Tag: Chris Coppin

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Of the Big Lake, They Call Gitche Gumee

The Edmund Fitzgerald (1958-1975)

Growing up on the West Coast, the Pacific Ocean was our natural draw.  During my early years, before memories even formed, our family made its annual summer trek to Grayland.  We always stayed in the same 12-room motel, a long walk across sandy dunes and scattered beach grass to glimpse the ocean, which was still a couple of hundred yards further west. Early memories find me playing in the sand – enveloped by the ocean’s roar, razor clams, and cool breezes.  We vacationed there every year, always with the Louie & Joanne Cerne family, until my mid-teens.

The Great Lakes didn’t even register.  Sure, we learned about them in school, but if pressed to name all five, I’d struggle.  My first encounter came in 1976, the summer of my 23rd year.  I’d fallen from a tree late that June, crushing three vertebrae; then spent a week in a hospital bed, sleep-watching the bicentennial Fourth of July on television.  Chris Coppin visited before flying back for his summer law program in London.  Upon release, my doctor suggested I read James Mitchener’s epic novel, “Centennial.” At 909 pages, it lasted all summer.

My prognosis was uncertain.  I could walk, with pain; and sit, with pain; and lie down, in pain.  It would take time for the muscles to strengthen and my vertebrae to recover.  I wore a back brace, best described as a corset tightened by strings, like Victorian-era ladies used to achieve thin waists.  For the next month, I moved slowly and spent lots of time swimming.  Water’s buoyancy and lessened gravitational pressure reduced the lower back pain.   My planned summer of fun was decidedly unfunny.

I exchanged letters with Chris, informing him of our high school class’s five-year reunion slated for July 31. Rob McLean organized that impromptu affair at Lynne Puttman’s father’s ranch, where our best junior high parties were held. I was the only one to swim in the pool I’d enjoyed as a kid.  By mid-August, I was going stir crazy.

Chris had Pan Am flying privileges, thanks to his father, George, a flight engineer.  He took advantage of the airline’s non-stop service between London and Seattle, sometimes flying home on weekends.   Chris arrived back in Washington, preparing to leave for his second year of law school at Notre Dame.  Would I like to join him on the cross-country drive?  I had nothing going on in my life except a bad back that hurt most of the time, so a buddy road trip was set in motion.

We left the morning of August 17th, heading east on I-90. Chris drove a light-blue 1968 Plymouth Fury, a four-door, on loan from his dad.  The car’s engine ran hot, so we opened the windows and turned the heater to full blast to drain off excess heat.   Driving mile after endless mile through sunny Montana made it uncomfortable, but we were young.  No air conditioner either, so with windows open and Chris’ arm resting on the driver’s side door, he sported an impressive sunburn by day’s end.

Chris Coppin drives his 1968 Plymouth Fury along I-90, somewhere in Montana, on the first day of our road trip to Notre Dame.

We stopped at a cheap motel somewhere east of Billings.  Our next day’s goal was Hermann, Missouri, where Chris’s girlfriend lived.  Which meant we’d be driving past Mount Rushmore.  Back on I-90, we approached Rapid City, and signs to Mount Rushmore began to appear.  The colossal faces of four great American presidents, carved in granite, beckoned.  The short ride wasn’t North by Northwest, but required a southerly detour, which cost us some miles and minutes. But how many times in our lives would we be that close?  Only once . . . so far.

I asked Chris if we could visit.  He said, “No.”  I begged and pleaded, but he was in no mood for sightseeing.  It was late morning, and we still had 900 miles in front of us.  A compromise was finally struck. Chris drove to the park entrance and dropped me off in view of the monument  It was an epic sight.  I snapped a photo while Chris looped back around the lot, picking me up two minutes later.  I jumped in the car, as Chris gleefully announced, “There, you’ve seen Mt. Rushmore.”  We headed south toward Kansas City.

Kansas City, Here We Come!

The ’68 Plymouth came equipped with an AM radio.  Stations faded in and out.  After finding a good one, we rode it until it was too scratchy to enjoy.  Our Missouri destination, where Cathy Rhoads lived, was still hours away.  We passed through Kansas City late that night, listening to live broadcasts of the 1976 Republican National Convention.  I had a personal interest.

Six months earlier, I was chosen as one of three Enumclaw delegates pledged to Gerald Ford.  We represented him at the King County Convention held that May in the Seattle Center.  But my hopes of attending the national convention in Kansas City were dashed when Ronald Reagan’s delegates dominated the district round, so our Ford delegation didn’t advance to state.

The contest between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan was so tight that multiple ballots were expected.  It was the last political convention where the nominee wasn’t known until the votes were cast.  Yet, through pure chance and circumstance, there I was, driving by the convention hall while listening to the live broadcast.  We passed in the early hours of August 19, just after West Virginia’s delegation put Ford over the top.

Onward to Hermann we pressed through the night, arriving early the next morning.  We spent a few days with his girlfriend’s family.  Cathy’s father and brothers were auctioneers, so we joined them for one of their auctions.  It was a peculiar affair, akin to a giant yard sale, with items like garden hoses and old lawnmowers sold in quick succession for a couple of dollars here and ten dollars there.  I called it backyard entertainment.

At the Six Flags amusement park with Cathy’s family. From left to right: Bill Kombol, Chris Coppin, Cathy Rhoads, her youngest sister, Sharon, and Suzanne.

Hermann was a charming German town and still is.  We enjoyed 35-cent burgers at a drug store counter, saw “Taxi Driver” in the movie house, toured the Stone Hill Winery, and visited Six Flags amusement park near St. Louis.  Cathy was quite good at shuffleboard bowling, so we spent time at a local bar playing this game we’d never seen before.  Here’s how I described Hermann in a postcard mailed home: “A nice small town, pop. 2,500.  Middle America with a hillbilly accent.”

Land of the Fighting Irish

In half a day, we arrived in South Bend and settled into Chris’s digs.  I hung out with his law school buddies for a bit, but didn’t fit in.  They had ambitions, I didn’t, so did my own thing.  I borrowed Chris’s car and drove 35 miles to Warren Dunes State Park on the southeast shore of Lake Michigan.  I walked hundreds of yards through massive sand dunes to catch my first glimpse of a Great Lake. The waves were as big as the ocean, and the water stretched beyond the horizon.  I spent most of the day sunbathing and body-surfing while marveling at the wonders of this inland sea.

I took Amtrak to Chicago, passing through Gary, Indiana, whose distressingly ugly steel works forever stained that tribute song from the “Music Man.”  I caught a Cubs game, courtesy of two old guys in their 70s, who, seeing me approach, asked if I needed an extra ticket. In their box seats near third base, they told stories of Al Capone and grand adventures from their youth.  I bought beers for all, poured fresh from bottles into cups – the Wrigley Field way.  I toured the Art Institute, the Museum of Industry, and a half dozen other sites, and by luck caught an E.L.O. concert at the Amphitheater, and a few days later returned to Notre Dame.

That’s me in the pink shirt at a Cubs game at Wrigley Field with my benefactors, who gave me a ticket.

Back on campus, I spotted a poster that KISS was playing at Joyce Center.  Since tickets were only $6.00, I asked Chris and his buddies if anyone wanted to join me.  Their smirks and snickers informed me KISS wasn’t part of their law school pretensions.  I went alone.  KISS’s opening act was the yet unknown Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band.  One month later, they released “Night Moves,” kick-starting their rise to stardom.

A Song is Heard

I can’t remember when I first heard “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  But it was during that trip.  The single was released in August and cracked the charts over Labor Day.  The song’s haunting intro and storytelling lyrics are sung by a seasoned voice who blends Chippewa legends and Great Lakes lore.  Every line advances the narrative, and each of its 458 words stirs the soul.  Gordon Lightfoot admitted the tune was based on “an old Irish folk song.”  The night the great ship sank, Lightfoot was in the attic of his Toronto home, trying to work out that Celtic melody he’d first heard as a child.

Despite its six-minute length, Lightfoot’s song peaked at #2 on the U.S. charts, behind Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night.”  And hit #1 on Canadian charts, fittingly, one year after the November 10, 1975, disaster.  Sadly, folk-rock ballads fade in time, while beat-based anthems dominate Classic Rock stations.  The song came briefly to mind in May 2023, following Lightfoot’s death at age 84.

It’s wistful to be reminded that, save for Gordon’s song, the demise of the Edmund Fitzgerald might be largely forgotten, remembered only by “the wives and the sons and the daughters.”  Nearing the 50th anniversary of the great ship’s sinking, I caught its bug while cruising the Great Lakes.

