WEBVTT - Selects: How Lighthouses Work 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.680 Hey, everyone, Happy Saturday. I hope you have your breakfast 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:06.800 cereal and your Saturday morning cartoons all taken care of. 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:13.640 It is in Select time, June, and we're talking about 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.800 how lighthouses work. This is a really cool podcast. I 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.959 remember really enjoying this one because I had done some 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.480 research on lighthouses for a movie script I was writing, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.480 so this one was really pretty key for that. So 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:32.040 here we go with how lighthouses work. Welcome to Stuff 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:40.600 you should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:43.479 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:45.800 w Chuck Bryant, and Jerry over there, and this is 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:51.400 the lighthouse episode, Take one. Uh can I just go 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:56.360 ahead and say that I love lighthouses. You love love 0:00:56.800 --> 0:00:59.160 already before like you fell in love with them. I'm 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:04.840 researching this both, like if I'm I grew up going 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:08.200 to Honey Island, South Carolina. Not every year, but we 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.280 went quite a few times near Buford and they have 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.479 a lighthouse and it was one of my favorite things 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.640 to do as a kid, was climbing the lighthouse. And 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.679 I would I if I am near a lighthouse, now ever, 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.679 I will go climate the outside. I will seek it 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:29.880 out and then shim me up the outside like spider Man. Um. No, 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:31.640 I will seek it out and go look at it 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:34.920 and then climb it. And um this article just made 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.319 me love it even more. I have a precious memories 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.360 lighthouse too. Let's hear marble Head Lighthouse near Kataba Island, 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.440 which is where what state by Sandusky in Ohio on 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.640 Lake Erie. And it was the same thing. When I 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:52.400 was a kid. We used to go vacation on Kataba Island, 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.040 and um, we would go to that lighthouse every once 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.840 a while. I don't remember ever going inside, though it 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:01.160 might not have been open, because there's no reason why 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:02.760 you would go to a light house more than once 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.160 and not go inside climb it up. I don't remember 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.359 every going in, but or maybe you're just like, yeah, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:11.440 it looks nice from down here. Yeah, I would have 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:15.799 climbed it. I was a climber. Yeah, me too. Um. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:17.640 But I think the other thing that factors in for 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:24.160 me is I found I really love antiquated systems that 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:29.799 could still be viable. Yeah, like post apocalypse, you could 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.160 fire up lighthouses again, you know fire yeah, and it 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.840 would work. Yeah, I would, And I think that's a 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:39.959 weird thing with me that I love. I love stuff 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.679 that's still around that you could use if if need be. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:46.840 You know, I've never really looked at my environment that way, 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:48.880 like to see what it was going to be standing 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.679 after an apocalypse. Maybe I should. Well I don't know 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.040 about standing, but let's just let's say there was some 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.679 weird domino effect type thing like that movie where electricity 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.480 and internet and everything went out right and people turned 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.079 on each other. You could still lit a lighthouse and 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:07.160 bos could find their safe harbor. What movie are you 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:12.080 talking about? The Domino effect? Oh? Really, there's a movie 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:14.320 like that called that. Yeah, I didn't know that. I 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:20.440 think it was called with Elizabeth Shoo and agent Agent 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.320 Cooper from Twin Peaks Kyle what's his face? McLaughlin and 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.280 he is so great is the mare um Portlandia? Yeah, 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:29.359 he is good. I love that guy. I think it's 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:32.520 called the domino effect. If not, that was the you know, 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.840 essentially what happened There was a domino effect like a 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.800 blackout right, Yeah, that just like and it created a 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.040 domino effect that things kind of spun out of control. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:46.840 You're talking about Fury Road. Oh right, sorry, so, uh 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:50.440 chuckout love lighthouses too, but I knew virtually nothing about 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:56.360 him until researching this. And Um, if you think about them, though, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.000 it's like you were saying, after the apocalypse, you'll still 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.200 still be standing. You just need to replace the electricity 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.320 with the fire, and then you'd have basically what lighthouses 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:10.000 have always been, which is some sort of highly visible signal. 