Episode 77 - The Dangerous Lives of Lighthouse Keepers

0:00 Hey everyone, I'm Vince. And I'm Emily. And you're listening to The Lighthouse Lowdown. Welcome to a three -year anniversary. Oh, for some reason I thought you were going to say three -hour episode. Oh, for some reason. Vincent gets a chance every now and then to record an episode and Emily's like, oh, it's going to be three hours. That was one time and it was four hours. Oh my gosh. Three and a half. So welcome to the show. We've been doing this for three years. Cheers. Cheers.

0:41 Let me. Yeah. Thank you. Three years started in 2022. This is the three year anniversary of. us posting our first episode. Awesome. Obviously, we were active before that. And today's the recording date, so this will air after that. Oh, that's right. But, you know, everybody, they're here in spirit. Same spirit. So, yeah. So let's just get into it. Okay. Today, risking life and limb, the dangerous lives of lighthouse keepers. Is this a history movie or an episode? This is the episode title. Okay. Is there a history buoy?

1:21 There is a history buoy, of course. Hold on to your pants. History buoy of the day. Folklore. Yeah, this is my clip art. So this is my clip art. The history buoy of today. Got to settle in. It's folklore. So I found several articles for today's purposes. One of the articles I'm going to cite is about folklore regarding carrying fuel oil and lighthouse keepers. Okay. So we're going to, you know, I'm going to flashback. We're going to talk about the lives and deaths of lighthouse keepers. We are. In honorable fashion? Yes. We have to make sure that we're in memoriam because these are facts and these are real people. These are real stories. Yes. Okay. But we'll also.

2:14 Have a little fun. Have some fun. We'll have a little fun. You know they had some fun. And then also we're going to talk not just death, but also danger, right? We're going to do a pre -task analysis. They go hand in hand. Yeah. Okay, so for today, our history buoy is lighthouse, oil myths, and folklore regarding carrying fuel oil. Funny that there's folklore about carrying oil. Yeah. Folklore. Well, what do you think? What comes to mind when I talk about carrying fuel oil? I think about their five -gallon jugs that they had to take up and down the stairs. Yeah. They'd refill it at the bottom and bring it to the top. That's all I got. Yep. Well, you're correct. I am correct. You're correct. It's not folklore that they use five -gallon buckets.

3:04 They had different names instead of bucket, but bucket is also one of the things, so that's what I will say. But five gallons was the standard measurement. They did have different sizes. Of course, when it became United States Lighthouse Establishment. That was the first one. Then Bored. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when it became militarized, it was more standard. Okay. And of course, there are lighthouses all over the world. But five gallons was generally the unit. And of course, it started with whale oil, went through several different fuels, and then kerosene. was like the last most popular fuel before electrification. So fuel oil, we'll call it, was stored either in the tower, which we've seen some of those containers, usually they're, actually, not usually, some of them are well -kept and historically preserved. Yeah. Where did we see one? We've seen a couple. Ocracoke had one sitting in there.

4:01 I thought we saw one at Cape Cod. I don't remember which lighthouse. They're kind of ornate. They look a little bit, to me, like the Stanley Cup. Stanley Cup. But, you know, they're typically, they're cylindrical, they're banded, and I'm guessing stainless steel. Try not to make it rust, right? So it's material that's shiny. Or at least coated in some fashion. Yeah, so they store the fuel oil either in the tower, in that, I'm going to call it a day tank, because in our industry... Emily and I both work in engineering. We design industrial projects. Often the term used for fuel that's going to be burned within one day or equivalent to a day or so is called a day tank. So that's a little bit of a broad stroke, but that's what I'll call it. The day tank is either in the tower or the permanent, more larger collection of fuel is in an oil house.

4:59 And there are many oil houses. And if you were to look at our... lighthouse low down design, which is now on screen. You could argue that that is a lighthouse keeper's home next to the tower. It could be a fuel oil storage. What did you have in mind when you drew that? More like, see the oil house is never that close to a lighthouse because if it blows up, you don't want it to damage the lighthouse. So it's usually a good distance away just in case. So snuggled up like that, I would definitely say either the Keeper's House or like Body Island has that little house in front that's connected to the tower by a little run or like Curituck. Yeah. So that's kind of what I had in mind, actually. Well, a little side on our logo. Yeah. We went to Wood End Lighthouse.