Tanya Turns 85

My mother-in-law turned 85 this past March.  She was born in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, while her late husband, Gary Grant, was born 95 miles north in Chippewa Falls.  Both families moved west to Washington when they were young.  Tanya and her family briefly relocated to Minnesota, where she spent four years before returning to Tacoma for high school.

When asked what she wanted for her 85th birthday, Tanya hoped her four children and spouses would join her on a Great Lakes cruise.  Only the two daughters and their husbands could, so a plan unfolded to board the Victory Cruise Lines for its 10-day sailing from Toronto to Milwaukee.  With tickets in hand, my first goal was to memorize the five lakes’ names, instead of stumbling over which I’d forgotten.  Midwestern schoolchildren are taught the acronym HOMES—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior.  Check!

A frivolous moment for the Great Lake Cruisers on Victoria 1. Clockwise from lower left: Helen Feldmeier (Gary Grant’s cousin), Tanya Grant, Bill, Jennifer, Leah Grant, and Mike Royston – Group selfie by our irrepressible waiter, Aug. 21, 2025.

Jennifer and I also planned a trip to Minneapolis to visit our youngest, Henry.  We scheduled that Midwest jaunt for the end of May, since our cruise wasn’t until mid-August.  It was our first journey to Minnesota, a Great Lakes state to boot.  There’s no handy abbreviation for the eight states bordering the Great Lakes—from east to west—New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  Canada’s one province is easier—Ontario.

After a few days in Minneapolis, we drove two and a half hours northeast to Duluth, a port city on Lake Superior’s southwest shore.  That day’s chilly weather chilled Henry and my hopes to swim in my second Great Lake.  Plus, the discovery that the world’s largest freshwater body of water is damned cold on June 2nd.  We settled instead for Gooseberry Falls and Betty’s World-Famous pies.

Henry, Jennifer, and Bill at Betty’s World Famous Pies in Two Harbors, Minnesota, June 2, 2025.

Just across the bridge from Duluth lies its twin harbor, Superior, Wisconsin.  We crossed the border, and each checked another state off our lists.  Our immediate goal was the Wisconsin Point Lighthouse, which guides ships into and out of the harbor.  Jennifer was driving, and I navigated using Apple Maps.  Heading south along East Second Street, the longest pier I’d ever seen came into view.  The map identified it as Burlington Dock No. 1, and below, noted, “last port of call for the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  Across Allouez Bay, on Wisconsin Point Road, I filmed a video of the nearly half-mile-long, 86-foot-tall ore dock.  That’s where the Fitzgerald loaded 26,200 tons of taconite pellets on November 9, 1975.

Cruising Towards the Big Lake They Call Gitche Gumee

Ten weeks later, we stepped off a Toronto pier onto the Victory I cruise ship.  It accommodates 190 passengers with a crew of 95.  It was our first cruise.  We sailed across Lake Ontario bound for Niagara Falls, after passing through the impressive Welland Canal, whose 27-mile connection to Lake Erie features eight locks, each climbing 40 feet for a total elevation gain of 320 feet.  What amazed this history buff even more was discovering that the first set of 40 locks, each eight feet tall, was completed in 1829, five years after construction commenced.  My ignorance of our own country’s history is immense.

Our cruise found us crossing Lake Erie to Cleveland, and then up the Detroit River, through Lake Saint Clair, along the St. Mary’s River to Huron.  To reach Lake Superior, ships pass through the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie, where Victory I berthed for the day’s activities.  Nearby was the Valley Camp freighter, built in 1917 and converted into a maritime museum in 1968.

The Valley Camp is a generation older and half the cargo size of the Edmund Fitzgerald.  Yet our guided tour of this freighter provided a firsthand look at the operations of these hulking ships.  The belly of this beast, where 16 million tons of cargo were transported a collective three million nautical miles over 49 years of sailing, is now a massive 20,000 square foot museum.   The far end hosts the Edmund Fitzgerald Memorial Exhibit, where the remains of two lifeboats from the stricken vessel are housed.  Very few artifacts were recovered after its tragic sinking. What we saw was chilling.  One thick metal lifeboat was torn in half, like a piece of paper.  The other, fully intact, was never launched, but freed from its cables when the ship sank rapidly.

In the cargo hold of the Valley Camp Edmund Fitzgerald exhibition.  Only the front of this Fitzgerald lifeboat was found. The metal boat was ripped in half.

A 12-foot-long scale model illustrates the freighter’s extended length and narrow breadth, built to haul enormous loads of cargo while still fitting through the skinny locks.  To get a grip on its size, the Fitz was 729 feet long—nearly 2.5 football fields—and only 75 feet wide, slightly broader than an average road right-of-way.  Its nearly 10:1 length-to-width ratio, imagine an old-fashioned ruler, mimicked the Chippewa’s tribal canoes, which French fur trappers adopted to navigate the Great Lakes.  Though it weighed 13,600 tons empty, the Fitz regularly carried 26,000 tons.

On that fateful run—the last of her season—the Fitz was carrying taconite pellets, marble-sized, hardened balls typically containing 35% iron combined with sedimentary rock.  Six crew members, including the captain, were set to retire after delivering the cargo.  In the photo below, I’m holding a jar of taconite as a freighter in the background prepares to enter the Soo Locks.

Holding a jar of taconite pellets as a Great Lakes freighter enters the Soo Locks in the background.
The Pride of the American Side

Launched in 1958, the Edmund Fitzgerald truly was the pride of the American side.  The Fitz was the biggest and best and most luxurious freighter on the Great Lakes.  The ship attracted the top crews and sailors.  Captain Ernest McSorley, a 44-year veteran, was widely regarded as the best skipper on the Great Lakes.  The Fitzgerald regularly set records for the most tonnage hauled each year and round-trips completed.  It was commissioned by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee, which also held interests in iron and mineral industries—among the first such investments by American life insurance companies.

The firm’s president and chairman of the board, Edmund Fitzgerald, came from a long line of Irish Great Lakes sailors and captains.  Fitzgerald vetoed several Board attempts to name the ship after him, but it was done against his will at a meeting he couldn’t attend.  Initially called Hull 301, the ship was built at the River Rouge shipyard, just outside Detroit.  The shipbuilding company adopted a new process using welds rather than rivets to produce a more flexible boat.  Every bridge, building, and boat is designed to bend, but how much bending is acceptable?

An artist’s rendering of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the pride of the American side.

15,000 spectators, more than the Tigers’ average fan base that season, attended the ship’s launch.  Edmund’s son recalled, “The day the ship launched was probably the happiest day of my father’s life.”  Chairman Edmund Fitzgerald retired two years later, a thoroughly contented man.

The Gales of November

Seventeen years later, Sunday, November 9, 1975, was just like any other.  The weather in Superior was unseasonably warm as the Fitzgerald loaded taconite from Burlington Dock No. 1.  Unbeknownst to the captain and crew, two storm systems were gathering.  A low-pressure system from the Kansas plains moved northeasterly over Iowa towards Superior.  At about the same time, an Alberta Clipper gathered steam and moved southeasterly, intensifying conditions.

Freshwater’s lower density causes Great Lakes waves to grow taller and form closer together during intense storms.   A host of factors regularly conspire to create perilous conditions, but Great Lakes captains, crews, and freighters are familiar with wild winds and rough waters.  Stoicism is the chief characteristic of Great Lakes sailors.

The Edmund Fitzgerald sank the next evening, Monday, November 10, around 7:15 p.m. Discovering what happened has produced scores of detailed reports filled with thousands of pages, yet no final answer has emerged.  The probable causes have been vigorously debated, but none have proved conclusive, so the speculation continues.  The most credible answers focus on the ship’s design, its hatches, rogue or record waves, navigational errors, Six Fathom Shoal, and fatigue.  The simplest explanation that explains nothing but accounts for everything—the Fitzgerald arrived in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.

The Fitzgerald was universally thought to be the finest ship on the Great Lakes, and it had operated safely for 17 years in fair and foul weather.  So why did it sink this time?  The mystery lives on from the Chippewa on down.

