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kaylinalexanderbooks · 18 days

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Bingo tag game

Thanks @oh-no-another-idea here, @illarian-rambling here, @melpomene-grey here, and @mk-writes-stuff here.

I got three different types here--

Rules 1: use this link, which will generate a writing bingo card for you!

Rules 2: use this link to create a Bingo card for your WIP and/or fill out the one the person who tagged you made

Rules 3: same as 2 but with an OC

Last Bingo Game: here

TSP Bingo (blank card)

Long Bingo where I did a blank Bingo for SOTL and Carla and filled in Bingos for Kelsey, Maddie, Noelle, Xitlali, and TSP as a whole

Tagging @gracehosborn @theeccentricraven @theelfauthor @dyrewrites @badluck990 @mysticstarlightduck @elsie-writes @little-peril-stories @loopyhoopywrites @bread-roses-and-chrome

Below cut:

Filled in writer bingo for me

Filled in WIP bingo for SOTL

Filled in OC bingo for Hye-Jin

Filled in OC bingo for Alex

Filled in OC bingo for Gretel

Filled in OC bingo for Jack

Blank bingo for IWAJAD

Blank bingo for Lexi

Version 1: Writer Bingo

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Almost got a bingo noooo

If only I read more!! It's not by choice...

Version 2: WIP Bingo

SOTL

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Red for definitely, yellow for maybe.

Damn no bingo, even with the yellow.

I'd have a Bingo if I included more evil fish people but I have incorporated it yet. So I do have a Bingo if that's the case.

Version 3: OC Bingo

Hye-Jin Song (TSP)

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Bingo! Almost got two since she was originally short but I've changed that

A character I don't talk about nearly enough! I don't have any other posts exclusively about her yet :(

Hye-Jin is Lexi's lifelong friend who does not make an onscreen appearance until Part Two, though she does get a couple shout-outs in Part One.

Hye-Jin has a younger sibling, but I didn't highlight cause I'm pretty sure it meant she *is* one.

Alex Vaughn (TSP)

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I think she's just appeared in excerpts. Time to fix that!

Alex is from another universe! A chronological deviant of the duoverse of the Ceteri and Alium that we know! (In other words - it's another version of Ceteri and Alium, the duoverse, i.e. two linked universes, that's different enough due to different choices individuals made)

Gretel Küchler (SOTL)

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I may have mentioned her like once, but she was the only one who'd fill out a decent amount of the board.

Gretel is kind of obviously my Hansel and Gretel character. She's magicked, meaning she learned the skill of magic. She and her identical twin brother Hansel specialize in baking food that can help grant others temporary physical advancements.

If anyone of these end up changing and being inaccurate...I'll live it's okay I haven't written a scene with her.

Jack McDonald (SOTL)

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Haha, bingo!!

De facto MC of SOTL so far. He's appeared a lot in SOTL's excerpts.

Jack was misdiagnosed as being gifted with ice manipulation powers, due to one obvious demonstration. In actuality, he's gifted in being average at everything. This does mean he actually can do literally everything, just averagely. (In other words, Jack of all Trades)

He's not autistic as of yet but probably ADHD. Some of these may change.

My Blank Bingos

It Was All Just a Dream

I already made Bingos for my active WIPs, so here we go with this one

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It Was All Just a Dream is a story idea have had for a while that I have a draft of in the form of a short story. Short version is popular Kyla Tran goes through a night of layers of dreams that force her to reevaluate her life.

Lexi Morgan (TSP)

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I meant ace/aro and you KNOW IT

And ignore that I spelled pedestal wrong as well...

Anyway, more Lexi: OC in fifteen, OC in three, Picrew, two truths and a lie, WIP questionnaire

TSP into

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

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chattingwiththelightkeeper · 1 year

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Sharing A Cheeseburger And Fries With A Memory

Today, I am attending a remembrance on the shores of Lake Superior and as you are reading this on my blog, I will be driving north, up “The Mitten”, and hoping to not run into snow. I am writing this a few days in advance, so as I bang away on my keyboard, the weather forecast is advertising good weather. I do not attend every year, it is every so often and I have enjoyed some adventuresome drives, to put it mildly, although these somehow always make these trips more memorable. It was several years ago when friends suggested I first attend, my initial response was to refuse as it felt, to me, that I would be intruding, however, my friends kept at it, eventually convincing me to go that first time since memories tied to this event/place wave through my life from early childhood continuing through young adulthood right up to today. Also included in my adventure today will be a stop at the closest Mickey D’s to pick up a cheeseburger and fries, with a coke. Granted, my fattening fast food will be cold by the time I arrive at my destination which GPS will tell me is close to Paradise but this abode of the just is what I imagine heaven, if there is one, to be like, very sparsely populated. Oh, a word of warning, if you do venture to this Paradise, stick to the paved road and do not trust your GPS because it will spit out winning suggestions such as “In 200 feet turn right and go off-road”. By off-road, the GPS does not mean taking an old two-track or logging road but turn into Hansel and Gretel to make your way through a forest. Once I arrive using the blacktop as my guide, I will share dinner with memories of my Grandfather, but those memories are well worth a little frosty food. After my not so gourmet meal, I will make my way inside to the memorial service and when the boat’s bell chimes thirty times, you will see this man with tears in his eyes. So if you are curious as, to why I am traveling to where the pavement ends, which is about three hours north of where Mr. Silverstien’s sidewalks terminate to share a cheeseburger with memories along with a few tears please let me explain why today is special to me.