5:54 Yes. Out on Cape Cod by Provincetown, which is a whole fun story. If you don't know that story, please go watch the episode. You will not be disappointed. What did we call it? Cape Cod Plog. Yeah, Provincetown. But I took a photo of the oil house and tower in the same orientation as our logo. Oh, did you really? Because I had our newly made hats. And so anyways, I'll show that now. Vincent, insert here. I haven't seen this picture. I'll show it to you. Or maybe I just haven't seen it with the correct lens. Didn't catch your eye. Yeah. So we got oil. Right? Yes. Some of the myths are surrounding how much oil was used. So how often lighthouse keepers were hauling oil and how heavy it was and so on. So that's what we're going to talk about for a minute.

6:44 Okay. So the folklore, one of the statements was if you look at keepers historically in photos, right, they're wearing typically black uniforms, a cap, and they're standing, they're posing because it's the 1800s. because it's the 1900s, they're posing a little turned, looking at the camera. And the folklore is they did that because they wanted to hide their arm. They had a preferred dominant, usually carrying arm, that would become so muscular that they didn't want it to be in the photo. So I found a photo to look at. No. This looks like AI. Thank you for that. So this is AI, and I use chat GPT. You're the worst.

7:35 I asked for a prompt. My prompt was, show me a lighthouse keeper in an official 1800s uniform, which is his more or less kind of clothes. Good for AI. It's just a trench coat. And then I said, now give him one very muscular arm with no sleeve. You'll also notice as I flash between these two, they made him, his beard gets trimmed. See that? It's like his whole face firms up. Yeah. And they also took away his underclothes. Yeah, he gets a little harder. He's like, I have nothing on under my coat. And the light goes out for some reason in the tower. Oh, no. Window moves. It was probably just rotating. So many of our viewers are boomers, I would say, and of the older generations. And I would ask you to be aware that AI can do things like this. You can't trust all the lighthouse things you see out there.

8:25 Because AI has fixed the hand problem where they could not get hands correct. Yeah, the number of fingers. I hate that because it was such an easy way to tell if something was AI. Now it's like, it's kind of hard. Right. It could be an extremely clear photo that's edited too much or it could be AI. You can't really tell. Yeah, there was some AI photo of a woman and a husband and I can't remember the backstory. There was some funny backstory. But clearly the women's bodice was modified in AI. And the comments were all about the man's three fingers. He would like his hand around his wife. Yeah. Three fingers. Anyways. So talking about, you know, they would hide their arm because it was overly muscular.

9:07 That's not true. And they actually didn't have to haul that much oil. Now, a lot of our visits and people that we've talked to and stories that we hear online are focused around, oh, the labor of. hauling a bucket of oil all the way to the top of the tower that's real except uh it would usually be once every 24 hours yeah so the person who wrote this article and we have everything credited at the end but the person who wrote this article said um for example this is written 2024 so they said the longest night of this year 2024 is tuesday december 21st and the length of no sunlight is 14 hours and 48 minutes. I can't recall where they're at. I'm sure that would factor in. It's not get too deep. They said still using kerosene, which of course is more efficient of the fuel oils. And the quote is smarter people help me out. Let's say it's 15 hours of lighted time for the tower, for the, for the assembly. If that had 30 ounces of fuel is burned an hour on average for a five wick lamp. which is one of the larger, more fuel -consuming lamps for the application. The total use is 450 ounces over a 15 -hour long night. So divide that by 128 ounces, which is one gallon. Gives us a little bit more than three and a half gallons of kerosene needed for the longest night of the year. So that's less than five gallons by a lot.

10:37 One and a half gallons would still be left. That would be used in emergencies or to prepare the lamp for the next lighting in the morning. Okay. So you're not going to carry the fuel back down. True. You've already carried it up. So it's like a nice overage. So the myth was that they're carrying fuel all the time and every hour and up and down, and they're getting strong and hiding their arm. All this is built around the assumption that they were burning a ton of fuel oil, which was not accurate. Yeah. So there you go. Wow. History of the day. Maybe that used to be different. Like that's using kerosene, which is like a better fuel than in the past. So there's a chance that like well oil did have to do refill multiple times in a night or something, but we don't know.