The Legend Lives On

Newspapers write the first draft of history.  Magazines add seasoning.  Artists and poets create works that trigger emotions.  The first news release, recounting basic facts of the Fitzgerald’s sinking, was wired to 6,500-member newspapers of the Associated Press.  Two weeks later, Newsweek magazine ran a story on page 48 titled, “Great Lakes: The Cruelest Month.”  That half-page article credits James Gaines with Jon Lowell in Detroit.  From the beginning, the story Gaines wrote practically sings, “According to a legend of the Chippewa tribe, the lake they once called Gitche Gumee ‘never gives up her dead.’”  The article concludes on this somber note, “And in the stone Mariner’s Church in downtown Detroit, a minister offered prayers for the lost seamen and tolled the church bells twenty-nine times in grim tribute to the unslaked furies of Lake Superior.”

An artist illustrates the gale-torn waters of Superior that the Fitzgerald might have faced that fateful night.

Gordon Lightfoot first read the AP story and weeks later, Gaines’s piece in Newsweek.  He was moved.  But it struck him that 29 fallen sailors deserved more than 534 words in a magazine.  With the AP, Newsweek, and other accounts laid out, Lightfoot began writing the lyrics that he teamed with the “old Irish dirge” he’d been humming.  He completed the song but was deeply uncertain, particularly about his lyrics, given the subject’s sensitivity.  He feared appearing corny, inaccurate, or profiting from tragedy.  Still, Lightfoot couldn’t put the song out of his head, so he tinkered with it for months.

In the spring of 1976, Lightfoot gathered his regular band for a five-day session at a Toronto studio for the album that became “Summertime Dream.”  Months earlier, they’d rehearsed ten songs, but not the sea shanty ballad, since Lightfoot hadn’t played it for them in its entirety.  Towards the end of each session, he’d start strumming the new song, abruptly quit, then insisted, “It isn’t ready.”  By 3 p.m. Thursday, they’d finished recording ten songs and had plenty of studio time remaining.  Gordon again resisted, but the studio engineer told him that since he had already paid for the session, why not try that shipwreck song?

Lightfoot relented, and the lights turned low to set the mood.  He turned to his guitarists and said, “Do your thing.”  The drummer, who had never played a note on the mystery song, asked Gordon when he should come in.  Lightfoot said, “I’ll give you a nod.” At precisely 94 seconds, Gordon gave the nod as he sang, “the wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound.”  Just then, the drummer struck the tom drumbeat.  It wasn’t just the band’s first take on this song – it was the first time they ever played it together.

There were several more tries that afternoon, but all agreed to come back the next day to do it for real.  On Friday, they cut three or four more takes, trying to make it better.  But when the various versions were played back, all agreed that the first one on Thursday was their best.  It had a creative tension the others lacked.  Gordon and the band were pleased with the result and felt they’d created something special.  But no one in the room thought it would be a hit.

No Chorus, No Hook, No Bridge

At six minutes, the song was too long—there was no chorus, no hook, no bridge—it didn’t check any of the boxes for a hit.  After the album’s release, Warner Bros. Records’ president, Mo Ostin, met with Lightfoot and told him the shipwreck song was getting some reaction on FM, and they planned to release it as a single.  Neither Gordon nor the band believed what they were hearing.

Gordon Lightfoot was shocked upon hearing Warner Bros. Records thought his sea shanty ballad should be the album’s single.

His folk-rock ballad became a defining part of Lightfoot’s career.  He later declared, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is my greatest achievement. It’s a song you can’t turn your back on.”  Nor did he turn his back on those most affected by the tragedy.  After playing the song at the Mariner’s Church in Detroit, the Reverend Richard Ingalls, the pastor who rang the bell 29 times, approached Lightfoot to thank him.  But then pointed out that Mariner’s wasn’t a “musty old hall,” but a clean and bright church.  Lightfoot agreed and changed the lyric for subsequent concerts to “rustic old hall.”

And when later investigators sent submarines to examine the ship’s hull 530 feet below Superior’s surface, they found that all the hatches were properly clamped. Gordon didn’t want any blame unfairly cast upon deckhands, whose job was to secure those hatches.  So he changed the famous line delivered by Fitz’s cook, Bob Rafferty, to: “At seven p.m., it grew dark, it was then, he said, Fellas, it’s been good to see you.”  After the ship went down, Raffery’s family received the postcard he wrote several days earlier, which read, “I may be home by November 8; however, nothing is ever sure.”

Lightfoot and his bassist, Rick Haynes, attended the 40th anniversary of the sinking in 2015 at Whitefish Point.  When Gordon learned that Ruth Hudson, the mother of Bruce Hudson, a 22-year-old deckhand on the Fitz, was on her deathbed, he called Ruth on the phone, as the two had met numerous times at events to commemorate the lost sailors.  A few hours later, Ruth Hudson passed away hours before the 40th anniversary of the ship’s sinking, joining her only son and child in heaven.

On the Good Cruise Ship, Victory I

The Victory Cruise Lines’ literature promised its passengers a visit to all five lakes.  Anchored at Sault Ste. Marie for the night, we passed through the Soo Locks into Lake Superior early the next morning.  The itinerary description sounded lovely: “Embark on a journey of tranquility amidst the vastness of Lake Superior. Let the gentle waves and endless horizon lull you into a state of peaceful contemplation, where the grandeur of North America’s largest lake inspires awe and introspection.”

As Victory I entered the MacArthur lock to ascend 21 feet from Huron to Superior, I went to the bow, curious if we’d reach Whitefish Bay and possibly sail the 17 miles to the wreck site.   Alas, it was not to be.  Maybe our ship was behind schedule, or perhaps the author of the cruise line’s itinerary was excessively florid.  After traveling several hundred yards into Superior’s vastness, Victory I promptly came about and sailed back through the locks.  Oh well, if you’ve seen one great lake, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Epilogue

A 1994 expedition named “Deep Quest” conducted seven dives over three days and obtained some of the best filmed footage of the sunken Edmund Fitzgerald, including a video where one of the 29 bodies could be seen wearing a life jacket.  In response, “the wives and the sons and the daughters” rose in protest and petitioned the Ontario province to declare the area a legally consecrated gravesite, which cannot be visited without the approval of the Canadian government.  Their hard work and heartfelt pleas came to fruition five years later in 1999.  The captain and crew may safely rest in peace.

This remembrance ends with the final radio communication from the Edmund Fitzgerald, uttered by Captain McSorley during a conversation with its sister ship, the Arthur A. Anderson: “We are holding our own.”

As are the 29 sailors in that icy iron vault.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr., circa 1976.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

By Gordon Lightfoot (original recorded lyrics, 1976)

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas the witch of November come stealing
The dawn came late, and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin’
When afternoon came, it was freezin’ rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put 15 more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed ‘til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

Sources:

“The Gales of November – The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by John U. Bacon, 2025

“Edmund Fitzgerald – The Legendary Great Lakes Shipwreck” by Elle Andra-Warner, 2006

“The Song of Hiawatha” – An Epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1855

“Of Rain and Wrecks” – Mark Steyn, 2018 https://www.steynonline.com/9022/of-rain-and-wrecks

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A Farewell to Mike

Adapted from a 1929 first edition of Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms."

It was a dark and stormy night.  Coastal rains pounded the Oregon Coast.  STOP!

Mike Wickre would have ridiculed this opening, but Mike Wickre is gone, so I’ll write it my way, mindful of his dismissive wisecracks from beyond.

With little notice, an old friend passes away.  A Facebook message warned of Mike’s imminent demise.  Days later, a concluding text informed his life was over.  Then silence. Whoosh! Gone!! Only his Facebook page remains – that’s death in the digital world.

Word leaked out, there would be no service.  Mike didn’t want one.  No gathering of friends to bid adieu to an old pal.  No farewells, no sharing of memories, none of those anecdotes and stories that lessen our collective loss.  A fading remembrance swallowed by emptiness.  As Jeff Lynne poignantly asked in the best ELO song that nobody’s heard, “Is this the way life’s meant to be?”

I regret there being no funeral or Celebration of Life.  Rituals are important for saying goodbye.  The world is a poorer place, if as it seems they’re going out of fashion.  The deceased’s wishes are usually respected, though with Wickre, I’m tempted to disregard his desire – to poke back, as he so often poked others.

Most would agree – Mike was a difficult individual.  Kristofferson described him best – a walking contradiction, partly truth, and partly fiction.  Need I add: eccentric, bombastic, irreverent, nutty, sarcastic, and cynical, with an over-arching egotistical approach to life.

But he had a charm and charisma that’s hard to ignore.  At the end of the day, he made me a better person.  But half the time aggravated the hell out of me.

Mike Wickre’s 1973 Enumclaw High School graduation photo.

