Uncle Gordon. You know, I'm talking about
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Gordon Lightfoot and he's doing his show. He's got a
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: lot of hits. People don't realize how he hiss. Then yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: they're in the book, but then later in the app
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: later and not the episode later in the concert. This
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: will kind of date it because your book The Gales
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: of November, The Untold Story of the Edmond Fitzgerald by
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: John you Bacon. Should you want to find out what
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: the U stands for? Good luck? Not ulysses.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: He's very tight lift about it.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Uh, at that the fiftieth we're at the fiftieth anniversary
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of the sinking or the wreck of the Edmin Fitzgerald,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and your book's perfectly timed. I read you that you
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: wrote a proposal for this book decades ago or something.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I did twenty years ago, pitched it to my agent.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: He said no, So I got a new agent.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: As one does. You don't get no answer you want,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: because I'm struggling with that professionally this morning.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Just this very morning.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Anyhow, at that time, I can't remember what year it was.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It would have been around ninety four, ninety five. Okay,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: you're by twenty and I think and I remember, it
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: gets quiet. Gord comes out. The lights are down, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Gord says, it'll be He says something to the fact
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of like it'll be twenty years this November, wow, or
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: it'll be blank in the place. Just I mean erupts oh, Yeah,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: no erupts. But that's home turf.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: That's very much home turf.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you're looking out you know, you're looking
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: out on white We used to fish in Whitefish Bay
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and like dude, and when we're out there spearing spearing
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: whiting or sorry, spearing whitefish, we'd always be talking about yeah, man,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and telling people like, that's where if you're fishing in
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Whitefish Bay.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Whitefish Bay Lakes Pier's one hundred and sixty miles by
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty miles. It's as big as the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: state of Virginia. It's bigger than Ireland. People don't realize
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: this unless you get up there. If you're up there,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: of course, you can't see across any of the Great Lakes.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: If you' in the middle of Lake Superior, you can't
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: see either side. It's not because of the mist of
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: the fog. It's because the curvature of the earth. It's
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: just too damn big. So there you go. So if
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: you're out there by the way, you know what you're
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: doing obviously. And sus Marie is where the Sioux Locks are.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: That's the bottleneck of US industry. So all the iron ore,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: the copper I know you guys got it here in butte.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: The copper, the iron ore limestone all comes from the
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: northern part of the Great Lakes, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Peninsula.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: It's got to go through this one spigot, this very
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: tight widget at the sew locks.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because Lake Superior falls twenty three feet to Lake
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Huron or something.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Well done, young man. This guy, this guy passes.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Caught many a fish out of those falls.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: There you go, exactly, it's a good place to catch him. Actually,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: so during World War two they built a new lock
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: because I had to get all the iron and all
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: the steel from up there down to build. It will
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: run where the Ford Motor Company was. If you've seen
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: fer Our versus Ford, that's what it's all about. They're
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: cranking out one B twenty four bomber an hour every
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: hour for three years. During World War two. They build
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: a new again, one B twenty four bomber which has
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: one point five million parts. I looked it up. They've
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: created out one per hour every hour for three years, NonStop.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: As Rosie the Riveter, all this.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Stuff almost as fast as they were shooting down.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: Almost as fast, but not quite as fast. That's how
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: you win the war. Yeah, so FDR during World War
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: two stations seven thousand soldiers where you were at the
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Seoux Locks. It was the most guarded position in North
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: America during World War Two.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Seriously, yes, because they're worried about sabateurs.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: If they bomb that, there's no steal for the planes,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: no steal for the planes and the tanks and the shells,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: we lose the war. And after your knew.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: That, but who, like, who were they thinking would have
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: been like they didn't mean like an aerial bombardment from
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: enemy aircraft.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: We can get there, But I would.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Picture like, like like I said, saboteurs, like someone plant explosives.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess that's possible to look, the eyds aren't
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: very good. Obviously they didn't do it right.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: So they recognized that.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: It was like, but if it happens, it's over.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: We're gonna live sort of like the paraneum of the world.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: Man paranem See, these are the things I don't get normally.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: That's the name of the episode.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: That's Yeah, I gotta stay in newsed for this when
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: people I've done about thirty forty interviews, we've done CBS
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: and everything else. Yeah, I gotta, I got, I gotta
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: wide my strikes on here a little bit.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: We should just have a list of words when they're
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: used for the first time in here.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I think istanbul probably is a good is another candidate.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Here's a word that has been used on this show.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Hampton Sides. Hampton Side has been on the show a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: couple of times. Here's what hampton Side says about the
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: gales November. Here is a work of spectral beauty destined
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to be a classic. Readers of Sebastian Younger's The Perfect Storm,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: he's been on the show. Eric Larson's Dead Wake, we
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: should put that on our list of people get on
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the show. And Nathaniel Philbricks in the Heart of the
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Sea will love this deeply reported tale from our vast
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: inland ocean. With John H. Bacon's graceful and poignant retelling,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the Saga of the Edmund Fitzgerald now takes its rightful
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: place among the world's greatest legends of shipwrecks and tapentuous, tempetuous, tempestuous.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: You got it?
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Who got it?
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: You got it? Tempestuous sees.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: It's from hands and Sides. There's a bunch of good
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: quotes on the back here, ken Burns, he's been on
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the show. John U. Bacon has done it again. This
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: is another riveting narrative that puts facts on a still
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: memorizing legend. But this is more than getting the details right.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: Bacon has distilled the essence of the story and rendered
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a huge monument to those lost, to those lost, and
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: a great gift to the rest of us. Ken Burns filmmaker,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk in I've read it. I'll tell
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: you what I did do is I looked at some
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: of the pictures. It's just heartbreaking to see the pictures
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of the guys. I had a weirdly in my life.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I realized I've never looked at a picture of anyone
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: that died on that boat.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Stephen is exactly why I wrote the book. Wrote the
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: boat book. I can't get that word right. And people
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: ask me what drovee me? I yes, I want to
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: find out what happened, And that's always part of the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: mystery here, of course, and we advanced certain theories and
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: we've probably diminished other theories. But I'm not here to
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: close that loop because you really can't. There are no witnesses.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: All twenty nine men went down with the ship. Aunt Ruth,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: who's the mother of Bruce Hudson, Ohio State student who
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: takes a couple of summers to get in the lakes.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: He's a twenty two year old deckhand who goes down
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: with the ship and that's her only child, which I
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: can't fathom. She had a great line, she said, only thirty, no,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: twenty nine men in God, and no one's talking, so
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: we're all trying to guess. So what did drive me?
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And that's what it was. Who were these twenty nine
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: men all right? What were their jobs like? What were
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: their lives like, over their families like at home? I
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: interviewed half the families they talked for the first time this.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I got six crewmen who'd been on the ship obviously
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: before it went down, and those are not easy to find.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: There's no list anywhere, and I got them all the
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: talk and it's just fascinating how it all works, and
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: I learned the process. Here's a fun fact for your
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: listeners who would be into this. For sure, you talked
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: to Great Lakes sailors by that know me of the
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: guys with the sales. Of course, these are commercial shippers.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Copper said, copper iron, all this stuff. They tell me
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: consistently that sailing on the Great Lakes is more dangerous
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: than sailing on the ocean, and that blew my mind.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: I grew up on the Great Lakes, so did you?
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: How can that possibly be? And it's a few reasons.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: One is saltwater, saltwater on the ocean on the Great Lakes.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And by the way, do hand gestures work really well
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: on radio?
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: I bet some people it depends on how you're listening.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: Well, if you've got the premium package, you'll get this one.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So on the Great Lakes you got these sharp, pointy
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: waves at the top like mountain ranges basically on the
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: On the ocean, the salt smashes those down, so the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: nice and smooth so right, yeah, you get smooth roller coasters,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: and they're twice as far apart. It spreads them out.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And on the ocean you get these storms from five
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: hundred miles away, a thousand miles away, So by the
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: time the waves get to you again, you have this
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: general roller coaster. Still no fun, and you've seen perfect storm,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: but it's manageable. On the Great Lakes, they're sharp and
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: pointing like mountain ranges, they're twice as close to get.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: On the ocean, they're ten to sixteen seconds apart. On
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the Great Lakes are four to eight seconds apart. What
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: does that mean? That means you can have the bow
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: of your ship in one thirty foot wave, nothing in
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: the middle, and your stern in another thirty foot wave.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: These ships are seven hundred feet long, and in between
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: you have twenty six thousand tons of iron. Oh that's
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: forty two hundred adult elephants. It's enough steel, enough irons
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: already to make seven thousand cars. What happens? It bends down,
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: it SAgs. Then you go over the next wave, and
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: it hogs, and it SAgs, and it hogs, SAgs and hugs.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Bend a paper clip back and forth ten thousand times?
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Has how many waves you get in a day? What's
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: gonna happen? The paper clip's gonna snap sooner or later.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: The Bradley nineteen fifty eight. I got a chapter on that.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: We have witnesses it actually snaps in half between two waves. Really,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: the morale not even six hundred feet Be sure that.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: The bow and stern would I just imagine that the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: bow and stern would cut in into the way. It
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: would never have enough to lift it like a it does.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: These waves are lifts the center.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: These waves are don't messing one with the waves, man.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: One of these waves is the same weight as two
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: locomotive engines one wave. And these guys get these waves
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: every four to eight seconds. And the night of this
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: November tenth, nineteen seventy five, it's a storm of a century.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: They got one hundred mile per hour winds. That's hurricane force.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: At that point, the waves were thirty feet regularly, which
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: is still pretty intense. This ship only has eleven feet
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: out of the water, so thirty feet means you're underwater
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: twenty feet every time. This happens every four to eight seconds.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: That takes a toll. But then we now know from
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: computer models that if you saw that many thirty footers,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: you saw ten forty footers, you saw three or four
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: fifty footers, and you saw one or two sixty footers.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And as one of the experts toll me, this ship
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: ended up in exactly the wrong place at exactly the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: wrong time, the only ship in that one hour area. Basically,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: so there's part of your answer.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: We started out talking about sorry.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Sorry about that tangent, but no.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: No, you do that all day long for Ick Care.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: We started out talking about Gordon Lightfoot as kind of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: like a touch point where many many people, like undeniably
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: many people when they hear the Edmund Fitzgerald, they know
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: what that means because.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Of the song entirely, no question, do you You know?
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I'm always interested in this concept of like there's like
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: a there's like an object, right, and then the object
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: has a shadow, you know what I mean, Like if
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the object that's good, Like the object is the sinking
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: of the edm in Fitzgerald, and it's like shadow is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: like that's perfect Gordon life was the wreck of the
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Edmin Fitzgerald would like, in all honesty, would we be
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: sitting here right now if it wasn't for that song?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I will say it from them from the mountaintops. Absolutely not.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Really.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: From eighteen seventy five to nineteen seventy five, there are
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: six thousand commercial shipwrecks on the Great Lakes. That's one
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: per week every week for a century. Oh man, really,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: thirty thousand men went down. That's one a day every
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: day for a century. And how many do we know?
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: We know one, we know the em Memphis Geriald for
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: exactly the reason.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: You see the sols the riff.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: Hey, by the way, you non Michigan. I don't know
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: what he's talking about, but I do.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Well, that was the first ship.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: That was the first ship.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: It was the first ship on the Great Lakes and
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: the Eduond Fitzgerald's the biggest ship to ever sink.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and at the time the biggest ship
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: period on the lakes. But yeah, without that, there's no way.
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: There's six thousand we know one. Without the song, there
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is no book. It's just that simple.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, what, uh can you explain? You kind of
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: did a little bit, but can you explain that that? Uh? Well,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: first I got another thing to mention. You're a sports writer.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what am I doing here? Yeah?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So, like you've written books on hockey football? Yeah, yeah,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I had you. Is this your first like foray into
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: kind of like deep history where you're not able to
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: meet the people involved?