11:27 Yeah. Certainly wouldn't want make one arm significantly unless you're like doing curls with the bucket as you're going up. Make sure you get your 12 reps in, four sets, eat your protein. Yeah. Thank you for indulging me on the Lighthouse Bowie. Thank you for that. So I've wanted to do this for a while. So again, the title, Risking Life and Limb, the Dangerous Lives of Lighthouse Keepers. This is episode 77. It's been three years. I thought about this about a year ago when I found a website that is our favorite people, the USLHS. They have a page called In Memoriam, which is one of the many resources that they have. Oh, yes. I'll just read this. Many Lighthouse personnel crossed the bar due to natural causes of sickness or age. However, some Lighthouse personnel gave their lives for their country and service due to accidents, drownings, or even murder. Listed below is a memorial to those courageous members of the Lighthouse service who lost their lives during their service. and the time and manner in which the passing occurred, the society, USLHS, will be adding to this list as other personnel are found who gave their lives in such a manner.

12:40 Okay. So, again, I wanted to say that now because I want to show some honor to these people. Yeah. But I use this table and develop some data around it. Okay. Just for a glimpse in. This is, of course, not going to capture. Like how likely you are to drown? As a lighthouse keeper? Exactly. Yes. 39 ways to die as a wiki. So there's 100 ways to die in the West. What is this? 39 ways to die as a wiki. So on that page, I know there's a ton more data, but let's just isolate it to that page. There are 220 entries, okay? Can I say something? Please. It's funny that there's a lot of fell from, and sometimes they get really specific. You bet, yeah. Fall. Sometimes it just says fell. And then there's station vehicle plunge down 60 foot embankment. And like, why are some so specific and some are just like, I don't know, he fell down. I think, so I'll get, I'll get, I analyze this. Okay. But I think it's because they had certain amount of details from Keeper's Logs and historical records. Yeah, if they just say like. you know, primary keeper fell. Yeah.

13:56 He fell to his death. It's like, Oh, that sucks. How? Give me more details. Was he painting or did he get in a vehicle and it went down a 60 foot embankment? It is a second one. Or was it a cliff? So again, it makes me chuckle. And I know someone actually died that way. So it's kind of a, I've been trying, I've been wrestling with how to present this in an honorable way. And also difficult. do what we do and just talk about life, right? So there were 39 different categories listed out of the 220 deaths on that website as of May 1st, 2025, when I was on there last. So 39 ways to die. And you're going to guess that some of these are more popular than others. Popular. Some of these are more popular ways to go. What's a better word? More frequently occurring. Yes. Oh. A pie chart. This is a pie chart. Now, I did not label the data on purpose.

15:08 Okay. So I can guess? Yes. Based on the 39 entries. You want to see them again? Yes, please. So we got a lot of purple, right? Yeah, it's almost 75%. Some brown, some green. Actually, no, that's probably a solid like 70%. Okay, so I'm going to show you the categories again. Okay. Let's read some of them while you're thinking. Okay, so accident ruptured a blood vessel. I bet that's pretty low. Accidentally shot. Fatally is important information. Yeah, accidentally, fatally. We've got burns. We've got, which is different from died in fire, died from coal stove fumes. I feel like that could, I don't know. That's like the modern day dying from carbon monoxide. Disappeared.

15:57 He disappeared dead. Like, we just assume dead. It's just awful again, but. Froze, killed in explosion, drowned by car ferry. Let's see. suicide that's probably a big one though not it's been not the biggest for sure killed in tsunami killed on duty civil civil war okay i'm gonna say okay what is this you have accidentally shot shot and murdered i didn't i'm telling you i didn't okay no you don't oh shot and killed by assistant keeper so all of these are very they're the same Just give me a, give me a guess. We can come back to these two. We'll talk about it. Okay.

