Deckhand: Life on Freighters of the Great Lakes

“Reply Immediately”

“Reply Immediately” On November 22, 1963, we were on our last run of the season and unloading at the docks in Cleveland. At about 1:45 in the afternoon I noticed a man on the docks conversing with a group of workers. There was a great deal of head shaking, and men’s shoulders slumped as if they were suddenly carrying the weight of the world. The unloading machinery began to shut down, and the operators left their control booths. My shipmates were giving each other questioning looks. The man I had been watching climbed up our ladder and boarded the Pickands. Frank Gable met him at the railing and demanded to know what was going on. Why weren’t we being unloaded? “Kennedy’s been shot,” was the man’s reply. He told us as much as he knew. The president had been shot in a motorcade in Dallas and might be dead. The dock would be shut down for the day. Our reaction was one of disbelief. This was America. We didn’t go around shooting our presidents like they did in some communist dictatorships, and even if some nut did shoot him certainly he wouldn’t die. John Kennedy had led a charmed life: rich, a World War II hero, married to the best-looking ‹rst lady in our history, our youngest president, our Camelot president. It was inconceivable that he could die at the hands of some nutcase. But it was true. We were a people still capable of shooting our presidents. The nation that promised so much had proven once again that the unthinkable could become reality. We all rushed back to the mess hall and gathered around the fuzzy black-and-white television set. The room was too small to accommodate all the crewmen, so most stood out on the deck, gathered around the portal, trying to hear the news as the men inside ›ipped between the three TV networks. As bits and pieces of news came in our worst 104 fears were realized. I heard David Brinkley say, “What happened today was too much, too ugly, and too fast.” After a while some of the guys showered and went up the street. One group went into downtown Cleveland. On their return they reported that the downtown streets were jammed with people milling around, sharing the moment , not sure what to do. Radios and TV sets had been set up on the sidewalks. The streets were so crowded that cars could barely pass. This normally bustling city was brought to a standstill by an assassin’s bullet thousands of miles away. Everyone remembers where they were when President Kennedy was killed. I was on a ship in Cleveland. The next day the unloading was completed, and we sailed along the southern coast of Lake Erie to Toledo where we prepared the boat for winter layup. It took a couple of days for the deck crew to store the hatch covers, double up the lines, run the anchor cable up on the dock, and perform the hundreds of other little tasks required to shut down the ship. When we were discharged on November 25, only the black gang and the galley crew were still aboard, wrapping up their work. As I left the Pickands I re›ected on the last two years. I had boarded the Hoyt in the middle of a cold spring night as a frightened boy, not knowing if I was up to the challenges that lay ahead. I was leaving on a mild November day knowing that I was not only up to the challenges but ready to take on whatever the world had in store for me. With mixed emotions, I had decided not to return for the 1964 sailing season. I would turn 21 in October, and I wanted to ‹le an application with the Michigan State Police (MSP) on my birthday. The troopers I met when I worked for the Algonac ambulance service had told me about the enlistment process. It was not quick or easy. As part of the application process I would have to pass a written examination and physical ‹tness tests. Next there would be a personal interview at the MSP headquarters in East Lansing and a detailed background investigation. If I was acceptable, I would be instructed to come to headquarters on a particular date, and if I passed a medical examination I would enter recruit school the following day. Recruit school was very...