A Letter to His Children.
I hope you guys will share this with your sons. .
it is a part of our family's heritage and our nation's maritime history and
is without question a brief period in my life I am especially proud to say. .
'I served proudly'
I am in the process of writing what occurred that
terrible night in November (1958) when we encountered the very worst storm I
ever experienced during my two years aboard the lightship.
On that night, the Great Lakes freighter CARL D.
BRADLEY sank with all hands. . the very same storm that could very easily
have sunk the Huron too. Bear in mind the Bradley was 'footballs fields' long
and our little boat was a mere 97 feet in length!
So when you think about it. . . . if I had not
survived that night (along with many other 'nights' in combat in Vietnam as
while as the years I served as a police officer) . . .you (and your sons and
my grandchildren) would not be here today
Just some 'points to ponder' as you live this
fantastic experience we call 'life'
I will ask the site manager to also post this short
story when completed along with the 'montage' I have created of the Huron on
that one remarkable stormy winter night.
Long ago, I read a mariner's poem of the 'Gales of
November'
on the Great Lakes. . . all one has to do is view a
map locating the countless hundreds and hundreds of ship wrecks dotting the
bottom of the Great Lakes to realize these relatively 'small' five fresh-water
lakes are indeed one of the most dangerous waterways of the world. I
understand because of the shallowness of the lakes, there are more than four
times as many waves occurring on the lakes than in the earth's much larger and
far deeper oceans.
It's without question the old boat struggled
through many violent storms during the course of her fifty years of
remarkable service on the Great Lakes . . . but I can speak from my own
personal experience and tell you that particular November night was a
'doozey'! I lived it . . . I survived it but what an 'experience' it was!
Even today, after almost fifty years of the time
of that fearful night, each individual moment of that evening is forever
etched in my memory and is today. . still a recurring visual memory in my
mind. I can 'tell' you this story but nothing can ever replace one 'living'
it!
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