16:38 I'm going to say, um, fell while painting tower. Okay. Is, uh, am I, so here's the data and here's the key where, uh, the colors are too drowned. Okay. Well that, that almost should have gone for the easy one. I was gonna say almost all of them. That's not true. A large majority, 65%. I can tell you roughly. Okay. Um, because I reanalyze the data. Oh, good Lord. So I put them into subcategories. The subcategories boil down to just these. So disappeared, drowned, equipment slash machinery, fall or fell, fire, which is, I guess, explosions too, physical and mental health, only four entries.

17:21 That's shocking. Good for them. Which that just means they retire before they're... Or suicide. Overdue. Yeah. Yeah. Violence, which I... I didn't put suicide and violence. Didn't think about that. Well, person on person violence. Violence was not that uncommon. 6%, 14 entries. And then weather. Why did I guess fall from? I think I've heard. You talked about a lot of falling deaths. Yes. And injuries. And the drowning, I felt it was too easy of an answer. But it makes the most sense because lots of lighthouses you had to row to get food. Yeah. From the market. You had to drop your kid off at school. Now, as an asterisk, I've got to insert the fact that these statistics also include light ship incidents. Oh, okay.

18:09 Which are not insignificant. So as we go back, I'm killing myself with these slides, but you're going to see light ship sunk in a hurricane, drowned is listed. And I actually don't remember the number of entries on that. Let's see if it's on this. We're not going to be able to find the color. Oh, it's the bottom. Yeah, I know. So one of the light purples. So it's in there somewhere. Maybe it's just one listing. One of those teeny slivers. But the point is there's all these descriptors were provided. I reorganized them and put them into these buckets. And again, I have the total of 220. So 1 % disappeared. 65 % drowned. 6 % died from machinery or equipment. 5 % fell to death. This is low. It's low. 2 % died in fire, which is surprising to me, too. That is, too.

19:01 Physical, mental health, 2%. Violence, 6%. Weather, 13%. Kind of nuts. You know, it's comforting that disappeared didn't end up just being one guy. Yeah, two guys. And I'm pretty sure there were two separate accounts. Yeah. I'm pretty sure they didn't disappear together. But you don't want to be the one singular statistic on anything. Yeah. So it's good. It's good. It's not alone. It is good that they're not alone. Oh my gosh. So yeah, these are the, I call this the refined results. And now I just started listing like, so we talked about some deaths, what caused them. These are just risks that I've thought of. I've just thought about some of the stories that we've heard. Think about standard rock where the boiler or something in the fuel storage basement exploded. One man died. Three men spent two days outside on a ledge waiting. It kept burning, by the way, the whole time. We've talked about violence. We've talked about murder mysteries.

20:11 Do you remember that one? I'm quizzing you now. That was the one in Scotland. I might actually have the... the note on that it was an island so standard rock we talked about um fire and lead so again i'm citing some articles now yeah but eddy stone lighthouse yes remember there was a fire in the tower and a keeper went out and tried to put it out he got lead in his mouth yeah his stomach that's one of these things that was cited um the perils of rest i could read all these articles if you have any questions they're like Paragraphs each, but the perils of rescue. Ida Lewis went out a rowboat to save people. That didn't go very well. Wild weather.

21:02 Talked about when three guys disappeared. Where was this one at? North coast of Scotland. Yeah. Eileen Moore. Lighthouse on the island of Eileen. E -I -L -E -A -N. No, that's not the one we covered. Well. It starts with an F. After stormy weather delayed his trip to the lighthouse for days, replacement keeper arrived at Eileen Moore by boat, only to find that three of the on -duty keepers, all of them, were gone. Only vague and scattered clues remained, a stopped clock, a knocked over chair, and one coat. It's the correct story, but it's not the lighthouse. They don't say the lighthouse name in this article. It's kind of weird. Oh, that's what I thought. Well, we'll come back to it. Toxic mercury. We just talked about mercury floats in a recent episode.

21:54 Yes, we did. That is a definite health risk. Extreme isolation. This one we'll have to come back to because it's pretty wild. I read the whole story. But so we watched The Lighthouse, the movie with Gerald Butler. No, Robert Pattinson. Robert Pattinson and William Defoe. Yeah. Gerald Butler is not in it. But he is in a Lighthouse movie. The one about the story you just said. What is it called? Oh, I haven't seen that one yet. It starts with an F. Flannan Isle. Flannan Isle Mystery. Thank you for that. So those three guys just disappeared. No one ever found them. And the Keeper's Log said that they were going to go do something or they were in the middle of some action. Yeah. So maybe they all went outside at once. They got like taken off in a wave. Yeah. We don't know. Aliens. Aliens. So this one, extreme isolation. I don't think you've ever heard of this before. Clipperton Island?