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: And it's my second. The previous one was called the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Great Halifax Explosion. Oh that's right, from nineteen seventeen. Yeah, okay,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, from twenty seventeens when the book came out
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventeen. This ship called the Mountain Blanc World whe
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: one is leaving Gravesend Bay, New York. That's a pretty
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: good name with six million pounds graves End, graves End.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: How about how prophetic? Right, It's leaving Gravesend Bay, New York,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: basically New York with six million pounds of high explosives.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: That's TNT, not gasoline like hauling, high explosive, hauling high exposive.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: High explosives don't need oxygen to blow up. One good
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: bump and it happens, and it's in Halifax harboring. The
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: way to World War One, to blow up Germans is
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the idea, I'm sure. And instead it bumps into another ship,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: a fire starts. Well, the guys in the Mountain Blank
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: they know what the hell's going to happen, so they
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: get in the rowboats and get out of there. French crew.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: The ship slips at eight forty five in the morning,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: ghost ship slips perfectly into Pier six at the base
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: of Halifax. The timing's cruel because the kids are walking
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: to school, everyone's walking to work, and it's burning, so
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: they're not gonna come down to watch the burning ship.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: They have no idea, what's on it?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: And how long is this after everybody bailed off.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: About fifteen minutes. Oh okay, very fast, so pretty fast. Yeah,
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And then at nine zero four point thirty five we
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: know exactly when because all clocks stopped. Two million high
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: two million, two mile high Marsha mc cloud, the first
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: in the world's history. One fifth part of the atomic
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: bomb blows half the city away of fifty four people.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: And Oppenheimer, of course, who built the A bomb. You
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: see the movie oppenheimri talks about this. He's when he
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: did the math. The only model they head for Hiroshima
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: was this. So this one fifth the power of the
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: A bomb. But people in Boston sent two ships, two trains,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: one hundred doctors, three hundred nurses, and a million bucks,
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: which back then is a lot of money. And they
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: of the nine thousand wounded, they saved like ninety five percent,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: which it should not have happened with the medicine at
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the time. That's what made the US and Canada allies.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: And I know this because my mom's Canadian, So trust me,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: if you want a different version of the War of
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: eighteen twelve, give a Canadian two beers and they're gonna
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: hear a whole different version of however all that went down.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm a hockey guy. I speak of experience here,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: except that was my first forest A long answer, Sorry,
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I was my first fey into that that allowed me
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: to write this book. Without that book, the publishers never
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: would have given me money for this book. God, so
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I prove I could get up.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: For the Oh man, I think if you sent hell
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: whatever you got it published. I was gonna tell you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: how you would have got it published. Anyways, Explain that,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Explain that, Explain the industry that the Edmun Fitzgerald was
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: involved in.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Great question. That's another thing, dude. Again, I grew up
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: in Annabra, Michigan, and not too far from Askegan. We
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: go up to Travers City and so on. I've I've
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: swam in all these lakes. I've sailed on two or
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: three of them. I thought I knew them. I didn't
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: know anything. Ninety five percent of the stuff in that
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: book I had no idea about it. And one thing
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: is how incredibly important Great lakes shipping is. The French voyagers.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Here's your here's your predecessors. Here in the Mediator podcast,
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: these guys are badasses. I can say that in your show,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: and I can't say that normally. So I'm taking advantage.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Man Captain buzzkilled from my right over here, here's my
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: one chance. Finally, Uh, those voyagers had thirty forty foot
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: news carved out of one tree. They got four hundred
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: They got four hundred million beaver pelts in two centuries,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: almost made beaver extinct. But they're wearing those hats in Europe,
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: so they that's billions of dollars of that. Then you
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: got lumber. More money is made by lumber than the
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Gold Rush. You got grain. The Great Lakes supplies the
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: world with food basically, and a lot of your food
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: comes all the zero companies are based in Battle Creek, Michigan,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in Minneapolis, Minnesota for a reason. But then you got,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: like I said, copper, which now you mine here limestones
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: you need to make turn iron into steel and iron.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: It was it probably still is the biggest producer of
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: iron in the United States. Here's a fun fact for you.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: In nineteen so this is Silicon Valley before Silicon Valley.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: After World War Two, the Great Lake States. Five of
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: the top seven were all around the Great Lakes. Only
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: California and Texas were in that pile. Here's a fun
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: fat for you. Nineteen sixty census, what great lake city
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: was bigger in Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Nashville, and San Jose, California, Cleveland, Toledo, Toledo,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: ohiout was bigger than all those. This is how big
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: it all was. So Detroit was the epicenter of all
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: this stuff. And I grew up in the shadow of
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: that one at that tail end of that. But this
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: is what they did. Thirty seven of the top hundred
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: companies were all based around Detroit. Tire makers, oil, oil companies,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: steel companies, car companies, GM's number one, four, number three, Chryslers,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: number seven. That's I mean. They had no competition after
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: World War Two. So this place is humming. They're making
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of money. And these guys, the guys twenty
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: nine guys in the ship, the old guys, they grew
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: up in the Great Depression, they grew up in the
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: World War Two. Why do you have? These jobs are hard,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: no question about it. But man, compared to being a
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: miner or a farmer or a factory worker, you'd take it.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Good union contracts. These guys are making good money. A
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: deckhand and seventy five Bruce Hudson guy I mentioned, and
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: he gets out of Ohio State.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Is he the kid with no shirt on in the picture.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: He's a badass. He's one of yours. And he's got
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: the long the mutton chops the long hair. Rand It
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: looks like Randall, he was. I like him. Already, there
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: you go, I'll show you. There you go, go to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: the picture section. You'll know exactly what we're talking about.
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: That's what I do anyway when I.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Pick up a book, the perfect you're my guy. So
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: this guy leaves Ohio State to be a deckhan. That's
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: the lowest guy in the ship. Basically, he's making, in
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: today's dollars, one hundred and eighty thousand dollars a year.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Even back then, he's making three times what a teacher
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: makes four times, and he's salting the money away except
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: for one indulgence. He's got a nineteen seventy two Dodge Challenger,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: badass muscle car. Beautiful Burgundy. We found the car. It's
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: still in mint condition. It's still fantastic. Still is a
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: sticker of Columbia Transportation, which least the emphys Yerald, I'm
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: looking at it right now. There's the sticker right there. No, shoot,
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: that car. That was last year we took that photo.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I look through these pictures of my ten year old
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: this morning. Then I kind of choked up. We were
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: listening to.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: The song We'll get You Once you know the story.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: The song kills you. So he gets on the ship.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: He's one of these guys and he's making good money.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: He's saving it pretty well. So he and his buddy
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Mark Thomas in that photo, they're gonna when the season
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: ends in three days. This was the last run of
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: the season. Oh no, matter what happened, they're gonna finish
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: the season. That car is waiting for him on the
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: dock in Toledo three days later. The captain mcsordy. I'll
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: get to him in a bit. He's going to retire
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: after this run, after thirty some years, forty years in
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: the Great Lakes, promising his wife. All these guys. So
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: they're gonna get in that car and bomb across out
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: west where you guys are to go to Colorado to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: get some Coors beer because in nineteen twenty five that
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: was exotic and you gotta be old enough. Remember that
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: one by the way.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he used to make all those all those movies.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: You got it, Like Burt Reynolds built his career on
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: this story.
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: That photo really is speaking to me.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: There we go.
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: I think, Ohio, Man, if I did a couple of
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: cycles on a GLP one I think would be you'ld
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: be looking quite.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: So well, le man. One third of the crew comes
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: from to luth one third from Toledo, one third from Cleveland.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: So a lot of Buckeys. This guy was a Buckey also.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: But then he finds out in September phone call back
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: to the port bar in Silver Bay, Minnesota. Beautiful spot,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: the Silver Bay Municipal Bar. And I've been there, of
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: course for hard hitting investigative journeys. Pas. All right, that's
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: all I'm doing here now. A guy who got on
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: all the bars, Stephen and the bartender serve them. Steven
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Burns is still He was eighteen at the time. He's
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: sixty eight now he's still there.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: You're kidding me, dude.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: I got so lucky on research again and again and again.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: The guy at the President's Lounge in Superior, Wisconsin, he's
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: still there. He served him the night before they left,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: so I'm getting all these guys. So Hudson finds out
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: by payphone that his girlfriend in Toledo, who's a waitress,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Cindy Reynolds by Vacious Blind and all that. She says, surprise,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: I'm pregnant, And okay, you got that phone call. You're
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: not ready for that, so I'm not going to ask
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: for personal experience here. Who's gotten that phone call and
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: who hasn't, but you can imagine if you haven't that
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: you pause, Oh my gosh. He says the right stuff.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: He says, don't worry. We're gonna moving together and we'll
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: raise the child ourselves. And when she hears that, she goes, okay,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: go ahead and go on that trip because that's November.
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: The kids is that dud dull June. So now I
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: think it's going to marry this girl, of course. But
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: these are the stories that happen before November tenth, nineteen
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: seventy five. And you got to care about the guys
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: before they get in the ship. That's kind of my rule.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So these are real guys, I mean, these are guys,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: these are your neighbors. They had plans, they had futures,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: and of course no one thinks this is gonna happen.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that iron ore would come out of the Iron Ranges,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: like in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, out of the the here
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: on range.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Exactly right, called the Iron Range. Bob Billen's from there.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: He even talks about that in the book, from a
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: players called the Iron Range. That's where my feelings and
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: my song has come from, he says. So Iron Range
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: is the northern part of Minnesota, northern part of Wisconsin,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: and the up upper Peninsula of Michigan. Here's a fun
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: fact for you, a few football fans. The Wisconsin Badgers
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: are called the Badgers, not because of the animal, because
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: of the miners, because the winter they'd live in the
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: caves and the winter and their nicknames were the Badgers.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: So those are miners they're talking about.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Actually.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, hard life to say the least. But all
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that stuff goes to the louse Superior, Silver Bay, two harbors.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: You put on the ships and all the factories are Gary, Indiana.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Chicago smelting it down there exactly.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they smelt it right on the dock. Man. It's
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: a very efficient process. These pellets called taconite should have
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: brought some It's a little rusty pebbles. Guy figured out
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: how to do that, you know, fracking reinvigorated obviously drilling
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: here in the United States. We're out of the easy stuff,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: so we start fracking. All the easy iron ore is
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: gone after World War Two. We used it up for
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: World War two. So what do we do. We're screwed. Well,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: this one professor at Minnesota figures out how to pelletize
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: this iron ore. The scrap heap called taconite. You can
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: actually use it if you process it and so on.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: We've been using taconite now for eighty years. That's what
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: we're on. So this guy figures it out. Five hundred
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: million pebbles of the stuff. Go on a ship. It's dirty,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: its rusty, it's heavy. I've been on. They tell you
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: to wear a hat. I've been on two of these ships,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: by the way, Arthur Anderson, I was out with them
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that night, and I've been on the Wilfrid Sykes also
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: out with them that night. And they give you a helmet,
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: you know, and a stupid writer guy, right, okay, lamb
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: lever with a soft hands. Here's a helmet. Don't do
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: anything stupid. So you put the helmet on and you
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: realize very quickly there are pellets of the stuff nailing
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: your head right now as you walk to the ship
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: because they're loading. Oh so, and if a few spill,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: they don't care, trust me, I from thirty or forty
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: feet down from their shoots, it'll crack your head open.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: So yeah, wear the damn helmet. That's my advice.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And like that was how much could you fit on that?
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we'll get you home. How much could they
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: how much of that stuff? How much weight could they
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: fit on the that ed Fitz.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: You're not gonna believe it. It's twenty six thousand long tons.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: So the British measurement was actually bigger than us tons.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Why they do that, who knows, But it's equivalent of
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: forty two hundred adult elephants. Enough iron on that ship
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: to build by itself seven thousand cars, and they make
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: fifty runs a year, So one ship, the em Memphis
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Derald per year gives you enough iron to build three
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty thousand cars. And the course was eighteen years,
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: enough iron to build six million cars. That's one ship.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: That's what the scale of all this is just mind blowing.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that thing. I didn't know that thing was
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: making forty some trips per year.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Fifty yeah, and I mean it's NonStop. It's nine months
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: out of the year. And trust me, either loading or
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: you're sailing, or you're unloading. I took a Skip Barber
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: race card class years ago for the Trey Grand Prix.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: He said, you either put your foot on the gas,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: you'r foot of the brake. You do anything else, you're losing.
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: So you're either going as fast as you can or
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: as slow as you can. These guys same thing. If
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: your ship gets into Zug Island Detroit, a nasty little
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: spit of land, at three o'clock in the morning, they're unloading,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: and then at seven o'clock in the morning they're loading,
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: and then then they're sailing. And they don't wait for
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: anybody or anything. You're constantly moving. And I was kind
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: of wondering if shipping is as big. It was a
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: great line from what you said. I this is dangerous.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Why do it? William Sutton, the old gangster said someone
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: once asked him why do you rob banks? And he said,
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: because that's where the money is. He's got a point.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Why if is this dangerous? Six thousand shipwrecks. Why do it?
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Because where the money is? Like I said, the trade
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: was that big a deal. Then I also wonder, Okay,
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: you know I live in Michigan. You live in Uskegan.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Miskegan is one of the best natural ports on the
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Great Lakes, and that's in the book several times. It's
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: a very important port. And that's lumber. In the old days,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the lumber from Muskegan built the first Chicago that burned
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: down in eighteen seventy one. So that's your town. As wonder,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: why have I never met these guys? I mean, I
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: know factory workers, miners, farmers, et cetera. I don't know
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: any sailors because they're only nine thousand of them, thirty
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: guys per ship, three hundred ships in the heyday. It's
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: only nine thousand guys spread out over eight states. Right.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: And also they all passed through the porthole.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: They all pass through the portal. Yeah. And the second
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: thing is, even though next to you, you still don't meet him.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: They're on a ship back. And then nine months out
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: of the year, no vacations, no weddings, no graduations, no birthdays,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: no nothing. I talked to one of these guys, and
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: he said, I'm a good family man, happily married. You know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: forty some years. I got three great kids. I didn't
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: teach any of them how to ride a bike or
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: throw a baseball or hunter fish. You're not home and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: it's heartbreaking. So it's a hard life.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: He was just on the ships.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: Nine months out of the year. You're home for three months.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: He said, there's nothing better than coming home in January
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: with a big old bonus check to pays for everything.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: These guys were paid. Well, there's no question about that.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: These guys. You know, they weren't even all high school graduates,
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: but they were self educated. They're very good at that.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: You have to pass all these tests, come on with
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: a nice, big bonus check, and my kids run up
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: to me and they give me a big hug. And
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I'm home for three months and my kids say, Daddy,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: you smell like a truck. And I say, no, Daddy,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: smells like a paycheck. That's the life.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, when they launched that ship, there was
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: like some weird stuff happened or seemed weird later seem
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: weird even.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: At the time. Some of it seem weird.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And by the way, yeah, talk about that. There's kind
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: of like three sort of I don't know, man.
