I absolutely love these structures. When we drove from Virginia to Maine, I took photos of every one that I saw. Every time we went to Chincoteague, part of the Assateague party always involved a visit to that lighthouse. When we went to the Outer Banks, I made my family climb all five of them.

Some people my age apparently first encountered lighthouses via Helen Reddy in Pete’s Dragon. I don’t think I ever saw the movie, but I had the soundtrack, and Candle on the Water was a favorite—not because it was about lighthouses but because my mother absolutely detested Helen Reddy and would howl in agony from any room in the house when I would play it on my tiny and tinny record player in my bedroom. 

I guess maybe a new generation learned about lighthouses from the 2016 remake of this movie, which I know absolutely nothing about aside from its existence. I assume the dragon is CGI instead of a cartoon—and I think it is not a musical, maybe? But it has my celluloid boyfriend Karl Urban in it, so maybe I should give it a shot.

There weren’t any lighthouses along the particular shorelines of Malibu where I was taken as a kid. I would guess the first lighthouse I ever saw was on a trip to Catalina, and since we were only there to have lunch, I only saw it from a distance. Then we moved to Illinois, where there were no lighthouses along the Mississippi River, and to Florida, where there were no lighthouses dotting any of the bay beaches I frequented.

So the first lighthouse that really penetrated my consciousness wasn’t a real lighthouse at all. It was Lions Lighthouse in Long Beach, where my USC friend Sharidan took me one time when we were probably supposed to be in class. Lions Lighthouse is a decorative thing put up by the Lions Club to advertise their services to blind people. The memorable part of this is that Sharidan had the presence of mind to play the Clockwork Orange soundtrack on this jaunt, specifically for the song “I Wanna Marry a Lighthouse Keeper.” The song stuck with me—to such a degree it was one that my kid learned to sing as a wee sprout (and was horrified to learn its movie association decades later).

It wasn’t really until that trip to Maine that I saw enough of them to get interested. Then I read Brilliant Beacons and a couple other books and learned about braziers and Fresnel lenses and how the romantic lighthouse keeper of old has largely been replaced by automation and specialized contractors. (The last lighthouse keeper, Sally Snowman, retired in 2023.) It’s nice to know that even in a world with GPS and LEDs, lighthouses are still useful and serving a purpose.