22:51 Nope. I'm just going to read this. Clipperton. These are not my words. I read the whole story. This is a short version. Oh, okay. Lighthouses likely attracted some folks who had trouble fitting into society, but the keeper of Clipperton Island was an extreme case. The danger in this situation wasn't to the keeper, but to the people stuck on the tiny Pacific Island, a thousand kilometers off Mexico's southwest coast. Doesn't sound good. Since 1899, Clipperton Island had been supported of a guano mining colony. Ew. So I'm going to fast forward. Guano was bad bird shit. Yes. It was very valuable at one time. Mining. Yes. Collecting. Ew. Extremely valuable. Wars were fought over guano, by the way. It was a whole thing. Just keep that. Yeah. It's like, but you know, salt was really valuable at one time. And then pepper was huge. The silk trail. Those are spices. Those are not poop. Guano. was a fertilizer, and it was extremely important. Yeah, I needed some context there as to why people would value this.

23:53 So I'm just going to make my own summary because I read the story recently. So guano was mined there. The United States, Spain, and because this is almost 1900, by the way, not that long ago in lighthouse history, Spain and Mexico kind of got in a... about about this one island okay because it had a ton of bat traffic that was excuse me bird traffic and the guano was supposedly of high quality anyways it's actually not a great place to live so the people who did get there had trouble living there of course and then because of the trade war between the three countries and who claimed they had it's so funny britain couldn't even land on the island They failed to land, so they did a lap, and they yelled from the boat that we now own this island. It's like, put a flag on it, and then I'll believe you.

24:44 But there weren't that many people on it, and there was a lighthouse, and there was a guy, Victoriano Alvarez. Victoriano. I'll call him Vic. So Vic was the lighthouse keeper, kind of a weirdo, kind of a recluse. Okay. And through this trade war, ships just stopped coming to the island. Oh, no. So people started dying of vitamin deficiency. Oh, my gosh. Specifically, they had scurvy, the men. And the men, how did this happen? Four of them thought they saw a boat. So they got in a rowboat and went out to sea. And then they realized it was a hallucination.

25:25 So the guy who had directed them to do that was on the boat. He's like, let's go. We got to save ourselves. We got to get the attention to this ship. They got mad at him, overturned the boat, they all died. So that was four of the last like 12 men. That was fruitful. So the men died and there was one man left, Vic. Vic took all the guns and threw them into a lagoon except for one rifle. He kept that for himself. The story gets dark. There were several women on the island and he made them the slaves, if you will. Skip that. It's just, it's bad. This is a true story. Eventually, they killed him with a hammer. Okay.

26:09 They got away. They were rescued by a passerby boat. The United States was looking for submarines because it was World War I. What? Yes. How did they live there that long? It was like the, I forget the boat, the USS Yorktown or something. I'm sorry. That's not the point of this episode. Yeah. The point is. This guy terrorized these women on an island. Died by a hammer. And it was, well, what's the cause? Was he going crazy? Was he already crazy? Was the ice like, this is it. This is the last stand. What would you do if you knew you were going to die? Well, this guy showed his colors. Yeah. So they killed him. Eventually they were reunited for the most part with their family. I think they were from Mexico.

26:53 Huh. Those ladies. Well, not good. So that's the case of extreme isolation. Oh, I see. And then another article, just the Smalls lighthouse tragedy. One of the keepers died, and the other keeper put him in a coffin and put him outside because he didn't want him to be inside the lighthouse with him. And the coffin broke loose in his body. His arm was banging against the window. Ew, what? Like a horror film. That's a whole thing. Oh, terrible. This one's talking about another sailing competition was taking place off the coast of Ireland called the Fastnet Yacht Race. It's the tragedy of 1979, also recent. Highlighted the dangerous waters surrounding the tower and killed 15 sailors. Oh, no. So the lighthouse keeper went into action to try to help, but 15 people still died. Again, that's 1979. What does it mean? Everyone crashed? I don't know the details.

