InnisfilToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following, from reader Steven Lindsey, is a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, who passed away on May 1 at the age of 84.
You are gone into the night.
But you appeared early in my life.
As a boy’s Christmas gift, Summertime Dream.
The 8-track tape in duly dark packaging,
The balladeer’s music that spoke of another time.
“When the mill shuts down, you can see what chivalry means.”
Over and over I listened.
Took in the lessons
Of his house that would never fall down.
“If you pity the stranger stands at the gate.”
But the ship that went dark.
That was the one.
On howling Lake Superior night.
The hope of the lighthouse at White Fish Point gone out.
The trusting ship’s cook, always.
The best humanity has to offer.
Feeding the crew. Caring for all. Facing his demise with dignity. Unfair fate.
From Stephen Crane’s “Open Boat” to Gordon Lightfoot’s oreboat wallowing in the troughs.
“Fellas it’s been good to know you.”
And when my hometown was too cloying for this young man.
The Coast Guard allowed me my escape.
Lightfoot’s shipwreck song won out over Springsteen’s New Jersey tales when duty stations were offered.
It was to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan I went, and an icebreaking Coast Guard tug USCGC Katmai Bay.
My salad days. On the Great Lakes. Introduced to others—Stan Rogers, Frederick Stonehouse, Farley Mowat and other Canadian and Michigan singers and writers. Started down the road by Gordon Lightfoot.
At Christmastime.
A gift.
Steven W. Lindsey
Keene, N.H.