I just returned from my Michigan Upper Peninsula "Upventure," a trip you'll be hearing a lot about in this space. The U.P. has 23 lighthouses, and that got my mind wandering a bit--and with the news of Sen. Edward Kennedy's death, I remembered something about Teddy and lighthouses.
Lighthouses are wondrous things, but technological advancements years ago made manned lighthouses an anachronism.
By 1989, every lighthouse but one was automated--only Boston Light, on Little Brewster Island, had a United States Coast Guard staff.
Why?
Because Kennedy, a lighthouse enthusiast, wanted it that way.
He used his influence to squander taxpayer funds, not to mention wasting trained staff of the Coast Guard, just keep his reenactment show in place in Boston Harbor.
In spite of Kennedy, the lighthouse was automated in 1998, but the Coasties stayed on. Finally, in 2004, a civilian lighthouse keeper was appointed, and the Coast Guard staff was assigned more important tasks.
I wonder how many other taxpayer-funded extravagances Teddy foisted upon us over the last 46 years?
Oh, Boston Light, unless you have your own boat, is inaccessible to the hoi polloi. It's nine miles from the shore of the city.
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