28:01 There's a link here, but I won't dive because I haven't read it. Eddie Stone we talked about. Great storm. Died by lead consumption. One of these people, I just thought it was funny. I get to the end and there's comments. They're all dudes. Some of the comments are, I need this job. How can I applying online for this job? I want job in lighthouse. Oh my gosh. I'm ready for the lighthouse keeper job. So how to apply? They've got to be bots. This is, so this is the internet. This is where we're at. Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, I've gotten us a little off track, but you know, I don't have a lot more.

28:45 I was just talking about some of the risks of being out there historically. And it's a little silly, but the risks of today. I keep thinking about, I'm trying to put together a presentation eventually to give to a group in Boise, where we're going to talk about probably lighthouse tourism, I think is going to be the main focus. But we'll also talk about our podcast. We'll probably play this clip from our episode talking about talking about it. That'll be fun. Oh, good. And however silly this is, I've had two professional jobs now, and both of them, safety is first. So one of the things to talk about. With lighthouse tourism in general is being safe yourself as a tourist and like your risks are so low compared to looking at historical lists of things. Of course. Keepers had to do. Yeah. But just as a tourist. Be aware of things like your own abilities.

29:41 Yeah. A lot of the folks are young and old and fit and not fit. And the infrastructure itself is also aging. So there are professionals. at most places, who are looking after these lighthouses if they're going to give you tours or tell you what's safe or not safe. But not everywhere. For example, we went to a lighthouse, which will remain unnamed, where we could have just walked in. There was no one there. And it was not in good shape. And we could have gone up what was a set of stairs. I already blasted it on the USLHS. Anyways, I'm 250 pounds. And, you know, if you and I are standing on the same stair all of a sudden because, oh, look at the view out this window. Oh, let's get a picture. Like, we don't know. That thing was corroded. Yeah, we don't know how many, like, connections to the walls were even still stable. So the point is, clearly people go up. I'm sure it's fine most of the time. But you don't want to be that person who is. Oh, how'd you break your leg backwards?

30:48 Oh. Oh, gross. You tried to take a picture in a place that said keep out. Yeah, you went in somewhere that was Mark's private property. Yeah, don't go in there. You're not Indiana Jones. So I'm getting off track. There is safety concerns today. If you go to a place that's well kept, that's giving tours, it's going to be safe. No worries. They're doing all the work, and that's a lot of the modern day work in Lighthouse and historical sites. is that they have to keep up with modern standards, even though it's a historical building or structure. That is very difficult to do. So some credit there, but dehydration, climbing 200 plus steps, slips, trips, and falls, weather. Oh, like there were, oh, maybe this was, this applies to lots of lighthouses. And I was trying to remember if this was, the lighthouse I climbed with Carly or with you, but they warn you multiple times to watch your head because you're climbing upwards through a tiny hole.

31:53 And if you don't hug the ladder closely, then you are in serious danger of hitting your head. If you hit it too hard, you fall off the ladder. So it's a double whammy. Whammy. Double whammy. All in suit. I know you took a picture of me at Cape Cod. I don't know if it was Highland Light or if it was. It was Highland Light and. Martha's Vineyard. Edgar Town. Yeah. But that's on Martha's Vineyard, right? Oh, yes. Yeah. So I'm like crawling through this thing. Now, I'll insert here. Yes. I am kind of a bigger person. Okay. Of course. But I also exercise, stretch. I do all sorts of activities. You're prepared for movement. And I'm not that old yet. Oh, my gosh. Some people would be so angry hearing you say that. Well, it's supposed to be a joke. I'm pretty young for our listener base. You're pretty young in general. Yeah, I suppose. Could die any moment. Count your blessings. Yeah, I'm almost 30. But anyways, I'm still in pretty good shape to get around and see lighthouses. So I'm very fortunate. But if you were not. You could get up the stairs. You could probably get up the ladder, but getting through the opening would be uncomfortable. It would be difficult. Especially if you were overweight. Especially if you were real elderly. It would be a challenge. I don't want to discourage people from going, but honestly, if that's the motivation you need to get stretching, get working out, you should do it before you go and you really want to see the top of the lighthouse. Poor Emily. I'm looking like I'm

