The Ship That Won’t (Culturally) Stay Sunk: Part 3
The final installment of the 3 part reflection on the 50th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the return of blue-collar work, and the memory of men who never made it home and where we are headed.
The 50th Anniversary and the Return of the Edmund Fitzgerald
The 50th anniversary of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is today. On November 10th, 1975, we lost 29 souls to the gales of November - and as Gordon Lightfoot reiterated to us, Lake Superior never gives up her dead. Where these man worked and “made a living” also found their resting place. Proximity, shared consciousness, culture and Instagram algorithms have reminded a larger base of people to mourn this lost of honest, hardworking men.
Why the Algorithm Brought the Freighter Back
As we examined in part 2, however, I think that there is more than the algorithm drawing our attention to the 50th anniversary of the wreck. It really was not at the forefront of the esoteric internet culture until only recently - even still, the algorithm can try to force us to like something but it just doesn’t take off (RIP, Lizard meme, my boyfriend loved you in August 2025).
In part 2, we touched the surface of our subconscious longing for a time where we could work and rely on work - especially in the midst of the current government shutdown. I personally know veterans working without pay because leaders in government, much like our previous president Reagan, don’t care about the consequences of their actions and their decisions. What’s lost in the process when they don’t have to worry about how food is being put on the table is reliable work; the result is poverty and despair. Our leaders aren’t forced to care and give lip service to please their constituents and they go about their lives, not worrying about the consequences.
The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I think, reminds us on this 50th anniversary that maybe, we can depend on each other again and not the government? Maybe we can find reliability in our own shared strength, and rely on honest work to provide for ourselves in our families?
Our economy recovering from the economic crash of 2008 (again, brought on by failed presidential and governmental policies) shows our longing for reliable honest blue collar work isn’t just an algorithmic snafu - it is tangibly happening in the American economic landscape.
The 2008 Crash and the Collapse of the ‘Safe’ Office Path
I remember as a teenager in my last year of high school observing the economic crash of 2008. I was watching. the stock market crash - with a paintbrush in hand, painting the interior of someone’s home, helping my dad at a job with his contracting business - not realizing I was viewing the future of the economy in my hand.
And when the 2008 crash hit, it wasn’t blue-collar workers who took the hardest blow right away - it was the so-called “safe” office jobs. Between 2007 and 2010, the U.S. lost 8.7 million jobs, and over 60% of those losses were white-collar. The financial sector alone cut 800,000 jobs, and professional and corporate support fields lost more than 1.5 million. The jobs that did come back didn’t return the same — wages barely budged (only about 3–4% growth from 2009–2020, while cost of living rose nearly 19%), benefits got gutted, and full-time roles quietly got swapped out for “contract” or “gig” work. So the promise we were raised on - “go to college and you’ll have stability” - collapsed right there. The ground moved. And nobody in power had to deal with the fallout except the people actually trying to survive it.
The Quiet Return of Skilled Trades and Work With Weight
Since the crash of 2008, white collar work has been slowly receding. What was pushed on us by the Reagan administration was snuffed out and on its last legs by 2020 - and now, with the prevalence of AI, it seems the days of white collar work domination are going to meet an inevitable end.
Luckily for a large portion of the United States, the labor force is returning to blue collar work. And while the college-to-office pipeline was cracking, something quieter started happening in the background.
Skilled trades - the very kind of work the men on the Fitzgerald lived by - began to rise again. From 2010 onward, wages in the trades grew faster than most white-collar salaries, because there just weren’t enough people who knew how to weld, wire, build, or repair anything anymore.
By the late 2010s, over 50% of American skilled tradesmen were over the age of 45, and retirement waves hit hard, leaving millions of open positions that corporate America simply couldn’t automate or outsource. Electricians, HVAC techs, linemen, machinists - all of it - became work you could actually live on again. Meanwhile, 4-year college enrollment declined by nearly 15% between 2012 and 2020, but trade school enrollment climbed and apprenticeships filled up for the first time in decades. The culture was already turning back toward work with weight - work done with your hands, your back, your skill, your pride - long before the memes caught up.
The return to blue collar work also signals a certain amount of security - AI is coming for quite a number of sectors in regards to work, but for now, blue collar work is safe - so long as corporate interests don’t mismanage larger companies. I can see this by the amount of contracting work my dad is still able to regularly pick up; I’d like to see ChatGPT lay hardwood floor or fix the plumbing in your sink!
The Wreck Feels Personal Because It Is Personal
I think, for me, this is why the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald gets to me - and why it’s still daily visceral for those in the Midwest. As I mentioned before:
these victims could easily have been our grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, cousins - or even our significant others.
“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.” - The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot
Those faces and names were part of heritage; some of those faces being my father being a contractor, and my grandfather Clair working at Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown, PA, for most of his life. My grandfather Charlie, spent time working at the railway roundhouse for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and later spent much of his life doing masonry work. When his family immigrated from Sicily to Barnesboro, PA, their lives were shaped by working for the coal mines.