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: When you say launched, you mean that night or when the.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: Ship ris like the gal the first photo, Edmund Fitzgerald's
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: wife goes a smack a bottle, champagne bottle, takes three
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: hits to break it. A guy dies of a heart attack, right,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and then they have like a North Korean esque launch a.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's about right, by the way, you podcast listeners, mediator,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: podcast listeners. This man is Range Hampton. Size is a
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Yeale educated hotshot writer, one of my heroes. You've done
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: your homework on this one as well, so you got
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: it down. June twenty third, nineteen fifty eight, fifteen thousand
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: people show up in Detroit to see this ship get launched.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: That's more than that Detroit Tigers average the entire year. Now, okay,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Tiger's base, Well they sucked. Okay, I'll grant you that
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: simple point. But it was a huge deal. And people
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: came in their Sunday best to see this NATA launch
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: padded and she was up there at the bunting and
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: all that and her Sunday Best three wax to break
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: the champagne bottle. Sailors are notoriously superstitious, and they're already
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: getting the bad voodoo on that one, so that's not good.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: Took about half an hour to get that ship into
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: the water because guess what it weighs. The numbers in there,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: some ridiculous number of tons. Crazy. It's the same height
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: as the Detroit Renaissance Center, the tallest one. It's seven
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and thirty feet twenty nine feet, but it's no wider
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: than the run from home plate to first base. It's
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: seventy five feet. It's because of the locks. Because of
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the locks.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Is it really that narrow?
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: It's these things are nuts, and no ships like this
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: will built anywhere else in the world.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: And if you're something is twenty five yards wide seventy
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: five feet wide.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: It's nothing. Your old ruler at school, that's about the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: dimensions ten to one they know, I mean in the ocean,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: they make them shorter and fatter like you should basically
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: like you would normally.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Man, I gotta just tell you a little deal about that.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: When we used to hunt ducks right at like Sugar Island,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Nivish Island, and the Saint Mary's River, you have your
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: ducks out, you have your decoys out eighteen inches of water.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: One of them sons of bitches that come by push
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: first off. All of a sudden, your ducks are in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: thirty six inches of water. When that passes and the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: water comes in, your decoys are laying in the mud
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: when it fills back in.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: And that's just when those these big old ships are
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: putting through.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, your decoys are in the mud. And also they come.
• 31:37
  Speaker 6: Back, come right back up.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: If you were a fix but I would never guess.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: That's only seventy five feet wide.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. They look like bigger than God, but they are.
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: It's seven hundred feet tall.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: You said, well, it's seven nine feet long. Oh long long?
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: Gotcha the Detroitment of Sound Center, if you know where
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: that is. They got the four shorter buildings in the
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: tall one. It's the tallst building between Toronto and Chicago.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: It is seven hundred and thirty feet seventy three story
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: story skyscraper. That's the phrase I need Steven, thank you,
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: But only seventy five feet wide. And again, if your shipbuilder,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: and these guys were great shipbuilders, you got three criteria. One,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: haul as much cargo as you can, because that's how
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: you make money. Two fit the damn thing through the
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: SEU lots because they're only seventy five feet wide. As
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: that's the limit right there.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Like that sets the ship's design.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And that's exactly what they did. They were one foot
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: of one and no inches on the other. I mean
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: this is maxed out. Uh. And then of course the
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: third thing is handle rough seas well. If you're a
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: shipping company, what you can't do all three? Guess which
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: two you're picking? Yeah, So these things are very porty
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: designed for rough seas. Like I said, you can snap
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: it between two waves. They roll back and forth, which
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: is left and right? Hey, you're you're your podcast is
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: awesome because your guys have been in boats all right,
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: they've been out fishing and so on. When you're facing waves,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: you think smashing the waves is you know, bad with
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: a v hale. No, it's not. It's broadside that'll screw
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: you up all right in the stake in the trough, baby,
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: exactly exactly, Brodie. It's exactly what happens with these ships.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Where do you not want to be in the trough?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And that's what's gonna happen later on. So smashing the
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: waves sucks. And one of the guys. I got one guy,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: Rick Barthouli. You guys would love this guy. He's got
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: looks a bit like my buddy randall over here. He's
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: got people, the good people, self educated guy, very smart dogs,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: life's hot. Oh hell yeah. So he does not own
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: a computer, he has not got the internet. All he
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: has is a cell phone. He's off the grid basically
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: except for the cell phone. So give me a year
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: to find this guy, another year to convince him to
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: talk to me. He's the last guy left, to my knowledge,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: of anybody on the Arthur Anderson that night, which is
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: one hour behind the Fits taking the same route, and
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: they're the ones communicating back and forth. She's as close
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: as we can get to what's it like to be
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: on this thing? And he says, you know, you think
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: you're smashing this wave. Unless you've been on one of
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: these ships, you have no idea what this is like.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Every wave is a train wreck. It goes bang bang
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: bang bang bang bang, as it kind of crunches down
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: and then it stretches out again. Then it goes bang
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: bang bang bang, bang bang bang, And that's forty eight
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: seconds twenty foot waves. You ain't sleeping, there's no way.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And they got thirty and forty foot waves. So that's
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: how they designed them, and it's ten by one. It's crazy.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Has that design changed since then?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: Not? No, no, because the SEU locks haven't changed. And
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: they're finishing another one, the first one since nineteen sixty eight.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: They're doing that one right now, and trust me, they're
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: going to get bigger. Now you've got thousand footers that
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: are still seventy five foot wide.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: You're kidding me.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: How nuts?
• 34:31
  Speaker 6: How deep are they sitting in the water.
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: That is a brilliant question. How do you are they
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: supposed to sit? Or how deep do they sit?
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Loaded? Unloaded?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: So originally the plan was fourteen feet of what's called freeboard.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: You guys know what that is. Again, dude, this is
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: my first podcast, my first interview. I've done thirty or
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: forty by.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Now with big mariners.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, people, Actually, what the hell I expired captain's license.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: You're as close as I get rand I'll take your
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: expired captain's license. Yeah, you guys know what it's all about.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: So freeboard is a distance between the water and the
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: top of your deck and the US Coast Guard and
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: others ABS have got regulations on this. When the ship
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: was built nineteen fifty eight, it was allowed fourteen feet
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: of freeboard and then therefore about twenty five feet below
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the water. Yeah, all these things you see those markers,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: that is the Plimsaw line. I got a chapped on it.
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: You're on the Plimsall line. A British politician from the
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: eighteen forties, who Plimsall? Who made this line and ever
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: ignored it except Lloyd's of London. The insurance. You know
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: where I'm going with this one. If you break that law,
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: we're not paying you a dime. So now all of
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: a sudden, the equation ship shifted. In the old days,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the guys in England in the eighteen fifties eighteen sixties,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: they would overload their ships, take out a ton of insurance,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: sink it almost intentionally with crew on board that didn't care,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and collect the money. So this changed all that. So
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: this is how evil it was. So they were allowed
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: fourteen feet, and then who knows why, in nineteen sixty nine,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: seventy one, and seventy three the regulations changed and allowed
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: it to go bit by bit from fourteen feet above
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: the water to only eleven feet above the water. In
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: the engineer's defense, they didn't design it for that. And
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: by the way, one inch of taconite, by the way,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: is tons one inch cheating the thing. One inch is
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: millions of dollars of taconite. One inch is.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: That thing just a big tub in the bottomers that
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: divided in a compartment.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: It's divided into three main cargo holds, and I've heard
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: stories about guys who fell into those. Back then you
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: could drink on board and things like this, and drugs
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: were prevalent. You could guys who fell in and died
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: while trying to hose it down. So don't drink it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Hose is my advice on that one. But yes, there's
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: three gigantic holes. It's most of the seven hundred feet
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: And I mean I'm standing there two feet away from
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: these things and it's only like two feet. I mean,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I could easily fall in. So it's one of those
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: things with tell you don't be an idiot. But yes,
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: that's a very good question. And they unloaded. Now they've
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: got sellfonloaders, but back then they scooped it out. So yeah,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: so it's a it's a crazy setup, to say the least.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Let's jump that night a little bit. There, we've kind
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of established this run they're making. Oh, I got it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Before we jump to that night. I got one more.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: What are they coming? Are they coming back empty?
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: Yes? Every time?
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: There's nothing to bring up there nothing.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: To bring up. Well, here's a fun fact for you.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Trains are twice as efficient as trucks, and ships are
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: three times more efficient than trains. So ships are six
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: more efficient than trucks. It ain't even close. So you
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: carry so much on these ships you can afford to
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: spend three days going to Toledo and come back in
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: because it doesn't matter anything. You can put out a ship,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: you put in a ship. It's just far more efficient.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: So you're right. And also when you're coming back, you're
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: righting high. That's when you fill the ballast tanks with
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: water to give us some If you don't fill with water,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: the screws, the propellers, which are thirty feet high, they
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: won't even touch the water. So you got it. Weigh it?
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: Oh no, kid, Yeah, you'll just grind it to death,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: all right, So so you got to do that. But
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: when it's right, well, I'm going to photo even land
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: lubber me, I can tell you when the fits is
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: loading when it's not, and these guys can tell immediately.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Got it.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: So you lose ten you know, five ten feet or something.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: So that night or I don't know what time they
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: take off, presumably they don't take off at night, but
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: they take it.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: They take them whenever they take off. Trust me, they.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Take off knowing there's like like what is their awareness
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: of the weather, like what is the what is the
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: forecast when they take off?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Might be a genius exactly right. The two problems they
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: had back.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Then, that's a stretch. But I know that.
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: I actually like the positive vibes in the room right now.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: But I just know the wind.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: That's rare.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: Now I know the wind and the wires made a tattletale.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Soith fully loaded.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: He doesn't pay any attention to the weather when we're
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: in Alaska.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: But now what the forecast is, I'll say, let's go
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: have a look.
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: You fit right in on this ship. So here's what happens.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: And you guys, your listeners got to.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: Know the weather.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: You gotta wash the weather. And one of my guys,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: his dad was also a Great Lakes captain. He said
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: when the weather came on, and I'm a kid in Cleveland.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Everyone shut the hell up. And because that will determine
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: if your dad and your dad is listening like this.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: I didn't get that until I got in the ship.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: And the weather's why you come home or why you don't.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: Now in this case, the gales of November, it's like
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: the hurricane season in Florida. When is that in September?
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Because the water's warm and the air is cool, the
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: water wants to rise. When you boil water and you're
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: stove at home, it evaporates, it rises right because it
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: wants to join the cold there and so on. It
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: happens in November. On the Great Lakes, November is notoriously dangerous.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: November tenth is the most dangerous day on the Great Lakes.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Really, Oh yeah, and they and it's really worse than January.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: It's worse than December. It's worse than January because by
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: then winter has arrived and the water and the air
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: get along. They're not in contrast. So it's when they're fighting.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: You get waves. So and on top of that, and
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: you're right about the forecast. So a few things happened.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: One it's seventy degree and November ninth, the day they
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: take off at two o'clock in the afternoon, it's seventy
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: degrees into Luth. Wow, and it ain't supposed to be
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: seven degrees into Luth. All right, you think that's great news,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: it's bad news for they learned doing this book and
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: the experts. The longer winter takes to arrive, the nastier
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: it shows up. It's like water behind a dam, and
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: the more water you get when that dam finally breaks,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: the worst it's gonna be. So seventy degrees on Sunday
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: is really bad news.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Just too warm. Water is too warm.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Water's too warm, and the airs, the air switches. It's
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: gonna be It's gonna happen fast and nasty. Isn't that
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: like this year everything's been real hot up there. Yeah, basically,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: but exactly right, Krinn. And if it happens suddenly, these
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: guys will know better.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the Great Lakes are big enough they'll create their
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: own weather.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: They actually do. And what the what these guys told
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: me that you have far away storms and the ocean,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: as I said earlier, and the Great Lakes are called
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: locally occurring storms, which means the damn thing right over
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: your head. So you're fishing in the morning and you're,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: you know, rowing for your dear life. Two hours later,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: it happens very fast. So win is gonna come from
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: alberta clipper from obviously Western Canada, across the Dakotas Minnesota,
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: and that's gonna run all the way across three hundred
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: and fifty miles of fetch. And you guys know what
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: fetches across Lake Superior. That's nasty, cold, dry air. They knew,
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: they expected that. Basically, they didn't know how bad. They
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: did not know about another storm. They should have. Some
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: of the guys didn't know about this in the weather
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: forecasting business. A hot, wet air coming in from California, Texas, Oklahoma,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Iowa straight up to the Green Lakes. These two storms
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: are gonna meet right in front of Whitefish Bay, your
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: old fishing spot. White Fish Bay is home Plate. That's
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: where you're trying to get to. After two days getting
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: across Lake Superior. Now you've got it's like a catcher
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: in front of home plate, blocking your way home. And
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: this captain does not know that. So that's tragic. And
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: then what happens, So he does know is in for
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: a storm. So he and Bernie Cooper, Arthur Anderson their buddies.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: But they're still competing, of course, to get there first.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: And why to compete. If you beat a ship by
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: a minute, you beat him by a couple hours, because
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: you will get to the sua locks first, only one
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: ship at a time. You will get to the dock first,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: you unload first. That's four or five hours a minute
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: is can be a half a day.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: So these guys are competitive dudes to say the least,
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: but they still like but they still get along.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they still come together. Is it just coincidence
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: that they're sailing together, No.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: It's not. They're talking to each other and early on
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: around four or five o'clock on Sunday, they say, you
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: know what, this thing's pretty nasty. Let's take the northern route.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: And normally he'd never do that. And mcsorty was the
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: best captain on the Great Lakes captain when he's thirty
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: one years old. He's the youngest captain of the Great Lakes.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: When he became a captain at thirty one. Now he's
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: sixty three. He's been a captain more than half his life.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: He's the most aggressive captain. He never turns around, he
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: never takes the northern route, he never weighs anchor, He
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: just goes, goes, goes. So the company likes that he's
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: the best in rough weather. They all say. Got a witness,
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Craig Sillivan, who's on the ship in seventy two. He said,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: I saw that man park seven hundred and twenty nine
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: feet of steel between two other freighters with three feet
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: into your side and not touch a damn thing, like
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: you're parking your your parallel parking your Ford f one fifty.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: This man was the best, and he's also beloved, which
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: those guys were not back then. These guys would throw
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: hot coffee at you, yell at cadets, and all the
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: kinds of other stuff. They're tyrants. Basically, this guy was
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: so beloved his crew would follow him from ship to ship.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: So you have the best ship in the Great Lakes,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the longest, the fastest, the most luxurious. How about that,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: the best food they had.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: They had air conditioning in their bunks.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: They had air conditioning in nineteen fifty eight. Homes didn't
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: have that.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Those are like leather furniture and something leather.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Furniture, two VIP quarters for the rich folks, the people
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: who write the checks, the National Steel US steel Ford
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Motor Company to entertain those guys. Because you want the
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: best captain of the Great Lakes, you want the best
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: crew in the Great Lakes, and you want the most money.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: That's how you get it. So it was not wasted money.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: So mccerley, here's a more heartbreaking stuff. They're supposed to
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: end the season the week before tax on one more
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: trip to get his bonus. Why his wife, Nellie is
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: sick in Toledo. She's got cancer. We think. I'm not
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: tiredly sure about that, but I've got some witnesses on that.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: So she's already in twenty four our care. She might
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: be able to pull through. So this trip is for
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: her healthcare. And he's about to retire. So normally he'd
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: never take the northern route, but he's thinking, who the
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: hell's gonna fire me? Go ahead?
