Lighthouses: They Rock

Have you ever stopped to think about what life would be like if there were no lighthouses in existence? No West Point Light Station at Discovery Park? No Admiralty Head Light? No Alki Point Light?

I didn’t think so, so here’s your chance to do so.

Done already? Well okay then. Your conclusion probably went along the lines of this: “I don’t want to think today. Also, you can’t tell me what to do.” Well if that’s the way it’s going to be, you leave me no choice but to straight up tell you what the world would be like if we didn’t have any lighthouses.

Imagine this. You are a captain of SS Blue Flamingo and are on a very important mission to deliver three tons of marijuana to the U.S. so that all the suffering cancer patients can toke up and forget they have cancer. Day turns to night, and you find yourself in the perilous waters of Dead Cows Corner. You can’t see a thing, so being a swarthy sea captain, you decide to trust your instincts. The only problem with this is that you are not a fish or a highly intelligent dolphin or anything like that, so your instincts basically suck when it comes to water.

You take a left because that’s what your late great grandfather is telling you to do. Sadly for you, it turns out that your great grandfather’s voice is actually just the sound of the wind blowing through the rocks, which are a lot closer than you think, and you slam full speed into the jagged black death of the Cliffs of Profanity.

How could this have been prevented you may ask? You ask such good questions… let’s turn to Acts 3:14 to find the answer.

Okay, so Acts 3:14 doesn’t say anything about it, but common sense tells us that if there were a very bright source of light rotating at about 38.4 RPM located on the coast of Dead Cows Corner, the Blue Flamingo would still be aloft delivering marijuana to suffering cancer patients. But now because there was no lighthouse, the Blue Flamingo crashed, and the marijuana was found and sold by the black market. Which—allow me to clarify—is a bad thing.

Furthermore, have you ever pondered the entertainment value of the lighthouse? Probably not, so I will tell you. Well, first off, bungee jumping. Yes, people actually do bungee jump off of lighthouses, or I think so anyway. And if they don’t then they should. Aside from bungee jumping, there’s also the television aspect. Where else would quality local television programs such as Evening Magazine get their cliché scenic pan shots, if not for lighthouses?

If there is no other point to lighthouses, they make really pretty pictures. Who hasn’t seen a picture of a lighthouse sitting with pride upon a high desolate rock? This may be hard to believe, but I have actually seen a whole calendar of pictures of lighthouses. The tall cylinders of a lighthouse gleaming in the bright sun or sitting peacefully under a full moon make a really great distraction to the scenery.

In short, or probably in long at this point, what I am getting at is that a lighthouse is a beautiful thing and should be taken very seriously. Lighthouses save not only human life, but more importantly, precious, precious cargo. Without lighthouses, our entire capitalistic society would likely crumble to pieces like yesterday’s split pea soup.