Of course, then, my daily life during a part-time drinking hobby I had from 2017–2019 at a local dive bar not far from a Central PA Norfolk Southern branch felt like home to me to get me back to my roots.
I was fresh out of a big life change, lonely, and I needed something I could depend on that wasn’t a rebound relationship.
So drinking with men my dad’s age and beyond with some life experience was exactly what I needed to heal.
I made good friends - and these friendships still exist.
Contractors. Railroad men. Electricians. Heavy equipment guys.
A pitcher of Miller Lite (leave my dirty sock water alone!) and good laughs with Rusty, Bruce, Chris, Steve, and countless others helped anchor me to my new life.
Their stories - their humor - their grief - their stubbornness - their way of carrying themselves - taught me something important:
With enough wit, elbow grease, and an excellently-timed roast of my poor taste in men, you can get through just about anything.
So when I hear the names of the 29 men lost in the wreck, they don’t feel abstract to me.
They feel like Rusty.
They feel like Bruce.
The 29 Men of the Edmund Fitzgerald
They feel like the guy who always leaned back on his barstool and laughed with his whole chest; how many left an empty bar stool, an empty chair at the dinner table after the wreck:
Captain
Ernest M. McSorley, 63 – Captain, Toledo, OH
Deck Crew
John H. McCarthy, 62 – First Mate, Bay Village, OH
James A. Pratt, 44 – Second Mate, Lakewood, OH
Michael E. Armagost, 37 – Third Mate, Iron River, MI
John J. “Jack” Simmons, 63 – Wheelsman, Ashland, WI
George J. Holl, 60 – Wheelsman, Cabot, PA
Ransom E. “Ray” Cundy, 53 – Watchman, Superior, WI
Frederick J. “Fred” Beetcher, 56 – Porter, Superior, WI
Thomas O. Edwards, 50 – Second Cook, Silver Bay, MN
Eugene W. O’Brien, 50 – Deck Hand, Cleveland, OH
Karl A. Peckol, 20 – Watchman, Ashtabula, OH
Robert C. Rafferty, 62 – Steward, Toledo, OH
Thomas E. Bentsen, 23 – Deck Hand, St. Joseph, MI
Mark A. Koerner, 28 – Deck Hand, Cleveland, OH
John D. “Jack” McCarthy, 62 – Watchman (not to be confused with First Mate McCarthy)
Engine Room Crew
Oliver J. Champeau, 41 – Oiler, Sturgeon Bay, WI
Nolan F. Church, 55 – Porter, Silver Bay, MN
Wallace B. “Wally” Fehring, 59 – Chief Engineer, Milwaukee, WI
Edward F. Bindon, 47 – First Assistant Engineer, St. Joseph, MI
Thomas D. Edwards, 22 – Wiper, St. Joseph, MI
Willard O. “Bill” Havis, 44 – Oiler, Ashland, WI
Bruce L. Hudson, 22 – Deck Hand, North Olmsted, OH
Allan P. “Doc” Kalmon, 43 – Second Cook, Ashtabula, OH
Jerome M. “Jerry” Cavaliere, 26 – Deck Hand, Cleveland, OH
Gordan F. MacLellan, 30 – Deck Hand, Curtis, MI
Eugene N. “Gene” Price, 43 – Deck Hand, Perrysburg, OH
Oliver J. Sivil, 51 – Deck Hand, Superior, WI
Ralph G. Walton, 58 – Oiler, Bay City, MI
David E. Weiss, 29 – Deck Hand, Toledo, OH
And here is the thought that stops me cold every time:
After November 10, 1975 — what if I walked into that same bar the next day and the room was empty?
No voices.
No ribbing.
No presence.
Just absence.
That’s what the families and coworkers of the Edmund Fitzgerald had to face on November 11, 1975.
No explanation.
No bodies.
No closure.
Just the space where someone used to be.
This is another reason it isn’t just the algorithm at work and why these seemingly inconsequential reels, to some, are hitting us right where it hurts. If you live in these areas, this disaster is visceral and something we could have to live with - returning safely from work for ourselves and our loved ones isn’t a privilege we can take for granted.
The algorithm, for once, has been a mirror.
The Ship That Didn’t Stay Sunk
Most of the time, the algorithm is designed to keep you glued to your phone — to warp your perception of life, to distract, to numb, to feed you the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
But on the 50th anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the algorithm didn’t distort anything.
It reflected something.
Instead of staying trapped in the pages of a history book or tucked away in the collective memory of the Midwest, the story found its way back to us — through our phones, in our hands, in the middle of ordinary days.
It reminded us of what work used to mean.
What life used to require.
And the reality that we may be living again.
Something we thought was behind us may actually be a sign of what’s ahead.
So maybe the SS Edmund Fitzgerald didn’t stay sunk after all.
Maybe it resurfaced in our consciousness to show us where we’ve been -
and to point, quietly, toward where we’re going.