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: What was the advantage of taking the northern route?
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: Smart man Brody?
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: Uh, good job.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: A few things. One, they normally go straight across Lake
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Superior south as you can. This is straight as land possible.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: By taking the northern route, you get the lee of
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: the Canadian shore. And you guys know what lee is.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: There are twenty terms I've used tonight that I could
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: not use last night. If you're in a bookstore in
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: the walk here in Minnesota, you better explain a lot
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: of stuff. So this is Mike, this is my gang.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: So you get the lee of the Western Shore, the
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Northern Shore. You're basically hugging Canada across Superior. Now a
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: few catches to that, though. One is the safe, rational
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: thing to do. So I'm not one of those ones
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: that Dublin mcstorians say, screwed the holding up. That's a
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: rational move, but a few catches one one of the yours.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: You already know it's pay me now or pay me later.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: So okay, the first two legs are quieter and softer,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: not as windy and so on. But that third leg's
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: gonna be hell because now you're exposed. You have three
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: hundred fifty feet three hundred fifty miles of fetch and
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: now those waves are hitting you broadside. This is the
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you're in your bathub and this is the drain, and
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: go ahead, make some waves. What's gonna happen at the end.
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: It's being nasty at that end. So and you're gonna
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: be hitting those broad side. That's not what you want.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: All right, your last leg that's gonna be about ten hours.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: That's one problem. Second problem is it's fourteen hours longer
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: than the straight shot. All right, you just gave that
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: Southern storm a fourteen hour head start to get to
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: Whitefish Bay first. And I pose it in the book.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: This is the captain's call completely like he's going a
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: unilateral that's what's happening.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Not a democracy devotes one nothing in all decisions. You
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: might consult, and he did, but it's one nothing and
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: you are therefore response for all decisions. Another guy out
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: that night on the pikes, he said, this is too nasty.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: And this is one of the best captains in the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: Great Lakes, also probably the best at forecasting. And he says,
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: we're tucking in, we're going to go into the bay,
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: and his crew is warning him and ride it out.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: And his crew is warning him, sir, if you do, captain,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: you if you do that and there's no storm, it
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: can be your ass with Cleveland, with the company. So
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: those the pros and cons you deal with. Now m
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Sworney only cares. This is his last trip. So anyway,
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: so fourteen hours. Here's the third problem. He does not
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: know this route nearly as well. He takes the southern
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: route fifty times a year, really, one hundred back and forth.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: He's done that his entire career, forty years at least,
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: he's done this thousands of times. He knows all the islands,
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: he knows all the stuff out there, and the currents
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: and everything else. He does not know this. I had
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: two guys on the ship that year and they said,
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: we didn't take it in the last year and a half,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: not once in the northern route. God, why does that matter?
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: It's Superior, it's thirteen hundred feet deep, it's gigantic. Not quite.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: It's a little crappy pileo dirt called Caribo Island in
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: the northeast corner of Lake Superior. Right when you take
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: that final stretch down it's one mile by three mile.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: It barely shows up on most maps. It's called Carib Island.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: I have no idea.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Why well, can I interject?
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah? And by the way, it's your show.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Historically, here's the crazy part. Like Isle Royal, yes, being
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a wolf Moose Island, Yes, historically was a Caribou Lynx Island.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: I did not know that. Yeah. Isle Royal is the
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: nation's biggest I'm sorry, it's the nation's only island national
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: park and it's ten times the size of Manhattan, but
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: no one knows that.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: So there's caribou up there, like after nineteen hundred.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in Maya in the modern like in like modern America. Yeah,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: during American history there was a caribouo Lynx Island.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: That was news to me. And by the way, it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: the first show also that I learned something.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: Oh, you can go there.
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: You can hike up on a mountain on Isle Row
• 48:00
  Speaker 5: and you can look at the biggest island in the
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: biggest lake, on the biggest island in the biggest lake.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: That's in the book. It's a iroh is so big
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: ten times it says Manhattan. It's got a lake in
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the island with an island with a lake. Been there,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: There you go, Randall see it with my own eyes.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: There you go, And they use ira Oyl that's part
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: of the lee. They go just south of Ale Royal
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: to get that protection. The word normally the.
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: Worst boat right I've ever been on was getting to.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Ale Royal on the on the Ranger three.
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: From the from International Falls side.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Oh god, that's brutal.
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: And and yeah, I've never been seasick before.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I was seasick on that.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: All right, we're getting pretty serious here. Here's the thing
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: they used to do. The guys on those ships who
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: work in those ships. I talked to one of those guys.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: I had to cut the damn thing. But this will
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: be fun for you guys. I remember denty Moore, Hunter
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Stu and all that stuff. I think one guy would
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: start acting like he's sick with five foot waves, five
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: waves enough get these campers to sick. He had some
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: denty more and he also go and spill the stuff,
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: and it's other buddy comes by and go, oh my god.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: He'd have a spoon and he started eating it. And
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: that of course the campers, the poor campers that they
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: see that they're over the side.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: So okay, So yeah, Caribou Island, it's quite all.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Right because we needed that left and I will never
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: get another chance of my life to tell that story.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: So so Caribou Island. It's one mile by three mile.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: It's called Caber Island. I have no idea. It's in
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: a swamp with Mosquitos. It's nasty. The caribou left. If
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: they're around there, they swam across the Canada long ad.
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: It's no reason to go there. But in front of it,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: to the north, it's six fathoms shoal. You guys know
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: what a fathom is. My other folks usually don't. It's
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: six feet. Six fathoms is therefore thirty six feet. If
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: you're drafting twenty nine feet on a good day, and
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: this is not a good day, you have no reason
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: to be anywhere near this nothing to gain. But it's
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: awesome as leading. It's not six fathoms. In some places
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: it's eleven feet. That's no deeper than your backyard pool.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: So you have no reason to be anywhere near this thing.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Why would he come anywhere near it?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Got it?
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: The storm now is seventy mile per hour winds, thirty
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: foot waves is pretty nasty. Not quite the worst he's
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: ever seen. But getting there, his long radars knocked out,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: his short radars knocked out by waves by waves, exactly right,
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: thank you. And Whitefish Point and you've seen that lighthouse
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: is the one lighthouse on the Great Lakes. Everyone's dying
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: to see that light. Of course, goes out that night.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: The radio beacon that signals the ships where you are
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: also goes out. Why the storm, I mean seven.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Storm knocked the lighthouse out.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Well, Domino start falling your power out and just dumb
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: luck in some cases. So there they are. So now
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: you have truly sailing blind. All you have are what
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: they call charts and we call maps. And it's about
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: as big as this table. It seems like four by five.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: They're huge. And in these in the chart room because
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: these organic drawers. One says Lake here on one says
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Lake Ontario. I mean you pull out six or seven
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: per Lake. Now, if you're old enough and you kids
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: have no idea how I'm talking about, but Triple A
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: used to gives them called a triptick, all right, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: put all your maps on a trip, all in an order.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: So if I'm going from Michigan to Montana, I would
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: know how to do it. And it works pretty well.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: That's how these maps work. But if you skip ahead,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: you're screwed because now nothing makes sense. So if he
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: does not know where he is, Tom Wider a great hunter. Also,
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: by the way, it's also a sea captain in the
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: Great Lakes. He said, it's entirely possible he would have
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: changed maps too soon. You're in thirty foot waves. You've
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: not slept in thirty six hours. You get what's called
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: motion fatigue. That is like being drunk after thirty six
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: hours these waves, and you've not taken this route in years.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: If he shifted his map too soon, all right, to
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: get whitefish ban in the map, because that's where he
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: wants to go. All right. The Cariber area is still there,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: but it now disappears because the scale has changed, so
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: you might not be aware of anywhere near this. And
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: the Anderson is convinced that they saw them on the
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: radar go right over six fathom and shoal. If they did,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: it would explain why. Two hours later, he's talking to
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: Bernie Coop, that is the captain of the Memphis Gerald
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: I McK sorely saying, my fence railings down, I've got
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: two vent covers blown off by the waves, a few
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: other problems, and in kind of in passing, I've got
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: a list. All right, you guys know what that means.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: That's my thirtieth term I don't have to define to
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: you guys, but tilting to the right to starboard all right,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: not that big a deal at first. Two hours later,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: it's the first thing that he mentions. And these guys
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: are very reluctant to admit anything is wrong with their
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: ships for a few reasons. One, they're in competition. You
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: don't put anything on the radio, you don't have to.
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Second of all, the whole matra aspect. Man, we've all
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: been on planes. We're experiencing little turbulence here. People. Yeah,
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: we're going bounce up and down two undred feet. We'll
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: be okay here in just a few minutes. That's what
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: these guys are like. So for him to admit this
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: much is very unusual. So now you've got a pretty
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: serious list. What does that mean? It means either taking
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: water from the bottom or the load has shifted, or
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: possibly both. And if they bottomed out at six fathom
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: the shoal, that could be the reason. Once you've starboard,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: all right, you can't steer.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: And he had mentioned we hit.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: Here's the bizarre part. And I could not believe this either,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: But I had ten experts tell me it's true. You
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: might not have known, And I thought that's impossible.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: Something enough to put a hole through that thing a sandstone.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: It's sandstone, for crying out loud. This is hard, hard stuff,
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and you got a hard hardship. How could you not
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: know that? And I talked to experienced captains saying, the
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: waves are so nasty, like I said, they're a train
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: wreck that you can't tell the difference between the train
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: wreck of a good wave and one guy the badger
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: that runs from Muskegan.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: To uh exactly, man's right.
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: That's right, will see is the captain of that ship?
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: He said.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: I was leaving the breakwater one time, and the waves
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: are so nasty. I thought I hit the breakwater. I
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: had not, And I didn't know this stuff worked like that.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: It does, so even a good captain cannot be aware.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: So whether tore hole or scraped it or whatever, we're
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: not quite sure. But anyway, now you're listing. If you're listing,
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: you can't steer properly. You're much more in danger of
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: capsizing when you're going broadside and like a three leg
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: an animal in the wild. And you guys know what
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: those are like. All right, one good wave now can
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: take you out. And when it reaches the point that
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: they didn't want to be in. As I said earlier,
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: the worst place, the worst time, one hundred miles prior
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: wins and up to sixty foot waves. And at some
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: point the ship probably didn't come back up. We don't know,
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: but that's the best guest.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: The best guess right now is that it hit Did
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: it hit something.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: That I think if you're asking me, I know, like.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: I understanding that no one really knows, but like, where's
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: sort of the all right, let's get let's go sort
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of like academic consensus.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: There is none, but I can tell you this some
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: new data in here. Dick Race, there's a name for you.