33:25 pointing at her. For everyone who's not here. Am I weak? She broke her... foot. You broke your ankle. The bone that connects the foot to the ankle on the outside. Right before we went on our first trip. Two weeks. Which was to the biggest lighthouses in the world. The Outer Banks. Some of the tallest. And we did not get to climb any of them for that reason. You should have gone anyway. Nah. Emily was on a little scooter. And we've told those stories before too. And she... She got to see things. We got to meet people. We got to go to great restaurants and go to the beach even. We carried the scooter out there.

34:05 But it was not ideal. You were the only reason that trip was successful at all because if I went there by myself or with somebody like my sister, she can't carry me. There were some times where I needed some serious assistance. It's hard getting around when you only have one leg. Yeah, I'm good at that. But Emily did drive the golf cart. Yeah, it was an important job. Played nine holes at Nags Head Golf Links. But I was telling my mom recently that I hardly remember that I was on a scooter because you made the trip so fun anyway. That's great. That like my memory, I have to like be like, oh, that's right.

34:49 I was on a scooter. It's not like the trip was, it was still great success. Great success. So. That's really powerful, though, because who are we as 20 -somethings to say, well, everybody should go. Yeah, absolutely. It's so much fun. But a lot of people, they're just not lucky or they've been through things and they can't climb a lighthouse. Well, we've actually done that trip. And you can still have a great time. Obviously, life is more fun when you have more opportunities. For sure. People can't control everything. So that's going to go into safety, travel. And it kind of helps me to build the picture of who we're talking to. It's not like everybody's old and decrepit. That's not what I'm saying. It's just like life happens and sometimes you can't do everything. So slips, going back to my, my total list of like threats I could think of for lighthouse keepers. Yeah. Slips, trips and falls.

35:50 High temperature, high pressure equipment. Yeah. war and violence repetition yeah ergonomically yeah they're gonna get arthritis also with repetition that you get really comfortable doing things you're familiar with that you get like loose with your too confident yes like with your safety stuff so um fatigue think about that you're sick oh too bad too bad go to work Constant work required. There's no like, well, we keep the light on and that's the job. Yeah, just make sure it's on every once in a while. That's modern day. Yeah, there's constant work. Also, I didn't put it on here. I put dehydration, but like water quality.

36:34 Like most of the water was collected in cisterns from rain. Yeah. And sometimes it had other stuff in it. We've heard several of those stories. Yeah. Poisoning and oils. Yeah, one of my last episodes I talked about. Lead paint being the lining of the cistern. So naturally. Yeah, not ideal. Yeah. So there's just been like lots of dark history of lighthouses. This is a generic image that I've had saved for a long time in our stock images. That's what this reminds me of. We should do another. This is AI too. Can we have some real photos around here? This was a stock image I got a long time ago. Look how tall. The lighthouse, the lightning rod is. It's ready to be struck. That's like 15 feet tall.

37:27 We need to do another spooky episode. Yeah, probably around Halloween. There's lots of lighthouses that are known for their spookiness and they love to play on that. Inside joke. Only long -term listeners would get it. Someday you'll get it. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Like again, you can see how this is hard to put together because I don't want to make fun of people's death or injury. Like there's so many stories and I don't want to just pick a couple because then I'd miss other ones that are so important that were so impactful. So one thing I did learn as a fun fact, I don't know this to be true, but do you recall, I brought it up earlier and this reminded me a little bit of this. Standard Rock. We talked about how there was an explosion.

38:19 Yes. There's four men out there. The middle of the night, I think it was, there was an explosion that originated from the lower level of the lighthouse. A separate oil house. It's not separate because Standard Rock is on its standalone concrete crib. And inside, there's only one structure. Inside in the basement was the fuel storage, boiler. And other machinery. Did you confirm? I read that recently, yes. Okay. But there's no other structure, which is part of the importance of the accident that happened there. Because it's the middle of the night. No one to today still knows what actually caused the explosion. Yes, we do. I read this yesterday. I did the episode.