The obituary nobody else wrote, so I did

Michael Irwin Wickre was born to Marilyn (Smith) and Raymond Wickre in Bremerton, Washington on Oct. 3, 1955.  His grandmother was a Lakota Sioux.  Mike took pride in his Native American heritage.  He said she was “white as china,” and died without a clue. Fittingly the family moved to Lakota Beach in Federal Way where Mike attended Lakota Middle School.  There he became close friends with Brad Broberg, who remained one for the rest of his life.

The Wickres moved to Enumclaw in 1969 when Mike was in 8th grade. They lived on S.E. 408th Street in the foothills east of Veazie Valley. Mike’s younger brother, Alan described their small farm as “the last house before the hill. We had cows, horses, ducks, chickens, rabbits, and geese.  From the creek, there was a pipe to our man-made pond.  It was a great place to be a kid.”

One of Mike’s first Enumclaw friends was Joe Cerne who remembered his dry-witted humor and quick tongue.  “Mike was the funniest guy around,” Joe recalled, “I never laughed louder than being with him.”  Kevin Rustvold remembered how he loved playing pinball and foosball, but remained a serious germ-a-phobe all of his life.  Mike’s class became the first 9th graders to attend high school since the new building opened in 1962.

Mike graduated in 1973 and found work at Weyerhaeuser, saving money to attend a four-year college. He was proud of his time in the woods and shared plenty of stories about planting trees and setting chokers.  He also worked at Hygrade’s meat packing plant on the Tacoma tide flats and chronicled the time he shoveled pig guts into the grinder.  He remembered the plant as “a five-story pile of filth on a site so toxic it is still uninhabitable for rats,” then added, “It got worse.”

Mike Wickre’s description of his injury while working for Weyerhaeuser: “Got caught in the bite . . . the haul-back was side-washed and stretched out of plumb . . . it snapped and the mainline caught me just below my man stuff. It sent me downhill riding the butt rigging . . . felt like getting my leg caught in a car door.
Saved enough money to go back to school. Pretty fun memories and good friends . . . most loggers are very nice men underneath their Copenhagen stains. Loggers chew because it’s too danger to smoke cigs or weed while setting chokers. Plus you need a little ‘something’ out there.”

Mike labored at gritty jobs and took classes at Green River Community College.  He hung out with Enumclaw classmates, Tony Pedrini, Kevin Rustvold, John Kochevar, Mike Shook, and Steve Dunning.  Most were involved with the Enumclaw Soccer Club and played for the G.R.C.C. Gators.  (Mike and Steve are seen photobombing the team in a nearby picture.)  Mike had an entrepreneurial spirit. He started a company called Acme Hornet Hunters, whose business was to remove wasp and hornet nests while selling bees to high school biology classes. It wasn’t a stinging success.

Enumclaw Soccer Club 1972-73. 1st Row, L-R: Tony Pedrini, Ted Klahn, Ricky Thompson, unknown. 2nd Row, L-R: Pete Bowman, Kenny Cowells, John Kochevar, Paul Raine, Mike ?, Bobby Remein. 3rd Row, L-R: Kevin Rustvold, Theron ?, Mike Shook, Coach Alf Meubauer, Frank Nichols. Photobombing from behind the fence: Steve Dunning and Mike Wickre.

After earning enough money and Green River credits, Mike enrolled at Western Washington University in Bellingham. He majored in journalism and wrote for the Western Front student newspaper.  Mike was always attracted to the bizarre and enjoyed his first big journalistic success with a Feb. 10, 1978 article about human cloning. It was picked up by wire services.  He graduated from Western in December 1979 and moved home, throwing himself into the Enumclaw scene.

Mike joined Greg Lovell and Tony Pedrini in renting a house on Griffin Street across from where the new Four Seasons restaurant was being built.  They called their bachelor pad the No-Tell Motel.  He sang backup in Kevin Rustvold’s band named Sphincter.

The band Sphincter, circa 1977. 1st frame, clockwise: Les Walthers on keyboards, Mike Wickre clapping, Mike Hanson on bass, Kevin Rustvold on guitar, and Mike Shook kneeling with microphone. 2nd frame, L-R: Dave Reynolds, Kevin Rustvold, Mike Hanson, Mike Shook.

With Pedrini and Rustvold, he coached Jack’s Scrappers, an Enumclaw girls’ softball team.  After-game parties at the No-Tell Motel featured Rainer beer.  They collected the empty bottles until a pickup load generated enough funds to purchase a refrigerated keg tap.  Celebrations typically started Thursday night after softball and often extended till Friday.  The No-Tell bachelor party ended two years after it began.

Jack’s Scrappers, the women’s softball team that Tony, Kevin, and Mike coached went undefeated that season. From the July 21, 1977 Enumclaw Courier-Herald.
L-R: Greg Lovell in blue shirt and white tie, and Mike Wickre pointing to the pickup load of Rainier beer bottles while carrying a BB gun.

In September 1980, he joined the Enumclaw Courier-Herald and worked under its legendary editor, Robert “Bud” Olson.  Mike was the paper’s only reporter.   Small-town newspapers don’t pay much, so he quit the Courier-Herald in April 1981 and joined a marketing guru who showed him the ropes for selling advertising.  The job fit his journalistic background and business initiative.  That training propelled Mike to a very successful career selling newspaper, TV, and radio ads.

On Sept. 18, 1982, Mike married Nancy Ann Johnson, a Dakota Indian. She was the adopted daughter of an English author, Emilie Johnson who wrote “My China Odyssey.” Mike and Nancy bought a home in Northshore between Tacoma and Federal Way.  With what he learned about selling ads, Mike opened his own marketing firm, AdStrategies, LLC, which he later operated out of a condo just above the Tacoma Dome.  He earned bucket loads of money as a one-man advertising agency for auto dealers, car shows, and RV sales firms like Baydo’s.

Mike and Nancy’s marriage fell apart in the 2010s when Mike moved full-time into his Tacoma condo.  Nancy died in October 2015.  Three years later, Mike met Jacinta Mwihaki Njeri online, a nurse who goes by the name Dee.  She was attracted to his humor and found him to be a very funny guy, as almost everyone did.

The couple married on Sept. 19, 2020.  Dee told me that Mike liked to cook and was a good one.  He also enjoyed watching sports on TV, especially baseball, and also World War II histories.  A few months before he died, Mike wrote, “In case I croak, I am on record. Greg Wasell and Steve Bunker were the funniest guys I ever met. Greg was always thinking ahead for a prank. Bunker made planting 800 trees a day fun.”

In early December 2023, Mike fell, hitting his head which caused bleeding in the brain.  He lapsed into a coma and died at Tacoma General Hospital on Dec. 29, 2023, at age 68.  Michael Irwin Wickre is survived by his wife, Jacinta (known as Dee), his mother, Marilyn, a sister, Marla Wickrefujimoto, and two brothers, Alan Wickre and Ryan Wickre.

Mike’s ashes are buried at the family’s Tokeland cabin with a lilac tree planted above. Really, Mike?   Planted beneath a lilac tree? After the last shovel full of dirt was stomped on his remains, Wickre’s ghost whispered a snarky retort, then spit a wad of chew on the grave.

The Wickre I Knew

I first met Mike Wickre in the spring of 1975, the last quarter of my senior year of college. I was living at home and worked afternoons at a coal mining job in Ravensdale.  When the job ended I found myself with lots of extra time.

It was good to be back in The Claw.  I was taking a tennis class so walked the block to my elementary school, J.J. Smith, to hit balls against a cinder block wall.  One day Mike stopped by and struck up a conversation.  He remembered me from school.  Two of his friends, Scott Veenhuizen and Jeff Wasell shared a small rental a couple blocks away. Mike invited me over to hang out and play Foosball.  The evening gatherings typically consisted of beer, pot, Foos, and banter.

We became friends … sort of.  With Mike, you never really knew where you stood, except you were standing beside a guy with an engaging smile and captivating personality.

In the mid-1970s, a commune-influenced, all-you-need-is-Love, whole-grain aura still burned astrologically bright within the faux hippy crowd around Enumclaw.  But Mike’s bruising personality tolerated no such sentimentality.  He was a tough-minded logger who worked in the woods and shoveled pig guts at a packing house.  Yet behind his barking bravado lived a literary wannabe.  And even deeper lurked a misfit hiding his awkwardness.  Mike once confessed, “Yes I know I am socially retarded.   Let me know if you can work with me – your friend, Mike.”