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: He's the best diver in the Great Lakes. He died
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: in two thousand and two when a seven forty seven
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: went in, Like Michigan in the sixties. He's the guy
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: who found it when no one else could. The lakes
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: are bigger than you think. He worked at the Chicago
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Police Department and he did his own work. He's the
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: best in the lake. Three guys who knew him well
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: also the same thing. The company asked him to dive
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: down six months later on six to five of them shoal, yeah,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: look for a strike, look for a strike, exactly right, Steven,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: and wherever that report is, by the way, I found
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: the guy Peter grow was in charge of a thousand
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: boxes bankers boxes of that company's files when I went
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: bankrupt in two thousand and four. He spent two years
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: going through all these files. He found every box and
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: went through them all except for three, the three involving
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: the ed Memphis Gerald, and no one signed him out.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: There's no trace. That's where his report is. I'm almost
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: sure of it, and I couldn't find it. Dick Race
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: reported on this, So his file is gone. We don't
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: know where it is. And I tried like a hell
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: to find it. But he told three different guys in Chicago,
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Travers City, Muskegan the exact same thing. I saw the
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Fitzgerald's paint on that bottom.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I saw a rock.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: Nearby with scratches that no animal can make. That had
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: to be from the ship. So is that proof?
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: There wasn't like when they found the there was like
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: no like autopsy they could do on the wreckage.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Yes and no. And it gets us closer to it,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: but it's not definitive. Yeah. But anyway, So at seven
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: o'clock when Bernie Cooper calls him and he's the captain
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: of the Anderson, and he says, how are you making
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: out with your problems? He says an quote, we are
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: holding our own And that is the ringing line from
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Captain MCSORTI. Those the last words from anybody on board.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Whatever happened next one thing we say that people academically
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: even agree on whatever happened was fast. And what's our
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: proof on that this guy is the best captain of
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: the great Legs. If he had ten seconds to get
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: out an SOS with coordinates, he sure as hell would
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: have done it. This guy's good, all right. The lifeboats
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: were secured, the life jackets were where they left them.
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: Only one guy we've seen in the bottom is wearing
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: a life jacket. So whatever happened happened very fast. They say,
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: when thirty five miles per hour down to the bottom,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: it might have cracked on top.
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: If there's a guy on the bottom wearing a life jacket, Yes,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: how com we didn't float.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: Because he's inside the inside the Uh, they're all inside
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: the ship, understood. Oh they are yep, somewhere in the
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: pilot house and somewhere in the engine room and no
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: one's in the middle. So is that right? Yeah, we
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: don't want to be in the middle. Not that, not
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: that it worked out well anyway.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: But how deep did it? How deep did it?
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: Here's the weird part, so kind of an academic question.
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: Did it crack on the surface as other ships had
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: or did it crack after it hit And a lot
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: of people say it cracked on the surface, And again
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: can't prove it either way. But here's a wild stat
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: for you. It's down five hundred and thirty feet deep.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: Now you better you know you can't dive down there
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: for the hell of it. You better know what you're doing,
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: special gear, you know, license people, submersibles, all that stuff.
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: So it's five hundred thirty feet down. But this ship
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: is seven hundred and twenty nine feet long, So even
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: if it hits the bout, you have two hundred feet
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: out outside the water. Crazy, all right, So that would
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: certainly have cracked it at that point put all the
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: weight on it. So either one could have happened. And
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: I can't say.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: That's yeah, I never thought of. It's taller than it
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: is deep.
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: And it's five hundred and thirty feet deep.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: How far are the two pieces apart?
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: About a quarter mile about like that, and in between
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: it's like one third the bow upright, so you can
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: see the Memphis Gerald on the side, one third the
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: stern upside down. So we see in the book ed
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Memphiserald upside down, which is sad to see. In the
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: middle is about a third and it's just blown apart
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: and the attack and it is still down there, so
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: and and all twenty men as well. And the line
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: from the song the chip Awad comes from a Newsweek story.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: But Gordon Lightfoot got the great lick the great Lake
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: never gives up her dead. What that means is if.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: You think by now I'd be a nice pant on
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: this stuff. But this guy's got the lyrics exactly right.
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you again, doctor, And he's got it. He's right.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: The leg it is said, never.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: Dead, honorary doctor.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: I call that a professional. Curtis, thank you. We need
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: we need a light moments. That's good too. Yeah. The
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: author of the book, wud paid two thousand dollars for
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: the rights. Didn't get the lyric right, So thank you
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: for that. Why is that because if you've drowned in Michigan,
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: like Michigan like Eerie, almost anywhere you go in the
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: United States, bacteria will eventually invade your body. And the
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: bacteria do that. They are lighter than water, so your
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: body starts floating up. So that's why they float up
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: within a week or two, usually in drownings. Fishermen included
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: on the Great Lakes. I'm sorry. On Lake Superior. You're
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: so far down, it's dark all day long, it's pitch black,
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: it's so cold. Bacteria can't live there. There's a sterile
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: down there. It is sterile. Bacteria do not live down there.
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: Almost nothing lives down there. So bacteria never invade your body.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: So these bodies hate to get grim. They do not
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: decompose in the normal way. They're still largely recognizable.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: But what has been the argument, Why haven't the families
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: wanted to Why haven't the families wanted to bring up
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the remains of their relatives.
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: One of them did for a while until she found
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: out her she's an only child, also deb Shampa or
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: two days go to Milwaukee. She's a sixteen year old
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: girl when her dad's ship goes down, and they're very
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: close at first. She wanted to and his brother was
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: in Vietnam. And here's a little story he's thirteen years
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: old in the Great Depression when his dad dies suddenly.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: He's the oldest of five kids. What do you do
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: if you're in rural If you're in rural Wisconsin, at
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: that point, you drop out of school and you start working.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: These guys are tough dudes. So he paid for his
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: kid and your brothers to get through school. He joins
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: the military, sense checks back. He was decorated himself, gets
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: in a ship, makes good money, and gives the money
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: back to his family. But he always promises his brother
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: in Vietnam, if anything ever happens to you, I will
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: go to Vietnam and I will bring you back. And
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: he said that more than once. So when this ship
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: goes down, his brother wants to do the same thing.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: I want to go down and bring you back. But
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: deb Champeaux realize, a it's very dangerous. They've made three drives,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: three dives down there no accidents, but it's very dangerous
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: to do that stuff. Two the other people are also
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: on the ship, and she said in the Marines, you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: never leave your men. So that was the ethos of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: leaving the guys on the ship. So they all agree
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: they're not going to come up and they're all basically
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: entombed there.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Essentially, they're all accounted for that.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: I can't say for sure, well I can, because by
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: now something would have happened. All twenty nine men are
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: on one side of the other. You would never be
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: in the middle of that ship anyway.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: But I'm just conditions were such that no one could
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: be No one would be on deck. It'd be like
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: laughable deck.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and laughable is right, and no no fence railing
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: even on top of.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: That, and so fast that no one ever attempted to like,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: no lifeboats ever washed ashore.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: The lifeboats dead, but only if they popped out on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: their way down.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: I see.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: And these things were destroyed.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, but no sign that someone had taken any kind
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: of steps to do that.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: The one life jacket is the only time we have
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: that anybody felt that, you know, doom was apparent. These
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: guys usually didn't wear life jackets. Some of these guys
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: couldn't swim. It seems crazy to me, but coast got
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: ever tested for it. And Ransom Condy, there's a name
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: for you. The nickname was Handsome Ransom Condy. He told
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: us daughter. All he does is prolonged the agony. So
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: these guys and yeah, you have ten minutes in net
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: water anyway.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: Kind of a fatal It's like, God, why bother kind
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: of thing?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: That's what that was the that was the mindset.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: So it's it's it's assumed that the men drown.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think proven basically, h so fast I answer
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: your question. I don't think anyone's gone down there and
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: counted the head count kind of the the dead.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: What was going on with the other captain?
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: Uh, he was fighting for his life, of course, thirty
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: forty footers, but he was not quite in as bad
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: a place. He's an hour behind.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Did he also take he did take the northern.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: The northern route. Yeah, and he's another aggressive guys. This
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: is unusual, but his radars working, so they certainly avoided
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Careb Island. They got a map in there showing the
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: two routes they took. Man, they took a wide swing
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: around that whole thing. He told his wheelsman, we ain't
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: coming anywhere near this thing, right, I mean, I don't
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: want to see it. And with there's no reason to.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: Coming near the six fathom shoal exactly.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 5: That's that's death without an SOS call. He realizes that
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 5: something's awry when assuming I mean he loses contact, he
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: doesn't get any response on the radio or I mean
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 5: Bernie Cooper And at what point, at what point do
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 5: they realize something's happened.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: They come to it slowly because again he's fighting for
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: his life. Yeah, he's an hour behind. So the worst
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: of it lasts about an hour. And that's where the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: Fitzgerald was. It's still bad when he comes through thirty
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: forty foot or whatever. But so he's keeping unmonitored, but
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: you only check it in every half an hour of
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: an hour. But he loses them on the radar. That
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: concerns him, but that's possible, that can happen. Then he
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: tells his guys the power might have gone out on
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: the ship, which does happen. The electrical systems can pop out.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: But after an hour he realized this is not right,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: so he calls the coast Guard. And I hate to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: be critical of the coast Guard. These guys have saved
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: thousands of lives, and I got many of them in
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: the book. These guys risk their own lives, very very good.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: But the seue Locks Coast Guard station did not come
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: through that night. They had two ships that did not
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: go out.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: And the guy wouldn't It wouldn't have mattered.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't have mattered, but you gotta be ready.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: But anyway, no, I understand the criticism. I'm saying, it wasn't.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: No, it was im material. You're dead right, Yeah, no,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: punt intend it's sorry. But the captain Cooper of the
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: Anderson calls the Sioux group in in the seue locks
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: and talking to a petty officer branch. This guy's young buck,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: and he asked Cooper to go from channel sixteen to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: channel twelve because channel sixteen is for emergencies. He's reporting
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: the memphistial being missing. Is there a greater emergency than that?
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's even close? This guy's just not getting it,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: and Cooper's trying to get through to them, Hey, I
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: think the ship is missing. When they finally get the
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: white Fish Bay at nine o'clock at night, he's certain
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: that it's gone. There's no reason why we wouldn't pass him.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't be in home.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: What time did the ship break apart?
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Seven o'clock ten somewhere in there, and that time of
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: you're dark. Oh yeah, absolutely, it's been dark for a
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: while at that point, it's like four point thirty, you
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: know that area. So the petty officer Branch testifies a
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: few days later and asks to explain himself his various responses,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: and he says, I thought it was important, but at
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: that time not urgent, and I can't explain that answer.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: So it doesn't Again, it didn't matter as far as
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: what happened on It's still that's a Cooper's dealing with.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: When they get to Whitefish Bay, they've not even weighed anchor,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: and coastguard says, can you go back out and look
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: for the Fitzgerald.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: So it says to who, Cooper of the Anderson want
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: to take a iron ore freighter and go look for it? Yes?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: And you just got in like this, yeah, skin of
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: your teeth. You're happy to be alive, and so is
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the crew. It's the worst home he's ever seen his
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: entire career. And they ask him before you even drop
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: anchor to go back out, and you're like, I said.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: To take a loaded freighter out six hundred.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: Feet some oh, I was actually longer at that point,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: seven hundred.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: What the hell is he supposed to do?
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: It's I just gave a shrug for the radio. It's
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: a fool's mission. And they know damn well that you
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: don't lose seven hundred twenty nine feet of steal. It's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: a fool's mission. They know that. But and the Bradley
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: in fifty eight and the Morrell in sixty six, great
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: first person testimony we've got in the book from the guys.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: There are three guys in one raft and four guys
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: another raft, and end up being two and one because
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: the guys died on the raft and stayed on the raft.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: They didn't have the energy to throw them over at
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: that point, at these horrible wrecks, and they said, we're freezing.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: We have no energy to even grab a rope by
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: the time they get us. What kept us going? You know,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: we're dying and so on. The only thing that kept
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: us going was the thin thread of hope that's somewhere
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: out there is some guy in the coast Guard or
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: somewhere else who's willing to risk his life to save mine,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: because you can't save my life any other way without
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: risking yours. And Coastguard guys die doing this stuff, I mean,
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: other guys die too many examples, of course, so coast
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: Guard does that in a regular basis. That's what these
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: guys did. And I asked Rick Bartholey, who's a twenty
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: two year old guy in that ship. I said, what
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: do you think at the time? He said, we knew
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: it was a dumb idea, and we knew there could
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: be two ships in the bottom before we're done. And
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what Cooper tells the Coastguard. We could double
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: the accident at this point, he said, but we didn't
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: think twice because we knew they would do it for us.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: And that is the Sailor's Code. And the chapter called
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: the Sailor's Code. All the American ships went out, and
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: all the ocean ships stayed in port because once again
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: the Salty's learned that the Great Lakes are scarier than
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: the ocean. So those guys are heroes to me.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: When you say that the other the captain of the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: other ship, you kind of answered this, but it's what
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: come back on it. The cat you use the term
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of the captain dealership was fighting for his life, yes,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: like did he later describe describe it like that? I mean,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: did he feel like he was in a life death situation?