39:04 What's the answer? That he put down his lantern. You're thinking of a different explosion. You're thinking of San Francisco. There's an Airbnb there now. Was that that place? Yep. Okay, that's probably why I have this whole imagery of what's happening in my head. East Brother. East Brother Light Station had an explosion as well. It was the boathouse was gone. Yes, it was leaking fuel. But yes, he put down his lantern and then knocked it over, right, as he was handling fuel. And so there was, in the middle of the night also, massive explosion. Not good. But it was separate from the lighthouse because the lighthouse survived.

39:46 Yeah. The boathouse, if I remember right, and the fuel storage were all gone. And that person died. But Standard Rock, which is Lake Michigan, Lake Superior. Lake Michigan? Lake Superior. Yeah. Great Lakes. North of Michigan. People are like, north of Michigan? I'm like, no, this is right. And you're like, Lake Michigan. Hold me. Hold me. Hold on. Standard Rock. Do you remember that explosion and that story? No. Apparently, zero percent. I remember them. I remember that somebody died. I remember that they all had to huddle outside because the tower was filled with smoke for the entire time. That's what I got.

40:33 So there was four people in the building. And it's just like the image on screen. It's got a concrete crib. that the tower is on, but there's only a couple feet of ledge and then that's it. There's no island. There's nothing else around because it's on a, it's on a, I think a coral. Yeah. A reef. Yeah. That's a high point, which is why the lighthouse is there. So boats don't hit it. Right. That lighthouse is still there. We talked about it on several episodes. We did some interviews on it as well. So standard rock had an explosion. The origin of that explosion is still unknown. It could have been human air, similar to. East Brother Light with the lantern, with our buff guy we saw earlier. Oh, God. Or it could have been equipment failure, could have been a leak. Interesting topic. We all know that it's a dangerous job, and there's lots of different facets that could kill you. They could. They have. Yeah. Unfortunately. 39 different ways.

41:33 Yeah. I want to see that list again. I'm really interested in this. killed in an Indian raid, hit in the head by a derrick. So I think that's a rotate, like one of these things goes up and down and like pumps, like an oil derrick is one of those. Oh, I thought that was like when they are bringing stuff up from a boat, like on a barge, not a barge. Machine Googled someone named Derrick. Oh yeah, Derrick, that's the name. It's a hoisting apparatus. You're right. Excellent. Framework used in oil drilling. And other things. There could be several Derricks that it's referring to. One of them could be a man hit in the head by Derrick. Yeah. A type of crane that is used as a mast to boom and a hoisting mechanism to lift and move heavy objects. So, you know, those arms that we see. Yeah. Usually for boat use.

42:28 You didn't listen to my joke. I did. I did. That one deserved something. Froze to death. Fell from lighthouse. Fell from scaffolding. Killed in hurricane versus killed in tsunami. I don't know the difference. What do you mean you don't know the difference? I've forgotten. One big wave air. Why use more words when less words do? That's all I had. Fell from cargo net. Electric shock. This is what they show you. They're like, are you sure you want to be a lighthouse keeper? Job description. Okay. Thank you for indulging me. Of course. And thank you for three years of Lighthouse. Woo! Pretty good. We are awesome.

43:15 If I could ask our listeners for one thing, it would be to go to our YouTube and to like or subscribe. I would note, I have never in three years asked for this. So this would mean a lot to me. Like and subscribe. I mean, both would be great, but just anything would be awesome. Yeah, some interaction of some kind. Because I do a lot of YouTube work and I don't know. I just want to make sure people want it. That's all. Yeah. And leave us a review on our website. Yeah. Because we only have three. And it's been a long time. They're all positive, though. Yeah. Five -star reviews. But it's been a long time since our last one, so. I know we're Jones in for some reviews. You can leave a review. You can leave a voicemail for us if you want, or send us an email or a message, anything you want us to talk about. Um, any stories you have. Yeah, we do have a nice lineup of listener lighthouses.

44:05 Nice. Um, double L. So we haven't forgotten anyone who sends us a message. We get it. We've got a note in there and I have a system. It's just that I can't do a listener lighthouse every time. It's gotta be like a special occasion. all right. Well, thank you for listening. We will see you next time on the lighthouse.