A college classmate, Bruce Hyland reflected on the dichotomy, “An interesting thing about Mike … he seemed to have one foot in the hard-scrabble, Enumclaw working man’s life and the other in the civilized world of writer/soccer player/college life. And he didn’t quite fit in either.  He always straddled between the workingman and the effete world of journalism.”

I never grew close to Mike because, at some primal level, I feared his explosive outbursts. Still, I liked being around him. Mike was that kind of guy – a cunning sense of humor delivered with a biting tongue.  Mike’s favorite quote, one by Winston Churchill captured his antagonistic personality, “He has all the virtues I dislike, and none of the vices I admire.”  Wickre loved Monty Python’s skit, “The Argument Clinic.”

Like many great friendships, ours blossomed on the sporting field.  Mike invited me to join the Dolezal Chiropractic slow-pitch softball team that Ken Prince captained. By the spring of 1977, I was working as a management trainee at a bank and living in Seattle. I drove an hour to Enumclaw for late afternoon games.  We kicked off the season on April 23, playing a double-header on Saturday, one morning game and one in the afternoon.

The Dolezal soft-ball team, circa 1977. Mike is barely visible in the back row with a hat and shaded face. Other are Ken Prince, Tony Pedrini, Bruce Radford, Alan Wicker, Chris Coppin, and Bill Kombol, front row, second from right.

After the second game, we celebrated our loss at the Logger’s Inn in Buckley.  It was Wayne Podolak’s 24th birthday which entitled him to a free 72-ounce birthday mug. We all got slowly plowed.  Mike, Greg & Jeff Wasell, and I ended up at Lioce’s in Auburn for more beer and pizza. We nearly ended the night in a bar fight.  Mike was the kind of guy you wanted by your side in a bar fight.  That’s how you built friendships in your twenties.

A few months later I recorded our team’s lineup in a June 13 diary entry:

Catcher –Mike Ackershot and me
Pitcher – Ken Prince
1B – Chris Coppin
2B – Dan Darby
3B – Donnie Robinson
SS – Wayne Podolak
LF – Mike Wickre
LC – Dave
RC – Jeff Wasell
RF – Greg Wasell

Les Hall also played but was absent.  That day we lost to the Lee Restaurant roster headed by Keith Fugate, Kim Kuro, and Stan Fornalski.

At the plate, Mike belonged to the “go big or go home” school of thought.  Every swing was for the fences.  The guy could hit softballs a mile and often did.  Win or lose, the real team bonding started afterward at one of many local drinking dives.  That night we ended up at the Alcove Tavern.  Enumclaw had five or six downtown saloons within a block’s walk, all of the same ilk – neon-lit, smoke-filled, fading posters, pull tabs, pickled eggs.

That summer we waterskied at Lake Sawyer where Mike was witness to a bee flying up my nose and stinging me.  As Mom applied meat tenderizer to my nostril, Mike lost control laughing. He never let me forget it.  That same afternoon Mike got sick after drinking too much beer and vomited on the deck.  Afterward, he marveled at how nice my mother was, “She didn’t even yell at me.  She was always smiling.”

A week or so later, I wrote in my diary, “Friendship is nothing more than shared experience.”  Mike was a shared experience.

He began joining other events with our gang of friends.  We played poker with a longstanding circle of my pals.  Here’s how Mike described us:

“I played with you old bastards – Keith Hanson, Jim Clem, Pode, Lester, Wheels – smart guys, smart asses. I don’t know if I ever laughed so hard.  I had just started a business, scared stiff, no income, playing poker.  And for about three hours, an escape for me, it meant a lot. Old Rugged Cross, high-low split – best game ever.  I sure would like a rematch with those guys.”

It was Mike who introduced us to Old Rugged Cross, a card game we still play to this day.  In a February 2021 message, Mike continued with memories from high school:

“Nothing but respect for all of them.  I had to hit Jim Ewalt in the balls in high school choir, but he respected my authority.  In the bass section, those guys were big – Ewalt, good ol’ Bill Tuk, and Randy Verhoeve took turns punching me in the seeds during breathing exercises.  And it always hurt.  But within a week I had hit them all in their egg bags.  I lived to talk about it.  That’s why I respect those guys because they respected a coward like me.”

Wickre also joined our last two beer smorgasbords in 1978 and ‘79.  What’s a beer smorgasbord?  When a bunch of guys bring assigned half racks of beer to a party whose purpose is to blind taste test the most popular brands until everyone’s blind drunk.  Mike was proud to be there and later bragged:

“It’s important to note my early successes amongst you old bastards. That night I was ‘Rookie of the Year’ and ‘MVP’ for identifying three of 15 beers. We ate saltines, and Podolak, Copperman, and you danced on the balcony in your underwear to celebrate Dale Troy going ‘In the Navy.’  It was also the night my incredibly rich, hot fiancé left me on the Veazie Flats, and that was that.”

Mike Wickre, left and Lester Hall opposite in yellow shirt at the 1979 Beer Smorgasbord at Lake Sawyer.

He added a concluding coda: “Les Hall drank a pitcher of beer through his jockstrap, which he proudly never washed – for several years judging by the stains.”

In February 1980, Mike called me from the Courier-Herald.  The nation was in one of its periodic freak-out moments with 53 Americans held hostage in Iran and energy costs soaring.  I worked for Palmer Coking Coal Company in Black Diamond. We were experiencing a surge in demand selling coal for home heating.  Wickre came to our sales yard and interviewed my uncle Carl Falk and me.  Mike was a sharp reporter who quickly grasped our market position and wrote a fitting article.  He even doubled as the Courier-Herald’s photographer and took several photos he used in a story appearing on the front page of their Feb. 28, 1980 issue.

In time Mike joined our golf group, the Duffers’ Golf Association (DGA) winning the four-round summer tournament in 1988.  The winner was awarded a passed-along Green Jacket that he kept in the trunk of his car that winter, where it was ruined by battery acid.

A mid-1980s DGA foursome. L-R: Tom Noltenmeyer, Jay Carbon, Tom Cerne, Mike Wickre.

Most of the golfers attended the Mariner home opener. Before carpooling to the Kingdome, we assembled at a convenient south-side tavern for pre-game warm-ups.  Mike drove that night, joined by my cousin-in-law, Ron Thompson, and me. Mike proudly wore a new Mariner hat.  From the backseat, Ron snatched the cap from his head.  Mike sternly asked for its prompt return as a drunken Ron Thompson mocked him. Mistake!

Tensions flared. Ron raced from the car with Mike in fast pursuit.  He chased him with a ferocity that scared the living daylights out of me. Wickre’s primal anger gave me the chills.  I interceded with a patient pleading and Ron was spared a thrashing. You could give Mike the business, but crossed a line at your own risk.  I never came close to crossing it.

Mike’s sporting life

Mike often reminisced about his high school years. In order to tell a coherent story, I’ve parsed through his blather and bluster in various Facebook missives and private messages. Let’s call it Wickre lore.

The school yearbook lists his 9th-grade activities as choir and French club, but he also joined the baseball squad under Coach Ron Miller.  Mike told the story of having to give his up uniform mid-season to Mark Vannatter, a classmate and son of school administrator Don Vannatter. Wickre growled, “I like baseball.  I just don’t like baseball coaches.”

As a sophomore in 1970, Mike turned out for both basketball and baseball, and continued with choir.  On the baseball diamond, he bristled under head coach Frank Osborne’s dictatorial style, but was mesmerized by his instruction.  Like most players, Mike called him by his initials, “My mentor, F.O. taught me life lessons, and how to hit. He turned me into a varsity pitcher.  But he didn’t understand that I won’t back down. You could have made a movie of me and Frank.”

Mike called Osborne his Oedipal coach, a Freudian reference to jealous feelings a son has towards his father.  As a sophomore, Mike was the team’s fourth pitcher which meant Fungo bats and shagging balls.  He recalled Coach Osborne’s superstitious nature, “If you shagged infield balls and the team won . . . guess what?  Wickre’s shagging balls for the rest of the season.”

One of Mike’s true joys was being around that year’s top pitcher and Hornet team leader, Jim Clem.  Wickre called Clem “his all-time mentor.”  Mike laid it out in a private message:

“I have a little manic attack going on.  I have to tell someone this tale to stop laughing.  I was a gangling sophomore.  I played baseball in the 4th grade and said ‘No mas.’  So here I am, geekier than geek, and I sit down next to Jim Clem.  Like sitting next to one of the Apostles. He talks to me.  I think he was wearing an ascot.  I am having a legend speak to me – my eyes wider than my ears.  When I found out Clem was going to be my coach, I did three somersaults. Then he leans over and lets me in on a secret, ‘F.O. is the biggest prick you’ll ever meet.’”