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: I should have the thing. I got my pdf my computer.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: How about that for a non Fiserald response, I can
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: find exact quote when the coastguard captain tells him to
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: go out. He we have his quotes and what he said,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: where's that damn thing? Is right there? I'll get in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: a second. He said, do you know? Do you know
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: what the conditions are like out there? And the guy
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: doesn't answer, and Cooper says, again, do you know what
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: the conditions are like out there? And again he doesn't answer,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: and I said, he didn't answer, but we can. He
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: had no idea because even on shore with twenty footers
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: going over your building on shore, if you weren't out there,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: you'd have no idea. And so Cooper knows this guy's
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: asking a lot and he has no idea what he's
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: asking for. But they didn't. He didn't even stop and think,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, you didn't like it, but you gotta go.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: And these guys are different breed.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: How long were they out there?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: About fourteen hours? Because that's all it takes to go
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: to make a loop.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: And the scary loaded with all But that's the thing
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: that I keep, I know, I keep coming back, was
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: like loaded with all that iron orange shit.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't drop it first and go back out.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: That's that's part of your problem. I mean his history board.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Do you're gonna it's crazy, do what like throw some ropes,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: like you're gonna try to pull up along You're gonna
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: try to pull that thing up alongside a life raft.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: I guess, And they have in the past. They would try,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: but it would work. I mean, I don't know.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: It also could be as much about like confirming and
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: recovering bodies, and.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: Or you'd find it a drift. I guess.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they found debris, they found the lifeboats. Those
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: things were steel, not aluminum. Even Arthur Anderson's lifeboat was
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: destroyed by a wave, and Arthur described it, it's like
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: taking a pop can, stepping on it and taking a
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: hacksaw through it. That's what our lifeboat looked like. And
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: again made of steel, not of aluminum. But the way
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: they dreaded, they're going back out in the seas and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: it's still bad and you're smashing into those waves. That's
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: not the scary part. The scary part is the turnaround, turnaround.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: You have to pick the right wave to turn around
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: in to go into the trough.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it takes fifteen minutes for those things.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: Around exactly fifteen minutes, take an hour. Yeah, these things
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: they're not that. They're sixteen miles hours and they're big
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: and slow. So you got to And I talked to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: captains about this. It's dark, you can't pick the right wave.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: It's too dark to see, like you're saying earlier. So
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: just making that turnaround. And Barthuli, who's not an emotional guy,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: he said, trust me. When we got back into Whitefish
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Bay the second time, there's a lot of guys who
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: became very religious. Yes, who had they come to Jesus
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: moment on your way back, so they knew how bad
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: it was. So those guys were impressive. The ocean guys
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: did not go out, as I said earlier. John Hayes
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: had sailed in both twenty three years the Great Lakes
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: and twelve on the Ocean. He said, the Great Lakes
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: and the Ocean, it ain't even close. And anybody who's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: sailed both will tell you the same thing. The Salty's
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: always laughed at us until they got in the Great Lakes.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: Then they shut up pretty damn fast and started looking
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: for safe harbor and that night a half dozen American
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Canadian ships went out and all the salteast stayed in bay.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: So that's the difference.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: Has there anything comparable happened since then?
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: Rody? Great question, And by the way, this is the
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: best damn interview I've had to check. I ad my
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 2: ignorance I had been my ignorance about the media to podcast.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you. I'm getting the best questions. That's
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: been very impressive. So six thousand shipwrecks between eighteen seventy
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: five and nineteen seventy five. From November tenth, nineteen seventy
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: five to the present, almost exactly fifty years, zero not one.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: So you go from six thousand in the century to
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: zero for fifty years? And why is that? Just what
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: you said Steven earlier? Forecasting is better. They're also taking
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: it more seriously. Communication. Don't just know the information, tell
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: the captain, and tell the captain on a regular basis
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: what they're in for today. So they had more technology
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: back then. And one of my experts said, when do
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: you fix anything when it's broken? All right? Nine to eleven.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: We're complacent. We got smart about certain things, but we
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: could have done things then to be smarter. Of course,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: same thing here. But the biggest change I believe since
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: then is simple common sense. The author photo there on
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: the back is me at Whitefish Point. This is November
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: eleventh of last year of twenty twenty four, the day
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: after the anniversary. I spoke with the families the night before.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at about thirty to forty mile prior wins there.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: I don't want too happy about ten foot waves every
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: single ship that day. In my computer program on my
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: phone shows this. Every single ship was anchored in Whitefish Bay.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: And I guarantee you in the old days, not one.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: And if you're anchoring, you're fired. You're not going to
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: make it or ridiculed at least, so way to day,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: way to day. The next day in the Lake Superior,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: after the ship went down it was glass. Oh you
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: could have gone out one day later and made up
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: all your time straight shot. So next part of the tragedy,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: I'll added the tragedy. Eddie Bindon, forty seven years old,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: first assuch An engineer high in the pecking order, handles
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: the engine been married twenty five years to the lovely Helen.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: Her photos in there in Cleveland area more or less.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: He about to celebrate the twenty fine Anniversary's about to
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: retire after this trip as well. He gets from Superior,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: Wisconsin to Duluth to the jewlier store because Spirit didn't
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: have one. Apparently, gets a very nice twenty five year
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: diamond and anniversary ring, and for reasons only he knows,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: he does not pack it in his duffel bag. He's
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: gonna see her in three days. She's gonna be there
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: on the dock he lived two hours away. He gives
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: it to a friend and tells his friend to mail
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: this to my wife and gives the address.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: That is so wild, though, man.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: I cannot explain why he did that, what he thought
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: any of this, But sure enough, a week later she
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: gets a ring she wore the rest of her life
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: and never remarried. But stories like that, those are the
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: stories that no one's got. So it makes some human beings.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: That's that's the most important thing. Man.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Did you feel like when you when you started working
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: on the book, did you feel it necessary to reach
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: out to the family members?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Oh? Essential, And it took me about six months to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: a year to get to them. I got lucky. The
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: guy who is the director of The Great Lakes Shipwreck
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: Museum in Whitefish Point. Bruce Lanne a true class act,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: former Army captain, square jot guy, all this good stuff.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: He's a big o'house State fan. But he got his
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: master's agree at Eastern Mischian University in Ipsilanti. So he's
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: hearing me on the radio for years talking about this
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: stuff and reading my football books, and so and so
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: I already knew me. Thank god. He read the Halifax
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: book and we got it along very well. He had
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: the trust of the families. I did not. He was
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: their gatekeeper. He keeps all the wackos and the grifters
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: away from them. But we got along and he told
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: them to trust me, and without that the book barren accounts,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: in my opinion, So they trusted me, and that one
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: worked out very well. They love the book, and I'm
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: grateful for that.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: When we say the like if I say the families,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: or if you hear the families, are there? Are there
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: still twenty nine families? There's some like semi cohesive units
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: or are some of the families sort of dissolved and.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: Some have dissolved? Well, Eddie Bendon and his wife Helen
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: no kids, I see, so there you are, which is
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: why I feel very.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Good about and she and she's and she's she's deceased.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, I see she was forty seven at the time.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: So there's no there's no fa in that case. There's
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: no family spokes.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: Three or four of the cases, they're not a deckhand
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 2: who's single. There you go. So in those cases they
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: ring the bell twenty nine times every anniversary. My son
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: once rang the bell. He's he was eight at the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: time for Eddie Bendon and he wore a suit and tie,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: took it very seriously, practiced earlier in the day. We
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: have pictures of him walking away Tyrian volunteers. Basically, so
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: as through my son, I discovered Eddie Beindon, and then
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: I found a guy, Patrick Devine, who talked to me
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: late in the process. He was very reluctant deckhanded on
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: the ship. Two months earlier. He was replaced by Bruce Hudson.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: He's mad about it at the time. He was, Yeah,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: it took ten years to get over survivor's guilt and
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: all this. I mean, he's in a bottle for a while.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: As he said, he loved Eddie Bindon. Eddie Bindon was
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: his mentor and his boss and just a great guy.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 2: Knew his stuff and was very kind to him and
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: protected him. So now Eddie Beindon, you know, we'll know
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: about Eddie Bindon now at least. So I got to
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 2: eat another one. Bruce Hudson. I told you that his
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: girlfriend's pregnant. Ruth Hudson loses her only child, and I've
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: got my wife. I'm a late starter. I got a
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: ten year old kid. My wife has assured me I've
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: got an only child. She was very clear on this.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: You've got to and you know who the gate came. Yeah,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: well there you go. Who decided that not you? Well
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: to do that? Well, then no one decided that there
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: are accents in their accents. We can talk about that
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: another time, but anyway, uh.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: So, I just to clarify that was our best accident.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: There you go.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Everyone said that genius is a genius moment, the third one, by.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: The way, the trailers we call him. Everyone always says
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: that worth the price of missioned right there. But so
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: Ruth Hudson, she finds out she's four foot nine and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: her mo.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: On backup, This is not the girlfriend, this is his mom.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: Bruce Hudson's mother, Ruth, thank you for the Claire. She
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: has one child, one child, She had one child. Her
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: niece saw her every day, Pam Winning in the same neighborhood.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: She's been great to me and thanks for the clarification.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: So, Ruth Hudson, she's four foot nine, but she tells
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: you that she's five foot five, and you believed her.
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: Apparently she was a little spark plug, just full of
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: energy and all this she the company called nobody. She
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: finds out the next day driving to her job at
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: the Bunny Bell Cosmetic factory in Cleveland. On the radio,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: that's yeah, this is this is brutal, this is cruel.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: This is before the time of like contacting next of
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: kin before you announced.
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: No, it was not. You should have proded them immediately.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: This is ninety seventy five. The company did not do
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: what it's supposed to do. So Dennis Anderson channel ten
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: and du Luth WTL number channel eleven and Toledo. That's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: how these people find out and neighbors fight out. They
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: knocking your ten o'clock at night and tell you that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: your dad's ship is gone. Just brutal. So she finds
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: out like that, and she thinks I've lost my family.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: This is you know, we're a coupled with one child.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: She finds out six months later that she's gonna be
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: a grandmother.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: Six months later. The person ever thought to make the connection.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: No, the seventeen year old girl at the time, twenty
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: year old guys seventy year old girl wish back then
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: was not that uncommon. She didn't tell her parents that
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: she was pregnant. She just starts showing into like month eight.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: That's when she calls Ruth Hudson. And that's a tough
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: phone call. And Ruth at first thought, you know why
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: you're telling me, She goes, I'm not asking for anything.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: I think you should know that you can be a grandmother.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: And she has Heather, and Ruth and Heather are very close.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: They went shopping together and so on. Heather has four
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: kids and the oldest is Austin now twenty five, who
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 2: looks just like Bruce Hudson apparently. And yes, Aunt Ruth
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: played favorites. She lost her son and she gains a
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: grandson who looks just like him. It's pretty amazing. So wow,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: I know these stories go on like this. I got
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: to tell you one more that.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's like just to sure you're right, like putting
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: the names to it, you know what I mean, Like
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: you never think that you'd run into a dude who's like, no,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: I lost my father on the Edmund Fitzgerald. It's just
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: like it's just like they're chimes, they're church bell chimes.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: It's a song. It's a song. We don't know anything else.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: I didn't know a single name.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: Church belt chime till it rained twenty nine times.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 2: That's right, And now they were got thirty times for
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: all the other accidents as well, and sort of the families.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mentioned earlier, maybe I didn't the last words,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 2: of course, mcsorty. I did mention that we are holding
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: our own. So Heidi Wilhelm is a twelve year old
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: girl at the time. She's the youngest of seven kids,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 2: and all seven kids depend on one guy on the ship.
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: And because the mom's raising seven kids, she's working her
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: weight off. Two next door neighbor knocks in the door says,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: your dad's ship is gone. So mor mom's on the
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: phone trying to get anyone to answer. No one does
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: at the company, and they never called Wow, what do
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: you do? And the insurance companies didn't pay in many
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: cases because it's an act of God. You got some
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 2: social security.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: In most cases, it's like inherent vice or something else.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: Exactly hair advice. There you go, you're legal to Resultso
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: paying off the day and the company paid the minimum
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: that they had to, basically maybe a year's salary. Well
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: what does that get you with seven kids? So and
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: she said, what do you do? You do what we
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: always do in the Midwest. You suck it up. You know,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: we're gonna we're all gonna get jobs. We're all gonna
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: start working. They pulled through. They joined the military. They
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: often went to the then very cheap state schools and
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: not so cheap anymore. They raised kids. They often did
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: a combination. Heightis now sixty two. She's got a daughter, Sarah.
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: She went to the Air Force or daughter Sarah's also
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: in the Air Force. And Sarah was born on the
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: twenty third anniversary of the sky November tenth, nineteen ninety eight.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: The grandfather she would never meet, obviously in a really
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: great guy ball accounts. When she turns twenty one, this
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: is six years ago on number tenth in nineteen ninety
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: or sorry, twenty nineteen, she gets a tattoo, and we're
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: hanging out at wife. It's point a table kind of
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: like this, but you're a black table in the crews
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: quarters for where these people stay when they're in town.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: We're having some beers, we're telling some stories. This is
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: where I got to know these people, and this is
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: where I get choked up. And at this point, Heidi says,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: Sarah's got a tattoo. Sarah showed you on your tattoo.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: And she pulls up her left sleeve and her hoodie
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 2: and it says, we are holding our own oh man,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: And that's what these people do. M and has gotten
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: me too, So yeah, that's how Well, that's incredible. That's
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: what these people were. And I guess one of the
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: points is they were heroes before the ship went down.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: You're steel, your food, all this stuff. It's these guys.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: So sat that's incredible. So is it. I was telling
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: my little boy this. Then I realized maybe it didn't happen,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: but I think it did. They lifted the bell from
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: the ship, they did, and that's in the museum. And
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: then they took another bell and engraved it with the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: names and put it back and then one like Gordon
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Lightfoot died, did they put his name on the bell.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: They didn't put his name on the bell, but they
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: did at Mariner's Church, Okay, they added it there. They
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: rang the bell for him when he died. And that's
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: no small trick. By the way, any special welding tools.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: You got an underwater welder who knows what he's doing.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: That bell is heavy, it's it's brass. Yeah, so bring
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: that up five hundred and thirty feet. The family was
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: there the next boat over when they brought the bell
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: up as an emotional moment.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: Fourth, Yeah, I've seen that stuff from that.