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.320 For most of the time, it was a fire either 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.599 a wood fire, coal fire, tar fire, um, that you 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.279 could see that was meant to signal to ships that 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.600 hey man, there's some treacherous waters around here. It's one 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:26.440 of the main things that they did. And as the 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:30.080 light got better and better, one of the roles that um, 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.760 lighthouses played was not just to say careful in this area. 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:36.760 We went to the trouble building a lighthouse here because 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:40.760 it's so treacherous, but also check out these rocks. See 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.800 this with this light, there's some rocks there. Yeah, like 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:48.080 literally lighting up a harbor. Yeah. Um, well, because there 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:50.960 was no light otherwise. Right. And then, um, the other 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.160 role that they play is in the daytime, right, because 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:58.000 lighthouses I don't think that they actually keep them on 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.200 twenty four hours a day, highly efficient on a cloudy day. 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.080 If it's foggy, they'll turn it on and start sounding 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:06.880 the fog horns, which we'll talk about. But um, for 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.200 the most part in the daytime, it's off. But a 0:05:10.320 --> 0:05:14.120 lighthouse still serves a purpose during the day because they 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.120 don't decorate them the way that they decorate them just 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.200 for looks. They do it so you can differentiate one 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.240 lighthouse from another. Yeah, like this one looks like a 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.920 barber pole, so I know I'm near North Carolina's Cape 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.360 Hatteras exactly right. And there's like a whole book called 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.039 the light List where it has pictures of them, and 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.520 did you get your hands on that? I'm meant to 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:36.840 look it up, but I ran out of time. I'll 0:05:36.880 --> 0:05:38.960 bet it's neat. I bet it's neat too. By the way, 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.760 that movie is called the Trigger Effect. I have heard 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:43.719 of that one. There was a movie called the Domino Effect, 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.040 but it's not the same one. What about the butterfly effects? 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:51.920 Remember that garbage that was the coop? Right? Yeah? Man? 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:54.720 Why does he haunt us? I don't know. He comes 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:56.839 up a lot. All right. Where were we were we 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.600 in the lighthouse? We were talking about the day mark. Yeah, yeah, 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:06.200 pretty neat. But there's also what's called the light signature, right, yes, 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:11.120 where that's um, that's we're going back to nighttime again. Yeah, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.960 Sorryverson the sun's going up and down you turn the 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.760 lights off. It got weird. It is a little weird. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:22.040 Yeah all right, Jerry, are you still here here? So? Um, 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.360 at night, the light has its own flashing signature, light signature, 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:27.960 and that's also in the Light book two. And there's 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.600 actually a number of different ways that a light can flash. Right, 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:34.840 who knew? I didn't know. You've got the fixed and 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:36.680 that is, of course, if you just have a light 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:41.040 on saying we're open, it shines continuously. Come on in. 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.159 It's the waffle house. You have the occulting light. I 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.400 love this one, the creepiest of all lights. Uh. It 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:52.200 has longer periods of light than dark. Um, and then 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:57.800 it flashes six six six uh. And a flashing light 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:00.320 has longer periods of dark than light. So a halting 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.559 and flashing or just sort of inverse of one another. 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:04.960 There are two sides of the same coin. That's right. 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:07.440 I can't have light without the dark is the whole premise. 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:10.760 And then you have the isophase light that's equal light 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:15.840 and dark with its uh signature blips and then a 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:20.920 group flashing light super seventies. Yeah, it has a regular 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:27.040 repeating number of flashing lights the same pattern, right. Yeah. 0:07:27.120 --> 0:07:30.720 And there's actually really famous one of those, um, the 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:34.320 Minnot's Ledge light in Boston. It was very famously known 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:36.560 as I think it still is that I Love You 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:40.000 light because it would flash one, then it would flash four, 0:07:40.240 --> 0:07:43.360 and then we flashed three. So I l O V 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:46.560 E y O U. So it was like a very 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.040 romantic light. That's how people took it. I didn't make 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:51.960 that up. Oh see, I thought it was I hate 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.559 cal it could. That's the secondary way that it's known. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.760 The people of Boston are known for their soft side. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.960 I know, so that's why I love you. Yeah. They're 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.280 prone to break into sobs and the public on the 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.360 street frequently just walking around thinking about the beauty of life. Um. 0:08:10.400 --> 0:08:13.160 And then finally we have our alternating I'm sorry. We 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.360 have the Morse code um, which is what it sounds like. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.720 It It mimics Morse code with stats and dashestats and dashes. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:29.560 That's Morse code dots and dashes man um just spell 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:34.240 out you know, things like I love you. But that's 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:38.400 not when wheno's ledged us and it's not Morse code, 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.880 it's just it's just one four and three yea, And 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:44.559 people took it that way. I hate go. And when 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.440 its ledge, actually it's pretty awesome to begin with. It's 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.319 it's under ten ft of water at high tide and 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:53.120 they had to build it, I think in the nineteenth 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.760 century whenever the tide was out, so they only had 0:08:55.800 --> 0:08:58.920 like X amount of hours and day during low tide. 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.160 When the ledge was exposed. It was interesting. It's still there. 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:05.200 It's tough cookie, but Josh, these are all sort of 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:09.160 modern modern is modern ish, but um, although old, they 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:15.640 can go back to uh what Homer's Iliad They mentioned 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.120 a lighthouse. Crazy, and I mean like we're talking basically 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.240 a huge bonfire on a cliff more exactly, you know, 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.760 not like but well, not like Minot's ledge or anything, 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.199 but then still qualifies as a lighthouse. It was the 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.600 premise behind it. Yeah exactly. I sounded weirdly defensive just 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:39.880 now about that. Still a lighthouse. Yeah. Uh, like you said, 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.200 you would have like either wood or coal burning on 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:47.479 a long pole. Uh. And then finally in the eighteenth century, um, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:53.800 they started using lanterns, which is a little more probably controllable. Yeah. 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:57.240 The problem was that they kept running into, um, was 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.880 that the oil or coal would smudge the lantern, the 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:04.400 glass around the lantern, and the so the glass top, 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.840 the whole thing where the light is that you can 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.520 walk around and that's the lantern of the lighthouse. And 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.560 if you're burning a coal fire in there, it's gonna 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.080 get sooty pretty quick. Yeah. One of the best one 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.760 of the main jobs of the lighthouse keepers to wash windows. Right. Um. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:23.160 The problem is in between washings, which they did at 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.520 least once a day normally, um, the light would degrade 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:31.400 as the soot built up. Uh. So they figured out, oh, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.599 we need better better fuel than coal or tar. We 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.360 thought to use tar. Let's burn the dirtiest thing on 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.040 the planet. Inside. They were working with what they had 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.560 at the time. So they figured out, especially in New England, 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.000 that they could um use things like blubber and lard, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.560 which they did from Wales, burns a lot cleaner. Uh. 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.640 And then they also figured out, hey, you know what 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:59.559 this flame is, Okay, but wouldn't it be great pre 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.280 electric city if we had something like electricity to beam 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.360 this thing out there for miles and miles and a 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:13.400 very smart physicist from France named Augustine Fresnell. I like Fresnell, 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.760 that's cool. For Nell said, all right, take my lens 0:11:17.800 --> 0:11:21.360 and do with it what you will, and he indited 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:26.120 the Fornell lens. He did, I'm sorry, And it's like 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:27.640 what you would think it would be. It's a bunch 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.640 of prisms. Um through that through magic can cast a 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.960 beam like twenty something miles out to the ocean. Yeah, 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.720 it's amazing. They concentrate in the the gather light from 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.600 the top and the bottom and in the middle and 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:43.679 basically just shoot it all back to a single magnifying point. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:51.040 It just goes miles. Yeah. Yeah, and that really that 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:55.880 changed everything and did a great job of handling the 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.160 load until electricity would come around. And that's when everyone like, 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:03.800 you know what, we don't need these silly flames anymore. 