“My two finest coaches were Doug Baldwin, wrestling at Lakota Jr. High, and Jim Clem, baseball at Enumclaw High.  Both encouraged … not a negative word.  Blessings to both for turning a boy into a man.  I hope I can pass it along.  And actually try to be like Clem who told me his simple mantra, ‘Wick, I get better and better every day.’”

His senior year Mike joined the baseball team but didn’t finish the season.  Here’s how he described that truncated experience.  “Irony is fun when you play along.  F.O. kicked me off the Varsity Hornet baseball squad because I had long hair.  Now, I have no hair.  Karma’s . . . a bitch.”

Which Mike Wickre

Bruce Hyland, a friend from college made a number of acute observations about Mike.

“We met at Western in the journalism program. I had moved from upstate New York after the service and was going to school on the G.I. Bill.  Most everybody else seemed young and soft … Wick, on the other hand, was clearly more worldly wise … audacious, witty, with no B.S.  We clicked from Day One.”

Three decades and a whole lot of changes passed before Bruce reunited with his college friend.

“When I finally came out for a visit after some 30 years, Mike put me up at his place, gave me a car to use, fed me, and lost to me at Cribbage (just like in college).  We went to a college newspaper gang reunion at a Tacoma night spot that some alums organized because I was visiting. We had a great time.  Played a round of golf the following day.  He was seeing (and I met) an assortment of sketchy women who knew that old saw about God giving men two heads, but only enough blood to run one at a time. A good friend in every way.”

By autumn 2016, some six years later, when he returned for a college newspaper gang reunion, Bruce encountered a changed Wickre:

“He’d been on meds for some kind of operation plus he was taking something to help him sleep.  He’s virtually medicated all the time. And weed was legal so he was always tokin’ up. Lives a very isolated life … seems to be getting more irrational.  He was wary and even paranoid … accusing me of screwing up his seriously screwed-up car.  A very different personality.”

Two of Mike’s favorite Facebook profile pictures. Left – Hunkpapa Lakota Chief Sitting Bull, circa 1885.  Right – Mike Ring-a-ling, March 2015.

Mike made me a better writer

I hadn’t seen Mike for over a decade.  We last crossed paths around 2010 at Gold Mountain and made plans to connect on the golf course.  Instead, we connected on Facebook.  Mike discovered my interest in writing, which I practice on that illiterate social medium called Fakebook.

Now I could enjoy the fullness of Mike’s wickedness. As the Prince of putdowns berates me publicly for overusing personal pronouns – I, me, my.  And says my sentences are too long.  “Keep your sentences short, like Hemingway.” And my paragraphs needed to be shorter.  “Let the words breathe,” Mike counseled.

This typical Wickre response came after reading one of my essays:

“As you know, I usually embarrass you worldwide.  So this is just us boys.  I consider you a great friend, and an easy target. Put Billsie on the tee, and I will give him a proper whack.

“I like tightened copy.  Reporters in the type era were paid by the published inch.  Copy editors were paid to cut words.  See last sentence.  So these idiots that worked for newspapers had to get to the point, tout suite (French for immediately).”

Then a few weeks later:

“Look at you improving your writing.  Paragraphs are fun, every 30 words, just easier to read.  I like when you reach out a bit more in your descriptive – you are on the right track – push the edges and you will get there.  I want to see fire … rage … laughter, tears, and resolution … 1,000 words, no plagiarism or misspelled words.  Lean into this manifesto … don’t let me down.”

And more encouragement:

“I like your tighter writing. You might enjoy the down-to-bones approach of Hunter Thompson and Mark Twain.  Avoid Faulkner, who is verbose.  Flowery puff is just not good.  Capote wrote tight. Condense.  Hemingway wrote some books I am told. Use short sentences with vigorous language. You have the skills but your writing is generally weak and in the passive voice. Your facts can’t be questioned. Use active verbs, and avoid the word ‘I’. You are smart enough to do better.  I have hope.”

Plus advice on what to read and why:

“If you haven’t read it, try Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” – about loggers. Best book I have read outside the Bible. Read both three times. Some of it stuck. You will get lost in it. It’s set in Oregon, but could have been Enumclaw. But, a crappy movie.”

You’re on my bucket list

For the last five years of his life, I tried to set up a dinner to reconnect.  My efforts began in 2019 with offers to host a restaurant meal with two close friends, Jim Clem and Tom Cerne.  Then came Covid, which tanked plans for nearly two years, much of it due to Mike’s germ-a-phobe consternation.  He kept dodging my efforts with outrageous requests and changing demands.  By the fall of 2024, we made progress toward our long-planned get-together which I thought was getting close.  It didn’t happen – my sad regret.

One of Mike’s last messages to me: “You’re on my bucket list.”  Now I’m left with the loneliest words in the English language, “If only.”  Our dinner reunion will never be realized.  If you have plans to meet an old friend someday, remember John Fogerty’s fateful song, “Someday Never Comes.”

A Farewell to Mike

It was a dark and stormy night.  Coastal rains pounded the Oregon Coast.  My wife and I made our way to Kyllo’s, a seafood grill in Lincoln City where the D River flows into the ocean.  When guided to our table, we passed a nautical display featuring an Ernest Hemingway quote.  I snapped this photo knowing Hemingway was Mike’s favorite writer.

The Ernest Hemingway display in Kyllo’s on the D River in Lincoln City.

Later that Saturday night I sent it to Mike via Facebook Messenger. He replied within a minute, “Listen to Ernest …”  On Sunday afternoon, Dec. 10, 2023,  Mike wrote his final Facebook post, “Thanks to Bill Kombol.”  I didn’t see that post until after he died.

Mike Wickre’s last Facebook post, Dec. 10, 2023.

The title photo standing atop this essay came from “A Farewell to Arms.”  At our Lincoln City home, we have accumulated a nice collection of decades-old books, among them a first-edition hardcover of Ernest Hemingway’s 1929 novel.  Its binding is secured with black tape and the inside cover is stamped ‘Discard.’  The imprint of Enumclaw Public Library is scratched over by a black crayon.

I researched the quote from the restaurant display hoping it might be from “A Farewell to Arms.”

“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep.  Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell.  And when you get angry, get good and angry.  Try to be alive.  You will be dead soon enough.”

Here’s an irony Mike would fully enjoy, it isn’t a Hemingway quote.  It’s by William Saroyan, a novelist, playwright, and short story writer of the same era.

Sometimes a Great Notion

On numerous occasions, Mike urged me to read Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion.”  I’ll be honest – he practically bludgeoned me.  Mike read it three times.  The best book he ever read besides the Bible.

Several years before he died, I bought the Audible version of Kesey’s second novel.  Many critics consider it his greatest.  Tom Wolfe, who later chronicled Kesey’s exploits with the Merry Prankster, took note of its brilliance.  After seeing its 28-hour length, I promptly lost interest and the recording collected digital dust.  When Mike died, I knew what must be done.

Sometimes a Great Notion, audiobook by Ken Kesey.

“Sometimes a Great Notion” tells the story of an Oregon family of gypo loggers.  They are led by a hard-headed patriarch, Henry Stamper who has two sons, Hank the stubborn first-born, and Leland, the sensitive half-brother, from a second and much younger wife.  Leland moves east with his mother, attends Yale, but returns to the family logging show to settle scores.  Conflicts between father, brothers, workers, and log mills brew in the old-growth forests as union forces seek to stamp out the family’s independent ways.

Upon finishing the book, I began to see why this novel so appealed to Mike.  Resistance to authority, the life of loggers, a college man’s struggle against convention, a consciousness-raising literary style – it’s all there.

I finally understood why he so wanted me to read it.  I began to glimpse the specter of the boy he was.  And perhaps the man he wanted to be.  Reading “Sometimes a Great Notion” became my requiem for the repose of Mike’s memory.

Rest in Peace, Mike – under that lilac tree.

Mike and his family: “Sometimes I mind my own snarky business, a hate-filled wretched old P.O.S. Then sometimes the best time of your life sneaks in and makes it all worthwhile.
Pictured L-R: Tarzan the chess wizard, my love Jacinta (Dee), my brother Alan, Edith Finley, my lovely mom (Marilyn), and Beth of the beach who is my new B.F.F. I ate four Dungeness crabs, just polished off the last two.” — Mike’s Facebook post Sept. 3, 2018.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Musings

Your Vote Counts, But It Doesn’t Matter

Cartoons sometimes bring out truths that earnest lectures sometimes miss.