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 2: And they put other bell down there.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: And there's no like from what you know, there's been
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: like like you didn't experience any kind of concerted pushback
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: from families not wanting you to tell this story and
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: investigate individuals or were some people unhappy not with me?
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: And so far knock on wood is for mic or
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: whatever you get. No, I think it's a bamboo. I
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: involve the families, and I also do something that most
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: journalists don't. If I'm talking to Brody or Steven, I said,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: we're gonna talk freely. I'll send you your quotes you'll
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: fix them as we need to. Uh, you have you
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: have a right, I believe to be quoted accurately, and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: that way you build trust. Certainly it takes longer, but
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: you always get more than you think that way. Once
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: it is where you're going, people will usually own their opinions.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: It's beening misquoted that I fear I get misquoted. You
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: get misquoted. I'm sure of it.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Dude. It's to the point where like it's painful to
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: it's painful to participate in anything with journalists. It's and
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: I got friends that just that don't.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: I can't blame you in many cases I'm a journalist.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 2: Why because they're twenty five year old kids who I
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: mean budget cuts.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: Because they already know, Like, dude, they already know what
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: they want you to say.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: That's the that's the crap I hate.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: Like they need the quote they need and then they
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: call you for the thing and you say, you know what,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: there's so much more to it. Let me explain. They
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: don't want that, and then you're like, you know, here's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: the thing you want, but you really need to understand,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: and then it's just the thing they want.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: I've seen it in hockey locker rooms and football locker
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: rooms exactly. Asked the guy the same question three or
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: four times, and I hate that kind of journalism. One
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: of my bosses once asked me, I was doing a
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: story in the Potawata me try basketball team at Escanaba, Michigan.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: They played away games in Beaver Island and Macin Island
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: because the casinos they get a little plane. So that's
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: pretty cool. And my guy asked me. My editor said,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: what's your angle? I said, I got no idea. I
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: haven't met anybody, I've not seen the place. I don't
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: know what the hell I'm talking about. I got a
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: lot of questions, all right, I have no idea. So
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: you go. And that's what you guys did here in
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: this interview. You go where the interview goes. Don't just
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: have your questions and force it. You get crappy interviews.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: You want a conversation. It's exactly what you guys are
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: doing here. And yes, so I get nervous about that.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 2: So with these guys, I mean, we talked ten, fifteen,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: twenty times and to make sure that any scene involving
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: them was accurate. And it's also scary how many things
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to you. I'm writing it down things I
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 2: got wrong or maybe they said them wrong, but I
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: probably got it wrong. I mean, you cover yourself that way.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: If some jackass in California says your book sucks on Amazon,
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not happy about it, but it's gonna happen. Already
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: has we're getting four point seven. But there's joye of
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: jackass in California. You know that guy exactly who knows
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: more about the book than I do. So all right,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: pale whatever, and didn't sign his name naturally, he's pretty
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: tough until he's time to sign your name. But whatever,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: keyboard collage as we call them. But but what I
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: can have is somebody who's in the book telling me
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: I got it wrong in writed a book on your podcast.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: You know what I can have happened is Krin says
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: you got it wrong. You say I got it wrong,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: then I got it wrong. So I've never in fourteen
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: books had anyone say misquoted, out of context, inaccurate, any
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: of that. So these the people, I'm not trying to
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: panner to them and writing the book. I mean, there's
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: still tough things book, no question about it. But it's
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: accurate and it's fair, and those people, I mean, they
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: trusted me, and I appreciate it without them as not
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: a book.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 6: Did they feel like.
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 5: They I mean, I assume that their feelings over time changed,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 5: you know, throughout the writing process, but did they feel
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 5: like they'd never had a voice before. I mean, I
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 5: that's really good because it is. It is one of
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 5: these things where it's a line and a song to
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 5: most people, right, And I imagine it's tough to open
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 5: up about tragedy. But at the same time, like this
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 5: story hasn't been there, their story hasn't been told, and
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 5: so there's there's sort of a tension there between.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: That's well said and good insight. Six crew members we've
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: never been talked to before. We've been in the shit beforehand.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: Half the families I got to the twenty nine fourteen
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: I have some voice in here, and they did kind
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: of say that that we've been holding us back because
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: we're afraid you'll get screwed up this. I mean, I
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: interview you know, rich, famous athletes and coaches. They get
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: quitted all the time. They don't care all that much,
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: and it's irritating to you and me a little bit,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: But so what I'll get over it. This is their
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: one chance, you know, this is these are people who
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: are not rich, not famous, and this is the one
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: chance to tell their dad story in many cases. So yes,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: there was, and the Grifters have come and gone. Bruce
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: Lyn again is my key there? And now we got
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: to know them. I've known for three and a half
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 2: years now. So now when I see them in Milwaukee
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: or Grand Rapids, Michigan or whatever, I get big hugs
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: and they're crying and all this. So that's how that
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: one works.
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: So you you mentioned like we wouldn't be sitting here
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: were it not for the song. Yes, And later on
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 3: you mentioned there's like some local news coverage. What was
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: like the national awareness of this thing when it happened.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 2: That surprised me actually, and uh, there's far more than
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: I thought.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: Oh okay, here was a national news story.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wasn't sure about that one. I when
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 2: when you pitch a book proposal to New York. By
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: the way, I spent six months on this one. That's
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: unusually long. Usual about two months, you write about fifty pages,
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: you sent it out there. You're kind of like a
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: geologist telling show oil I swear to God there's oil
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: in my land. I swear to God, just give me
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: some money.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 6: Now, I'm going to show him what the time said about.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: It, exactly right, exactly So then they call your bluff
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: and say, you know what, here's some money, take some tame,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: go find the oil. And you go, oh crap, they're
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: better be oiled down that And I kept on getting
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: lucky more luck. I'm working out it not recently, obviously,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: shame on, maybe not en off hockey these days, but
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: I'm working out about about a year and a half
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: ago or so. And a buddy of mine, Larry Lage,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: who does associated press for the State of Michigan, covers
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: all sports. We've been friends forever, and he says, you know,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: Harry Atkins wrote the first story on the Mphis Gerald.
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 2: Harry Atkins had his job doing sports before him thirty
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: years ap sports writer. I've been sitting next to Harry
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: in the damn press box for decades. I had no idea.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: Usually he goes up that night with the crazy photographer.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: They get a plane in the wind, they do Walla
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: and he does a wonderful job. And he still had
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 2: a copy. He's still alive. He's eighty four, he's still sharp.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: Gave me an original copy computer print out of that
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: thing from seventy five and without a cell phone, without internet.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: That I picked up on the wires and sixty.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: Five hundred newspapers around the world, including La Where Life
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: it was that day or the next day whatever. He
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: gets that Newsweek magazine picks it up two weeks later.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: He needed a beautiful job. His name is Jim Gaines.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: He went to the University of Michigan. We got mutual
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 2: friends in common. He's still alive, he's still sharp, lucky
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: as hell, and his story was so good that five
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: or six lines in the song are from his article,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: which I lay out in the two article two articles,
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: two chapters, third or Now and the Rolling Stone. Let's
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: do the damn song. We might as well do it now.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 2: He got asked about the song people obviously, so. Gordon
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: Lefett is an experienced sailor. He did the port heuron
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 2: to sal to Macinaw Race. I've done that right. This
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: is like three days. It's brutal. You think it's oh,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: let's go sailing. Nah, it's freezing your cold. It's miserable.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: But he's a really good sailor, and he's serious about it.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: On November tenth, nineteen seventy five, Monday night, he is
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: working on a song in his attic in Toronto, and
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: it's an Irish Sea shanty, the earliest song he can
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: remember when he's three and a half years old. And
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: he's obviously changing it, but he's working on this. He
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: goes down to get some coffee. It's ten o'clock at
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: night and the wind is howling in Toronto also and
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: he said he had the explicit thought it must be
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: hell on superior to night. He was connected at that moment.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: I mean he knew that these guys are going through.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 2: That's where the spirit comes from. He starts working on
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: the song, doesn't play for anybody. It's too self conscious.
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: The reason I was a lot of ways to screw
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: this up. Remember Body Heat. By the way, if not
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: seeing this movie, people go see it. It's like forty
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: years old now. Launched Kathleen Turner and Mickey Rourke and
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 2: William Hurt and at some point William Hurt's character, a lawyer,
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: wants to blow up his girlfriend's husband. Bad idea and
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: one of his repeat fellon bombers. Basically just teach him
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: how to do it. And finally Mickey Yorke says, hey, man,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: do you have any FN idea? I can probably swear
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: in your thing, can't I Just there you go, you
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: have any FN idea? What the hell you're doing? Because
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: if you're a genius, you can think of fifty ways
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: to can go wrong, and you ain't n fing genius.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: You can think of twenty five. And that's how I
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: felt about the book. There are there are fifty ways
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: to screw this up, and I might be able to
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: think of twenty five. So and that's not how he felt.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: And I knew exactly how.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: He made one. He made one mistake. He oh, he
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: made a couple mistakes. There's some ad there's some like
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: assumptions about what the cook said, and he says, and
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: he couldn't do Toledo, right, good, Toledo left fully loaded
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: for Cleveland because he doesn't. Yeah, couldn't make Toledo.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 2: That was ar tisic license on that one. But everything else,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, twenty six thousand tons, all this stuff.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: The ship was the prior to the American side. I
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: didn't know that was actually I didn't know that that
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: was actually a nickname for the Edmunds.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and these guys, the guys I talked to the sailors.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: He said, this guy nailed it. Family that he nailed.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: It in his description of the lakes, like because I
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: grew up on Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan steams like young.
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: Man's dreams, the islands sportsman, and they are that's where
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 2: you learn how to fish, right, I mean in Miskegan
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: Bay and all that.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 6: So what was the family's reception to the song?
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: Well before that? So he's gonna record his new album
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: in March of seventy six, about five months later, and
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: they got eleven songs lined up, not this one. That's
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: when he's convinced he's not ready. He's not played for anybody.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: So but each day after they do their songs, he's
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 2: screwing around with this and his guitar. They're a tight band.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: After three and a f days, they got five days
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: rented in the studio, three and f days, they're done.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: And that's how tight they are. He says, Okay, you know, gentlemen,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: good job, let's go. They're literally packing up their guitars
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: and their instruments, and then the producer on the piegis
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: on the PA says, why don't you try that song
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: you've been screwing around with? And he says it's not ready.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: It's not ready, it's not ready. And he says, look, dude,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: I'm charging you for five days whether you play a
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: damn thing or not. So I'm here now, the band
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 2: is here, why not give it a shot. So he
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: gets talked into it, and he finally says okay. So
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: he says he asks him to turn the lights down,
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: and he's quiet for like a minute. The drummer, Barry
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: Keen still alive, and so is the bass player, God
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: bless him both. He's there. He says, what do you
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: want me to do? He's never heard the song. He says,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: when I want you to come in, I'll give you
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: a nod. Okay, So he's going a minute and thirty
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: on the song. That's where songs end in seventy five
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: seventy six, and Barry thinks that, okay, you've forgotten all
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: about me. Nope. At one thirty four, he leans over,
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: he looks over and gives him a nod. That's when
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: he comes in with a thunder and lightning, you know
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: that part, and he just makes it up in the
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: spot and then you just keep going. After six and
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: a half minutes, which is three times longer than a
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: normal song, they finished and they go, that wasn't half bad.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: But he's a perfectionist. Life it is, So let's try
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: it again, not as good, Try it again, not as
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 2: three more times, four more times. That afternoon. They come
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: back the next day for this one song, not as good,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: not as good, not as good, all day long, and
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: finally they picked the song You Hear in the Radio.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: It's not a first take. The song You Hear in
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: the Radio is the first time the band ever played it.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: And as Barry Keen, he.
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: Never hit that emotion again.
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: Man, that's you guys are brilliant. That's exactly it. Barry Keen.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: He's been on fed albums for all kinds of.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: Can you ever hear the Dandy Warhol's cover it?
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: Oh yes I have? And Billy Strings by the way,
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: Billy Strings got a new version up from Traverse City, Michigan.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 2: It does a brilliant job.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: He does. Yeah, the Dandy Warhol's kind of phoned it
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: in a little bit. Yeah, they're big drug takers.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: Agus say about that his throwing stick. So is Gordon Lightfoot.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he had a little problem.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: He got clean around nineteen eighty or eighty one, so that's.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: When the Dandy Warhols were getting born.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: There you go, but uh, probably true too, we're around that.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: So Barry Keane tells me, look, man, first takes happen
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: once in a blue moon. First first me ever played it.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: He goes, never ever, ever, ever, said I'm willing to
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: bet never in the history of rock and roll recording.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: And I asked him why and exactly where you're going Steven,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 2: He said, this is not a song. You think your
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: way through this song. You either feel it or you don't.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: If you feel it, the technical stuff doesn't matter, you
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: feel it. That's the spirit they got to hear. So
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: song comes out. They're on the Midnight Special, the old
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: Friday Night concert Show. You're allowed to play six songs,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: and they don't pick this one because they think there's
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: no wa in hell that's gonna work. And this song
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: ends up being number two in nineteen seventy six, behind
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: Rod Stewart's Tonight's to Night with his hot girlfriend ritt
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: Eklan cooing in the background. That's the seventies man that's
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: the me generation. This song is the opposite.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: He's got a couple, he's got a couple good cuts, though, Man,
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: there's no question reason to believe.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: And then when you get the mandolin and all that,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: that's good stuff. But the point is this, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: it's not that that one. That's the mandolin, I guess
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: like that. But anyway, uh, but the families, they played
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: at all the reunions, they played for the grand kids
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 2: whove never met the grandfather.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Oh they yeah, wow.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: And Cindy Reynolds, the mother of Bruce Hudson's child, she said,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: to this day it comes on the radio, I pull
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: off and I cry. Really and that's that's your best
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: review right there. And life became great. Friends of the families.