On this day, forty-seven years ago, at about 7:15 pm local time, the Great Lakes iron ore carrier, Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from the surface of Lake Superior. While this event has been made famous by Gordon Lightfoot, it is an event that has always stuck with me. Even though I was a young child, some of my earliest memories are of my Grandfather taking me to McDonald’s for a cheeseburger and then heading down to the river to wait for the “Fitz” to come by. These were the days long before the internet, computer navigation, or a website with “AIS data” to find out exactly where one of these big boats is located. All we had was the best guess ETA based on how long it might take the boat to get from the locks in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan down to lower Lake Huron and the St. Clair River. So often my Grandfather and I would have an hour or two and sometimes more to just sit, talk, and for me to be a kid while we waited.

Those experiences of going down to the river to watch the big boats, and waiting for the Fitzgerald have stuck with me. As I grew up, I have not outgrown my love of Great Lakes shipping. I am a “Boatnerd”, wrote my thesis on the sinking of the Fitzgerald, and have taken thousands of pictures of the boats plying the lakes. However, today I look back and remember the 29 men who lost their lives in the icy darkness of Lake Superior as well as the other sailors who have lost their lives on the lakes while remembering my Grandfather who taught me to love the Great Lakes and the boats that sail upon them.

I am guessing that some reading this probably do not know much about shipping on the Great Lakes or the Edmund Fitzgerald and if you have heard of the Fitzgerald it is just lyrics in a song, which you might have thought to be fictional. So here is a bit more about this boat, it typically carried iron ore and sank in Lake Superior during a fierce storm. When the Fitz was launched on June 7, 1958, she was the largest ship on the lakes and the largest one to have slipped beneath their waves. For seventeen years The Fitz carried taconite which is crudely processed iron ore pellets, from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Minnesota, and Wisconsin down the lakes to factories in Detroit, Toledo, Chicago, Gary, and points in between. The Fitz worked hard during her time and could carry so much cargo that she broke records for the amount of cargo hauled six times. Often in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Captain and crew would take the time to talk with and answer questions from those who were watching the Fitzgerald lock through making the boat not only popular with those who enjoyed watching the boats but endeared it to those who just happened upon it during a visit to a Great Lakes port or tourist attraction, like the Soo Locks.

On its fateful and final trip, the Fitz was filled to its maximum capacity of taconite in Superior Wisconsin which is across the river from Duluth, Minnesota, during the afternoon of November 9th and she departed safe harbor en route for Detroit soon after being loaded. Not long after departing, The Fitzgerald linked up with another ore boat, the Arthur M. Anderson which is still sailing on the lakes today, and the two captains decided to travel the long way across Lake Superior following the Canadian shoreline to try to take advantage of its lee since they knew a fierce storm was brewing. By the time dawn approached on November 10th, both boats were in the teeth of the storm which continued to intensify as the day went on. The Anderson had recently been equipped with what was then state-of-the-art equipment to monitor weather conditions for the National Weather Service which shows just how extreme the weather was. Snow squalls were coming and going but when inside one they were so intense that the vessel’s radar was worthless, the wind was blowing at a sustained 70mph and gusting to over 90mph, and all of this angered the waves on Lake Superior which were running a constant twenty-five feet with rogue waves coming in at thirty-five, forty feet or higher.

The combination of wind and waves, we will never know if it was the wind, waves, or perhaps both, knocked the Fitzgerald’s radar out, coupled with the storm-induced failures at the lighthouse and radio beacons at Whitefish Point, lead the Fitz to verify with the Anderson its position throughout the day and early evening. Shortly before 7 pm, Captain McSorley of the Fitzgerald checked in with the first mate on the Anderson and the mate asked McSorley how they were doing and he said “We are holding our own”. Soon after the Anderson entered a snow squall that not only whited out the view from its bridge but also its radar sets. At approximately 7:10 pm, the Anderson exited the squall but the Fitzgerald was nowhere to be found either by eye or radar.

Captain Cooper of the Anderson contacted the Coast Guard to report the Fitzgerald missing but the storm was so severe they did not have any aircraft or vessels that could mount a search until the weather abated. Since the Coast Guard had no resources to match the storm, they asked the ore boats which were sheltering in Whitefish Bay as well as the Anderson to start a search. The Anderson did turn and head back out into the tempest joined by another American ore carrier, the William Clay Ford. It was not until well after midnight on November 11th that the Coast Guard was able to get a lone plane in the area and after an extensive air and sea search in the following days, only a couple of smashed lifeboats and a small amount of debris were found. The United States Navy located the wreckage of the Edmund Fitzgerald on November 14th about fifteen miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. Whitefish Bay would have brought shelter and safety for the boat and crew but sadly its journey came to end just two to three hours from safety.

So this is the story behind my adventure today and the part that always really gets me causing an emotional release, in other words, I cry, is when the Fitzgerald’s bell is tolled. In 1995, the Fitzgerald’s bell was recovered from the boat, with permission from the families, and brought to the museum where this remembrance is held. At the end of the service, the Fitzergald’s bell is rung as each of the crew members’ names are read along with the 30th toll for all the other mariners lost on the Great Lakes. For me, when I hear the bell, I also hear the voices of the sailors speak. My thesis research created a connection to these men I never met and hearing their names spoken followed by the boat speaking with its bell all wrapped up with my childhood memories of my Grandfather creates a unique whirlwind of emotions. I am a history nerd, so I believe the past always contains clues to our future and I also feel that honoring our past, good and bad, is part of making a brighter future. So today I will be able to connect to my past, remember, release, and look forward to the future.

I will end this with a link to the song The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald By Gordon Lightfoot for those who desire to hear it and the lyrics are below.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down Of the big lake they call 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 Then later that night when the ship’s bell rang Could it be the north wind they’d been feelin’?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound When the wave broke over the railing And every man knew, as the captain did too ‘Twas the witch of November come stealin’ The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait When the gales of November came slashin’ When afternoon came it was freezing 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 PM 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 out of 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 fifteen 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.

©TLK2022

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