Elections come and go, but one peculiar fact remains – your vote counts, but it doesn’t matter – to the outcome that is.  There it is, I said it.  Leagues of Women Voters, good-government advocates, and the civically virtuous, precious right-to-vote crowd will gasp in horror.  But it’s true – your vote will be counted, but in nearly every election it won’t change the outcome.

Why? Because your vote doesn’t matter for any election decided by more than one vote. That’s an infinitely microscopic set of contests that few have ever experienced. And even if a contest ends in a tie, it will be broken by the flip of a coin.  But please, write avenging letters of rebuttal telling how your vote decided the 7th-grade class president contest or the All-Soiled Sewer District Commissioner position #3.

When election results are tight, lawsuits are filed, and votes challenged.  Some ballots will be deemed eligible despite not clearly complying with existing voting laws.  The real decisions as to which votes matter are made by judges hearing arguments over what improperly cast ballots should be tossed aside and which ones will be accepted.

So, why does every election, whether for school board or president find me completing a ballot and casting it as quickly as the laws of my state allow?  For those who haven’t arrived at the stage where hypocrisy becomes practical, here’s how I’ve squared the circle.  The sooner my ballot is cast, the more swiftly each piece of campaign mail can be recycled, with negative TV commercials and puff profiles ignored in their entirety.

Elections are like any social gathering – everyone comes to the party for a different reason.  There are as many motivations, as voters.  Partisans vote along party lines regardless of candidate competence hoping for impressive margins of victory and compelling mandates. Some are persuaded solely by race, sex, ethnicity, or attractive-sounding names or photos. Single issue voters are most easily motivated by fear. Others carefully review voter pamphlets as if studying the Torah, determined to pick the best from the mediocre by scrutinizing vaguely written policy statements. A few do it to avoid being shamed by their politically active friends.

All the while, the ballots of the least-informed are counted equally against the voter who’s watched every debate, carefully studied each issue, and thoughtfully considered the consequence of their choices.

Knowing all of this, I never miss an election and always follow my own set of biases.  Never vote for a candidate running unopposed.  Always vote against the prohibitive favorite, if for no other reason than to check their ego. Vote No unless presented with a compelling reason to vote Yes, except for confusing referendums when a No vote means Yes.

Here’s the real vote that should concern you – the ones made every day.  Rather than fret about elections whose outcomes you won’t change, why not focus on your most consequential votes – how you spend money.  Every dollar spent is a vote for the products and services you want.   Those votes are counted by the hour and create the economy and culture we collectively choose.  They constitute the key decisions that really shape our lives.

Be the change you want to see by considering what you buy and how you buy it. Those votes matter.

This editorial was originally published in the Oct. 23, 2024 issue of the Enumclaw Courier-Herald, where the author, Bill Kombol worked form 1969-1971 as the high school sports reporter under editor, Robert ‘Bud Olson.

***

In the spirit of presenting both sides of an issue, I asked my schoolmate, long-life friend, and former Assistant Attorney General of New Mexico, Chris Coppin to prepare a spirited rebuttal, which he submitted as a Letter to the Editor at the Courier-Herald.

***

Editor – I read with great interest the recent opinion piece by my long-time friend, Bill Kombol, and found his positions on voting and consumer spending to be short-sighted.

Voter turnout in America is low compared to many other countries and opinions like Mr. Kombol’s can only drive it lower. His position that your vote doesn’t matter because races are not won by a single vote fails to see the emerald forest for the trees.

While the outcome of this year’s presidential race in many states is certain, it is imperative that those supporting the losing candidate turn out to demonstrate the support they do have so future candidates can determine strategies to gather support in future elections. Remember, Ronald Reagan did not win on his first attempt to gain the Republican primary nomination, but his support was substantial and demonstrated his viability as a future candidate.

How close a vote is also sends a message to the winner. If they win by a large margin they may have a mandate to act on proposed policies. If there is insufficient support, compromises should be made. Other reasons to vote send important messages, such as split-ticket voting, voter characteristics, voter turnout, and voting trends.

As to Mr. Kombol’s argument that your economic choices are more important than voting, he cross-dresses economics as politics and it makes little sense to me. For example, I expressed my preferences by buying gas-powered cars but that is not going to stop politicians from forcing me to buy electric vehicles in the future. It does little good for me to buy bottle rockets to support our national defense. I must vote for those candidates who support my positions in the hopes my dreams for the future of this country will come to pass.

Chris Coppin
Fort Worth, Texas

Bill Kombol and Chris Coppin, circa 1983.

Post Script: I wrote in Chris Coppin’s name for President on my 2024 ballot.

Bill Kombol casts his ballot on Oct. 25 for the 2024 election.

 

Categories
Musings Uncategorized

Alone Again, Naturally

The record sleeve to Gilbert O'Sullivan's 1972 hit song, "Alone Again, Naturally."

Fifty years ago, a schmaltzy song by an Irish balladeer topped the pop charts for six weeks.  Gilbert O’Sullivan’s surprise hit, “Alone Again, Naturally” ranked number two on Billboard for the year 1972.   Because it doesn’t fit into the classic rock genre, the tune soon faded in popularity and is generally unknown to anyone born after 1980.

On a Saturday night in late October 2015, my Enumclaw high school buddies and I gathered to play poker as we’ve done since our junior high days.  We join together several times each year and call our outings Pokerques, with a barbequed meal part of the bargain.

At a 2013 Pokerque, clockwise from lower left: Bill Wheeler, Keith Hanson, Chris Coppin, Jim Clem, Bill Kombol, Gary Varney, Steve McCarty, Wayne Podolak, Jim Ewalt, Lester Hall holding a photo of a missing, Dale Troy.

That particular night apropos of nothing, Lester told the story behind the song, “Alone Again, Naturally” which centers on the singer’s plan to commit suicide over a wedding that never happened.  Lester assured us this factoid came courtesy of Wikipedia, so we knew it must be true.

At that night’s gathering , I laughed entirely too loud as old friends told stories and we all recounted misspent adventures of youthful revelry.  Having stayed out a little too late, I slept in on Sunday morning.  After breakfast, Jennifer drove our youngest son Henry to his noon soccer game so I found myself alone and naturally opened the iPad.

I checked out Lester’s story.  Clicking on the first Google listing, I cued a YouTube performance with an amazing 27 million views!  The video featured O’Sullivan on piano before a large orchestra complete with a dozen strings, piano, organ, drums, and the distinctive guitar solo which nicely cements the melody.

Sure enough, the first stanza of this mega-hit relates the tale of a jilted lover imagining a trip from an empty alter to tower top where he throws himself down, all to the amazement of congregants who concluded there’s no reason for them to wait any longer so they might as well go home – as did the prospective groom, who lived to write this melancholy song.

An alternate cover to O’Sullivan’s mega-hit.

The second stanza adds to the sorrow of the first and subsequent verses examine a contemplative soul, never wishing to hide the tears, relating – first the death of his father and then his broken-hearted mother – all remembered . . . alone again, naturally.

Isn’t it funny how a sentimental song from the summer of your 19th year calls forth buried memories, none specific but together conjuring a formative feeling?  I probably heard that ballad a hundred times back when Top 40 radio dominated my listening habits, all while driving around in the 1966 Renault that served my transportation needs.  But, I’d never fixated on O’Sullivan’s introductory lyrics, only the concluding verse describing the passing of his father and mother.

O’Sullivan is an Irish singer-songwriter who changed his first name to Gilbert as a play on the names of musical composers, Gilbert & Sullivan the craftsmen behind so many crowd-pleasing operettas from the late 1800s*.  Released in June 1972, the song’s popularity stretched from late summer to early fall, proceeded at number one song by Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” and succeeded by Three Dog Night’s “Black and White” – recounted herein to set the mood and temper of that summer.

O’Sullivan’s follow-up single, “Claire” reached number two on the U.S. charts a few months later.  His disc sales exceeded ten million in 1972 and made him the top start of the year.  By 1974, O’Sullivan was practically forgotten in America though he continued to enjoy popularity in Great Britain.

From a trip Jenn and I had recently taken to Ireland, I remembered what two Irish musicians who led our Dublin pub crawl told us: Irish songs reflect the nation’s history – they’re either bawdy drinking ditties or sad songs of loss and love.