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: He's a hero in this book. He's given money for
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: scholarships in Traverse City with the Great Lakes May Time.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: I saw him play in Travers City once there.
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: You go scholarships in his name the Marytime Academy. Ruth
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: Hudson is on her deathbed on November ninth, twenty fifteen.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: November nine, yes, this is the day before the fortieth anniversary,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 2: and Gordon Leiffett goes to white fish point, not to play,
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: just to pay his respects to these handful of families.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: That's what I mean. Way out of the way obviously.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 2: And he asked Pam, where's aunt Ruth, And she's on
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: her deathbed, give me a phone, And that picture's in
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 2: the book of him in the kitchen on the phone
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: talking to Ruth hu Hudson und her deathbed, and she said,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: I promised Bruce I would be in heaven with him
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: for the fortith Anniversary's been a lot too long. And
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: that was her last phone call. And she gets off
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: the phone and tells her tells the mom she's the child,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: and she said, I was talking to Gordon because that's
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 2: how close they were. So he's a hero in this book.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Man, I got to just hit you with something totally
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: unrelated but a little bit kind of similar, you know.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: And Neil Young's Old Man, the Pedal Steel.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: It's in the book, was because David Cowboy Rice Weiss
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: was on a date with another Cindy and they're playing
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: Neil Young's one of his albums and that song is
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: on it. Oh old Man.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: So they had a dude come in, They had a
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: studio guy come in to do the pedal steel on
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: Old Man, which is great. Well, he just was warming
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: up and they had some tracks to him warming up
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: and that's what they plugged into the tune. And my understanding,
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: I could be wrong. My understanding, they don't know who
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: the hell it was. Wow, I don't know if that's true, but.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: Trust me, the stars are about the seventies in rock
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 2: and roll. Yeah, it was true.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna write next? You know?
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know yet. There's a few good options
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: out there.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: Come work for me and Randall were in need of.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: We're in need of a writer.
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: History.
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: Careful what you wish.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 6: For project, as long as you maintained the compliments, you know.
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: Hey, they're an easily profit trust me. Look, you know
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 2: very quick when people know what they're talking about when
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: they don't. When you do these things, and it's like
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: when people call it you have you ever heard my
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: podcast or not? You can tell pretty quickly. So you guys, man,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: I never had an interview like this. Twenty terms not
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: defined at this table that I have to explain everything normally.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: But what kind of book are you going to do next? Sports?
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: No, not sports? Probably do there are for your other
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: Midwestern disasters. Sadly, then I know about that. I'll probably
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: dive back into those. This one. We're dealing with movie rights.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 2: Now we'll talk about that.
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: Sure, Man, how I was going to ask you that,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: but that I didn't ask I get too jealous.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 2: Well there you go. Don't don't get jealous yet, trust me, and.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: Plus text me when I should get jealous, I'll let
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: you know. Just text me a Jay.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: That awesome means, dude, Jay, sit with that for a
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: little while. As they said in Casablanca, Humphy vog, that's
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 2: gonna be the start of a great franchise. Classic ending scene.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: So a Midwest disaster, because but you don't want to
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: wind up that. They're like, you know, the great Midwestern
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: disaster writer.
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, you want to be that guy, right, Oh, no,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: Bacon's coming. That's something bad you don't want Exactly.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: I don't want to wind up one of his books.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 2: So that's a possibility, the Great Halifax explosion. Talking to
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 2: Hollywood about that for a possible five part TV series.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: Previous book let them lead about coaching my old high
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: school hockey team in ann Arbor and we're Huron river Rats.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 2: I'm not making that up. For some reason, we're the
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: only high school in America name their team the river Rats.
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: Go figure on that one. That's a good one. So
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: but uh, worst than in America. Coach by the worst
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: player in school history. Yours truly, I stild record for
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: the most games and here on uniform eighty six. I
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: played all three years, played every game with the fewest
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: goals zero and I played forward.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna do You're gonna do a book like
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: How I Did It?
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 2: No, did that book? It's in this fifth Praying, but
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 2: we're in a third draft with Disney.
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 6: Plus it's another Midwestern disaster story.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: And Miskegan's in it. Miskegan makes an appearance. So yes,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: so doing all that stuff first, they don't get back
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: to a book.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: So like disasters like the Edmond Fitzgerald or your hockey
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: worse my hockey career.
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: It's actually it's a family record. Actually hold out with
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: my brother here is also on the team. He also
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: failed to score. I'm gonna throw his ass under the
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 2: bus right now. He likes to point out that he
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: played goalie, but hey, we all got problems, you know,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: so he didn't score goal either.
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 5: Well, if you have any if you have any saying
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 5: the casting for this and they're looking for a Bruce
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 5: Hudson type.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're thinking, let me know, Randall's the guy. Yeah,
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: you can see how buff Bruce.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: By the way, Randall, instead of sending me one letter,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: send him to and it's no hot dogs and you'll
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: know to get ready.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: H twelve months good news and bad news. Good news
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: as you got the parts.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: Well, let me remind you of grow the hair out
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: the more Randall. There's there's more to it than the hair.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: But I don't mean to make a light of Bruce Hudson, obviously,
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 2: but Pam did say she's about four or five years
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: younger than Bruce, her cousin, and she saw him every day.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: She said, whenever Bruce came over, all her little twel
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: year old girlfriends all came over.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: To So listen. I'm very I'm very comfortable and with.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: Your sexuality, I landed very comfortable.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: Bruce is a striking man.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, striking.
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: He's a striking man. Like that him. The photo of
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: the guys at the wedding, it's heartbreaking.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: Their human games.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: Never seen the pictures. Man, I don't like. I don't
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: get it. Well, I do get it. But I mean
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: it's just like it's like anything you just put and
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: you're like, shit, man, he's like guys, like it looks
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: like pictures of like just people from around when I
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: was growing.
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 5: I was gonna say, my parents were born on either
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 5: end of nineteen fifty by a couple of years, and
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 5: this just looks like every photo that they have from
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 5: their wedding, wedding that they went to that's.
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and then their old Kodak photos little Granny.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: It was back in that era. Those weddings would have
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: been when you would take those little mints and cocktail
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: peanuts and time up in a spawn sack. Yeah, and
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: had a dollar dance.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: There's a classic for you.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, was a photo of uh, some.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: Of these guys at a wedding by the second Batch photos.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, the guy's best man went down with the ship.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: That's what happened. So as far as Hollywood goes, don't
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: be too jealous yet. So the guy I'm writing the
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: hockey story with Jim Bernstein, he did Mighty Ducks, he
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: did Renaissance Man's Mothers, and I've done about I don't know,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: seven or eight trips out of Hoighwood for various books.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: These Hollywood meetings have you had? Have you had Howard
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: meetings yet?
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: Let's let's have another podcast discussion about this. Sometimes but
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: you're not better. But anyway, it's like the first early
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: on it would be that here's people that aren't they're
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: kind of like they're come in and mind you for
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: what's going on in your neck of a woods.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: They want your knowledge without paying.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: It because they're like they're not out and about and
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: they're like, so, what kind of things are you in?
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: And you'll be like, oh, you know about this, you
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: know about that, you know about this, you know about that,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: And then later you learned this to shut up.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 2: Right, you just fuked over with the store. Basically, So
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: these meetings in Hollywood a KOBOOKI theater, So they that probably.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 6: Has not been used in this Maybe.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it meant.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: It means it's kabook. It's all been rehearsed. It's like
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: you think you're doing a pitch, but you're really not.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: So they always meetings at ten o'clock. Are it's going
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: to be as ten oh five maybe ten to ten.
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: How late the make you wait? As one indicator who
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: shows up. Martin campbellsh up from one of my meetings.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: He's the director of Casino Royale and Zoro. Okay, that's
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: a big boy meeting or the intern, right. And the
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: quality of the water they give you, if they get
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: the fancy, you know, the best ballatle stuff, that's one thing.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: If the interests given you a side from a cup
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: of tapwater, you're just practicing. What about the middle ground,
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: We gave you a nice glass. You're not Hollywood. I'm
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: in Montana. I am in Bozeman, Montana. So Burnston told me.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: They said they liked it, they hated it. They say
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 2: they loved it. They liked it if they actually paid you,
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 2: they loved it. There's not one out of Hollywood, one
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: out of love in Hollywood. And the check clears. If
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: you guys say let's do lunch, we eat this actual
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: food as just bs in Hollywood, that's how you say goodbye.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: I believe that this. I don't even want to say
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: the name, but I have to because he's such a
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: controversial character. The Congress. He said a shift a senator
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: or Congressman California, Adam Schiff.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: He's a senator now from California, I believe he was
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 2: a screenwriter. Do you know that I did not know
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: that he had written some screenplays.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: I think that it was Shift.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: I'm sure shocking up, back up, I've written some screenplay.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 2: Don't make me a damn screenwriter? Was?
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: I know it was Shift? Adam Schiff had a quote
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: from his old days. He said, he said, there are
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: two answers in Hollywood. Yes, and here's a check.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 2: How about this.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: I keep getting you and you get to the meaning.
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: They go, No, we love it.
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: This is great exactly.
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, we're gonna get a hold of you know, we'll
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: call you. Yeah, this is the last we're gonna end
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: the podcast. I might to give this last bit of advice.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: This is a career advice for people. If you get
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: into this world, this business, books and all that, and
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: you do these and you do Hollywood meetings, here's how
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: you end them. Well, let me preface this. Last night,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: my Boddy had to call my boy had to call
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: my body to ask a favor. I said to him,
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a pointer. I want you to
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: ask the favor. I don't want you to push for
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: an answer. I want you to then say, give it
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: some thought and text me, and I said, that's how
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: I want you to end the call. Okay, you're not
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: after an answer, give it some thought and text me
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: when you have a Hollywood meeting. End it by saying,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: thanks for the time. Here's what I'd like you to do.
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: Get with your guys, think about it, and just give
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: me a shout and just that's it.
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: You know what.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: That's it I'm because and saves them going like, oh,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: it's fantastic, we're so excited.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: Do you know what I mean? Perhaps you've seen that
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: before I did.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: And just leave it. Leave it you think about it,
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: Get with your guys.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 5: Just let me not say I'm gonna end my next
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 5: performance review here.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: This is how I think I've done. You think about that.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what when you're ready. You know that's
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: right next year, the year after that.
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: Don't rush yourself and then you hang up and it
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: just never happened.
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: Look, and that way, you've maintained your own dignity at least. Yeah,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. I'm all in twenty. My way.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: Your way is like sign this sign.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: Oh we love it, we love it.
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: Now you don't, all right, ladies and gentlemen, The Gails
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: of November, The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: John you Bacon, New York Times best selling author. Dude,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: that that was a lot of fun. I'm glad you came.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: It's such a dude, I can't wait to read it.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: I'm in a little streak where I'm talking to writers.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: I haven't read the damn bookship. I'm a little behind
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: on them.
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know you're talking about that's all I
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: care about it. That's big and like I.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: Said earlier, people don't think about that.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: You don't have to read my book. You gotta buy it.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, by that of course, but it's about.
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: The family, is uh No. This has, when I swear
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 2: to God, probably the best interview I've done so far.
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: You know, when you feel the book, it feels good.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: Man, it's a heavy book.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: It's like it feels too much.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 5: Much like Hampton Side blurbed your book, you should blurb
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 5: this podcast.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'd be happy to give you a shock
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 2: in the good endorsement for my guy doesn't hunt or fish.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: No, you just feel it.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know how they're talking about normally, but when
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: I'm on there were great. Everyone says I got to
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: do it, and they're right. This has been fantastic.
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: When you get another, uh, you know, whatever you do
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: for your next book, just make just check them me
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: and make sure it fits.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: YEA. We wedge a lot of.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: Even if I'm interested, Like if you do a book
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: about the mob or something, I'd be like, that's cool.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: But I can't wedge it in. Right, But this has
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: got like bad weather ships.
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: Bad weather ships, sailors, all that good stuff, badge lee
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: see free board things. I did not explain broadside waves.
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: I mean I can get ten don't even this.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: I don't need to wedge it. And I can put
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: this book in like this.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 6: That's how it feels, right Sideway seventy five ft wy.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And it's John Youbacon dot com at
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: the website book tours on there all that stuff.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, I got one last tip for you. When you
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: talk to you know what they should have done. They
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: should have made this book the proportions so it's like
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: a big tall skin.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 5: I've heard that's the next that's next book publishing two
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 5: and a half inches.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: Big tall book. Man.
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: Well, let me explain.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: They shipping the gun. They shipping the gun box.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 2: That's right. Take that book into a bathtub. No, no
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: follow me here, turn that thing around.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: John you Bacon, Thanks again, man.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you for real pleasure. Truly