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:06.600 Let's just plug in the light. But you can still 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.120 use it Fornelle lens with the light and it's even brighter. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.960 That's true. Like today's modern lighthouses use um or have 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:18.520 produced lights between ten thousand candelas and a million candelas. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.880 What's a candela? Did you see this reference, Like, this 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:26.840 is the worst analogy I've ever run across. What did 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:30.280 it say? A candela is one two hundred the brightness 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.680 of a fifty watt light bulb? Oh okay, yeah, I 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:36.160 know exactly how much a candela is. I also saw 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.600 that it's roughly the brightness of a candle, which makes sense, 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.240 and that's a much better frame of reference. So the 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.200 brightness of a million candles burning in the same place, 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:52.560 that's how bright modern lighthouses are, not one two hundred. Bowl. 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.280 Let's take a break. Yeah, seriously, let's go find out 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:19.559 who wrote that and write a strongly worded letter. Well 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:24.160 that got ugly, so, uh, we're I feel like we're 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:29.760 still talking about the history of lighthouses, right yeah sure, um, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:33.640 well what they were they were made of wood early on. Um. 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.720 But the problem with a wooden lighthouse and a massive 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.480 burning fire of tar is that they can burn down 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.480 and be washed out to see, or in rough weather 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.920 it can just be knocked plumb over by waves. And 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:48.800 but like I said, they used what they had at 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.600 the time, and over the years they got sturdier and 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.600 sturdier with steel and concrete and stuff like that. Well, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:59.120 even over even before, over the years before, over the years, Yeah, 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:02.480 the Farah said Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:06.679 the ancient world was this um lighthouse at the mouth 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.480 of the harbor to Alexandria, Egypt. And it was around 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.560 I'm not quite sure when it was around. I think 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:19.080 the which one the Pharos of Alexandria to seventy BC. 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:21.520 My friend, that thing was pretty sturdy. It took a 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.600 massive earthquake to bring it down. It was made of masonry. 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:26.920 It wasn't made of wood, you know. So it looks 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.720 like lighthouse construction got dumber as the years went on, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:32.080 and then it got smart again, then got smart again. 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:34.840 It just dipped down in the wood era and then 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.600 came back up. Well, um, what you you normally have 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:43.440 is the lighthouse, which can be just a lighthouse, or 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.320 there might be uh a fog signal building. There might 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:49.520 be a boat house. You might have a little house 0:14:50.040 --> 0:14:53.240 or apartment attached to it, and you might live there 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.480 with your family on in a very remote part of 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.280 the world, um, all by yourself for with a couple 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.160 of other dude. Yeah, and take turns and take shifts. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.160 That's called a stag station. Yeah. And I think the 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:07.280 other thing that appeals to me about lighthouses is I 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.400 could have lived that life. Oh yeah, yeah, I can 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.240 have seen myself dropping out and you got a neck beard. Yeah. 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:17.680 All you need is like a cable nuts sweater and 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:22.480 living up there all by myself corn cob pipe really yeah, 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.040 grow my own crops and just sit up there and 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:30.720 be quiet, no one bugging me. It's like it appeals. 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.280 I did not know that. I did not picture you 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.000 as a lighthousekeeper. I could totally do it, or a 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:42.880 lightkeeper for short. Um and um. This is another thing 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:44.640 that I thought was remarkable in this article. You might 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.840 as well mention it is it. If there is a 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:53.760 lighthouse near you that nobody operates, it is possible that 0:15:53.800 --> 0:16:01.720 you could own that lighthouse. Yeah. One door. The National 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.920 Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of two thousand, it h got 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.880 a process together where the Coast Guard, which is what 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:14.480 runs the lighthouse biz now the lighthouse racket. Um. They 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:17.400 you can basically start a nonprofit or have a nonprofit 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:21.640 and at no cost, they will give you a decommissioned 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.840 lighthouse if you maintain it and keep it open to 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:29.440 the public. Yeah, for the most part, it's like preservation societies. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.080 But if nobody wants it, they put it up for auction. Yeah, 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:36.080 and then you can do what you want to. You 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.400 can live out my dream. And I wouldn't have to 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:39.840 do the windows either. I could just live up there 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.880 and be a crusty old hermit. You know. We could 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.560 do a kickstarter to help you live out your dream. Chuck, Well, 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:50.880 let's do a few more years of stuff. You should 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:55.400 know first though, before you go. Okay, okay, um, all right, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:59.880 so back to more modern times. Um, we're building them 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.760 of concrete and steel. At this point they're a little 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:06.280 more sturdy. You got your little keeper's house. You're not 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:12.000 getting paid much money. How much money, dude? Not much? So. 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.600 This article says that they earned about two dollars annually 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.000 in the late nineteenth century. I went on to the 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:25.240 gee Whiz West Egg inflation calculator for eight in eighteen nine. 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:31.400 That was five grand. Today. Your provisions are covered, though, right, Yeah, 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.119 at the very least your room is. I don't know 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:38.600 about board. I bet you they all the whale lard 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.280 you can eat. Yeah, Now imagine they take care of 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.360 stuff because you can't like leave and go shopping like 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:50.120 imagine you just have everything shipped to you and um again, ideal. 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:52.600 I love that. Don't have to go out, you don't 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.200 have to spend any money. It's like web van, yeah, 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.399 coming to you. You're banking that five five grand a 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:03.760 year essentially. Wow. Man, when you get into like lighthouse mode, 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:08.240 you're lower in the standards like jimmandess like You're like, man, 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:11.119 I'm making five grand. People are bringing me food. I 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:14.160 don't have to talk to anybody. Yeah, that's awesome. It's 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:20.359 like your fantasy. That's hilarious. Um. So that lens we 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.280 were talking about, we we didn't use that in the 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.640 United States for a while because the way I read 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.439 this is we kind of cheaped out when it was 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.919 being run um by this guy Stephen pleasant from for 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:37.240 thirty years eighteen fifty two, thirty two years. He ran 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:43.199 an efficient some might say chintzy program to where he 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:45.639 was like, you know, we don't need those fancy French lenses. 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.960 UM take these creddy versions. They probably wouldn't even a lens. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.480 It is like a mirror reflector or something. Maybe if that, yeah, 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:58.720 maybe a piece of metal at somebody had to just 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:04.119 stand behind the light with the reflected, you're my mute assistant, 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.040 right quiet. But then finally the US government got involved 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:09.479 in said you know what, we need to regulate this. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:16.720 We the US they were involved. That's why. Yes, from 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.960 seventeen sixteen to seventeen eighty nine, that was not run 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.720 by the US government. No, it wasn't until Alexander Hamilton's 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.440 almost got in a shipwreck off the coast of I 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.520 think North Carolina, and he went back and said, hey, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:33.440 I think we need some lighthouses. The federal government needs 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.000 to get involved. And so I think the nineteenth piece 0:19:37.040 --> 0:19:41.200 of legislation the US Congress ever passed was to establish 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:47.680 the Lighthouse Board. Uh, the U S Lighthouse Establishment initially 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:53.359 is what it was called. And you know socialist program. 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:55.359 He said that the federal the federalities are going to 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:58.760 run this thing. Uh and then in charge now and 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:04.120 you know what things um went downhill? Yeah, improved, improved. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.280 Everyone who's critical big government, right, Yeah, But there were 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.000 a lot of lighthouses at the time. By nineteen hundred 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:13.240 we had about a thousand lighthouses. Well, and by nineteen 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:17.639 hundred government had reformed its reputation, like seriously, the world 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:22.320 ground for the mid nineteenth century, the US governed. The 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:27.439 US lighthouse system was second rate at best. They just 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:29.879 had a terrible reputation. And I guess it sounds like 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.919 they got rid of Stephen Pleasant, whose name is basically 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.919 mud these days, and the quality went up. Yeah, and 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:39.280 that's when they established the Lighthouse Board, which is I 0:20:39.320 --> 0:20:41.800 think what you were thinking to shape things up. In 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.000 eighteen fifty two, they said, let's get some fronel lenses 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.119 for all these lighthouses. Finally, Yeah, we can be like 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:53.720 the rest of the world. Pleasant dead. Uh, did you 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.160 know the Statue of Liberty was a lighthouse. I don't 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.199 know if I knew it, but when I read it, 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:01.320 I'm like, well, yeah, but I don't know if it 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:06.000 unlocked some memory or if I'm just like, that's just 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.879 too obvious. I didn't know. Yeah, I was like, I 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:11.639 surely I knew that, right right that that was it. 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.200 For fifteen years it was a lighthouse in New York Harbor, 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.840 which is pretty neat. And then by nineteen thirty, when 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:26.480 electricity was effective and rampant um, you didn't need these 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.679 fires burning or candles burning or whale blubber. No, but 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.520 there were a lot of lighthouses where that we're on 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:38.199 like islands or on offshore like ledges like Minno's Ledge 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.720 or Eddie Stone in England. Um, that were just like 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:46.040 the technology to run electricity out there just was not around, 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:50.280 of course. Um, so they were still using oil of 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.040 various types to to fuel these things. Well into the 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:59.080 twentieth century, into the sixties, um easily, yeah, and they 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:03.159 were um still people working there, um living in the 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:08.359 lighthouse or on the property. Uh. Into the nineteen sixties 0:22:08.640 --> 0:22:11.840 it was definitely more rare, but um and night. Uh 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.959 that's when the Coast Guard brought about their lighthouse automation 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:20.919 and modernization program and that pretty much dwindled by the 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.600 end of that decade. It dwindled it down to sixty 0:22:23.720 --> 0:22:26.639 that still had people working there. Yeah, sixty out of 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.600 a thousand. Today there's one in Boston, the Brewster Island, 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:34.280 one little bruster little Brewster Island was interfusing it with 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:37.320 Big Brewster. Well, there might be one Brewster's Millions Island, 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.159 Little Brewster, that's right. It was the first one in 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:47.119 the United States. Uh, seventeen sixteen was when it was built. 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.440 And then that one was replaced in Sight three and 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:54.560 it's the second oldest working one behind Sandy Hook, New Jersey, 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.080 is the right and the person that lives there is 0:22:58.119 --> 0:23:01.280 basically living there as a tour guide, not necessarily like 0:23:02.280 --> 0:23:05.280 guiding boats into harbor. They may do both. No, I 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:08.159 think it's still working. Yeah, well then I guess they 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:12.400 do both. I saw modern marvels on lighthouses and they 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:16.560 interviewed one of the light keepers on Brewster Island, little 0:23:16.560 --> 0:23:19.600 Brewster Island, and he he was They showed him like 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.000 polishing the glass and everything. Yeah, but it's automated. I 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.400 got the light itself. I see. I see. So they 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:28.560 keep into our guided I think, okay, but yeah, he's 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.080 still I mean, he's providing a function there that's not 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:33.399 just show. Maybe I could that's what I could do. 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:37.800 Then you should have heard that guy. He's like, I 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:39.720 can't even begin to do it. But he was like 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:44.159 a hardcore light keeper in Boston. Yeah, I can imagine, 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:47.080 although I wouldn't be the best person because Chuck silent 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:50.719 lighthouse story isn't really You're just like you just sweep 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:53.760 your arm in a room and turns out quietly. People 0:23:53.800 --> 0:23:56.680 ask questions, I just wrap them on the knuckles out 0:23:57.400 --> 0:23:59.840 all right, I'm getting all excited thinking about the prospects 0:23:59.840 --> 0:24:01.879 of living in a lighthouse. So I'm gonna go do 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:25.760 some push ups and we'll come back right after this. So, Chuck, 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:30.119 say that you did live your life as a lightkeeper, 0:24:30.160 --> 0:24:32.760 what would you what would it be like? Mm hmm. 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:37.400 First of all, what's what's your family background? Uh? Well, 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.280 my dad was a fisherman. Probably actually my my great 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:46.080 great grandfather was a fisherman. My grandfather was a lightkeeper. 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:48.040 My dad was a son of a light keeper, and 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:53.040 some mom was a keeper. Pirate captain. Pirate captain. Like 0:24:53.119 --> 0:24:57.479 Gina Davis. Yeah, that was a good movie. She's awesome. 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:01.600 Yeah she uh see. Thorn interviewed her recently on his 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:06.000 Bull's Eye show. She's just like the best, and they 0:25:06.040 --> 0:25:08.600