Having spent the preceding evening playing poker with nine life-long friends; eating, drinking, and laughing so hard my face hurt, I was reminded that we’re all then well into our sixties.  One of our buddies was lost to cancer and another to booze, but the rest have aged gracefully and we treasure time spent together.  We now resemble our dads and how much longer will it be till we look like our grandfathers?

Most of the Pokerque club traveled to Las Vegas in Oct. 2018 where we saw John Fogerty perform a spirited two-hour set at Wynn’s posh Encore Theater. L-R: Chris Coppin, Steve McCarty, Lester Hall, Jim Ewalt, Wayne Podolak, Keith Hanson, Gary Varney, Bill Kombol, Jim Clem.

All of our fathers are gone, and everyone’s mother save one, has also passed away.  One was recently robbed of his daughter, a parent’s worst nightmare.  With each fresh loss, we find ourselves looking to our children and families for solace and meaning.  And, often we look to each other for comfort.  We do so in full recognition that our present health and lives and families cannot be taken for granted.

Yet we still laugh and reminisce and natter and make plans, always looking forward to our next reunion.  And come away thankful for the multiplicity of friendships that have stood so many tests of time with rarely a pool cue drawn in anger.

So in hopeful jest, I offer this toast to my friends who’ve been by my side for sixty-plus years: May we all live another three decades; and may I be there to cheer your good fortune when each of us celebrates the centennial of his life.

*  If you want to see a spirited and historical account of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s music-making genius, watch the superb 1999 movie, “Topsy-Turvy.”

Link to the “Alone Again, Naturally” video referenced above: https://youtu.be/D_P-v1BVQn8

 

Categories
Musings

Come Saturday Morning

The 8,000-sf home built by Axel Hanson in 1922 was owned by the Coppin family for many years and stands at 1610 Griffin Ave. in Enumclaw.

One’s 15th year of life is particularly fraught with change.  Childhood dreams give way to adult realities.  Adolescent collections such as baseball cards, coins, and comics sadly fall out of style – better left to tweens and those still trapped by out-of-fashion obsessions.  Jobs and college take center stage.  College prep means growing loads of homework and a heightened seriousness about school.  Grades play a more prominent, but still minor role in high school hierarchies.

If you’re of average athletic ability, competitive sports are increasingly past tense.  Pickup games with friends are fading options as those holding driver’s licenses abandon the glory of sporting fields for cruising in cars.  In Enumclaw, they called it posing – driving up and down Griffin Ave, from east to west and back again waiting for something to happen.  That September, we were sophomores all without driver’s licenses.  Without a license or car, we principally relied on parents, friends, or sometimes a special older sibling.

Girls grew progressively more attractive, though self-doubts played havoc with one’s desirability.  Acne pops up at all the wrong times and in all the wrong places. Growth spurts (or lack thereof) pit short boys against tall men, who share the same birth year.  Somerset Maugham didn’t miss the mark by much when noting the world is an entirely different place for a man of 5’7” to one of 6’2”.

In 1968, Chris Coppin had just moved back to Enumclaw following a five-year absence.  I’d first met Chris eight years earlier at Kibler Elementary.  There we’d shared a second-grade teacher, Mrs. Stobbs. But an earlier introduction came through his younger brother, Ed whose pet turtles inhabited a two-gallon glass jar with rocks, and a skiff of water.  I made repeated turtle visits to the Coppin home.  Chris and I were friends until 4th grade when their family moved to the Bay Area, where Mr. Coppin, a flight engineer for Pan Am was transferred.

Chris Coppin, left and Bill Kombol, right from our 2nd grade class photo. This collage is an optical illusion as Chris was (and still is) a half a foot taller than me.

At that young age, it isn’t long before friendships are forgotten.  In junior high, out of sight means out of mind.  In short order, Chris was a faded memory.  But like so many mysteries of youth, the Coppins moved back and Chris resurfaced.  We were soon again fast friends, meeting at their stately white house at Griffin and Franklin, built in 1922 by a local timber baron, Axel Hanson of the White River Lumber Company.  It was the biggest home in Enumclaw and had a front parlor, fashioned as a billiards room where we played pool after school.  The Coppin digs were ground zero during our high years.

With twelve kids, their household was a beehive of activity.  Mrs. Coppin was unflappable, often in the kitchen but always ready for a short chat that included a kind word and light-hearted banter.  When home, Mr. Coppin was typically puttering away with something.  His was of a quieter manner, still willing to engage in probing conversation, the better to pry us from our shells.  As for the cluster of Chris’ younger siblings, mostly girls, it was a constant case of asking, “Which one is that?”

The Coppin family in their stately home at 1610 Griffin Ave., circa 1968.  Chris is lower right.  Dan is the top row, right holding his sister, Alice.

His four older brothers were different, distinctive, and spirited.  Dan was the most inviting.  He was four or five years older than us.  And during that magical year, Dan was our ticket to ride to the movies.  I’m not talking about the Enumclaw Roxy, and later the Chalet.  Dan packed us in his car and off we’d drive to Seattle, destined most often for the UA-70 and UA-150 theaters at 6th and Lenora.

In 1969, they were brand new, state-of-the-art movie houses for the masses – their massive screens nearly outdone by amazing sound systems.  The Cinema 70 screen was equipped for 70mm films and UA-150 once showcased “Star Wars” for an entire year.  On occasion, we’d go to the Cinerama, another theater capable of projecting 70-millimeter films on its huge curved screen.

The UA-70 and UA-150 were located at 6th & Lenora in the Denny Regrade area of downtown Seattle.

Each was magnificent.  And for a bunch of teenagers from Enumclaw, they were a taste of sophistication – plus exposure us to films that wouldn’t play back home for another six months, if ever.

The outings were usually spontaneous.  We’d be hanging around the pool table Saturday afternoon listening to records, when Dan wandered in asking, “You guys want to see a movie?”  He normally had one in mind.  Phone calls were made and a couple of hours later we piled into Dan’s car for the trip to Seattle.

How I wish our conversations had been recorded – the shouts, giggles, chitchat, and nonsense.  We purchased our $1.50 tickets, double the price at the Roxy.  Someone bought popcorn.  I have no idea how many times Dan took us, but these movies jump to mind: “2001, A Space Odyssey,” “True Grit,” “Midnight Cowboy,” “The Sterile Cukoo,” and “If.”

Some of the movies Dan took us to, as best we can remember. “If” was a personal favorite (collage by Oliver Kombol).

It was truly a golden age, not just for movies but being alive to changes experienced during a time when fashion and culture were turned upside down.  Most discrete memories of the specific movie outings are gone, and only formless feelings remain.  But what I remember well were the books we read and movies we saw those years.

There . . . caught in the rye of Holden Caulfield’s world of phonies, with a growing awareness that we were living under the suspicious eye of George Orwell’s Big Brother.  All the while, transfixed within gorgeous romances like Franco Zeffirelli’s “Romeo and Juliet,” seen weeks after reading the play in Mrs. Galvin and Ms. Thompson’s joint English class.

And equally enthralled by all-night showings at the just-opened, Big E drive-in of Sergio Leone’s trilogy of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns: “Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.”  Or sometimes down to Auburn for the Valley 6 Drive-in.

The novel, “Wuthering Heights” was difficult to absorb.  Perhaps just as well, for it was the ‘best of times and the worst of times,’ the opening line we memorized from Dicken’s “Tale of Two Cities.” Our senior year with Mr. Bill Hawk (who every girl loved and every boy envied) was pure joy as he read out loud to us the entirety of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and “Macbeth.”

Mr. Hawk, left, in Senior English lit before a class of admiring students gathered around his desks as he smiles approvingly.

And what to make of the curious worlds described in “A Separate Peace” and “Lord of the Flies,” for there was something in that youth-filled air.  Change was everywhere, within us and without us.  One summer night Dad and I walked to see, “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.”  It was one of the few times I remember going to the movies with Dad.

“The Sterile Cukoo” starred Liza Minnelli and featured the song, “Come Saturday Morning” in a 1969 tale of love between college freshmen.

To this day, I remain ever thankful to Dan Coppin, Chris’ older brother who asked us if we wanted to see a movie.  For, he was our chauffeur through a tiny part of those precious high school years.  And more than 50 years later, the lyrics from one of the movie songs still play in my head:

“Come Saturday morning, just I and my friends,
We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles,
And then we’ll move on.
But we will remember, long after Saturday’s gone.”

 “Come Saturday Morning” was the soundtrack theme song from “The Sterile Cukoo” and a minor hit single for the Sandpipers.