Based on Roland's suggestion about starting a topic telling our interests and a little bit about ourselves, I will start it off. I had prepared this history about myself for a past HLs newsletter so there is no sense in recreating the same subject.

I was born in Plainfield, NJ and moved to Pennsylvania when I was 5 years old. I grew up 15 miles outside of Erie, PA in the small town of Girard with a population of 1500 people. I lived less then 2 miles from Lake Erie so being close to water probably helped shape my life. We used to swim right in front of Presque Isle Lighthouse on Sunday afternoons but somehow lighthouses never were an interest to me then. I graduated high school in 1961 and a year later enlisted in the Navy.

I enlisted in the Navy in May of 1962 and went to Great Lakes, IL for boot camp. After boot camp I stayed at Great Lakes and attended a year of electronics training. After spending a winter at Great Lakes in the old WWII "H" style wooden barracks and waking up in the morning with sifting snow on my blanket(bed was next to a drafty window) I decided if I had a chance after school that I wanted to be stationed in the south.

I got my wish and received orders to NAS Jacksonville, FL in the spring of 1963. I met Amy in Jacksonville, got married in the fall of 1964, our son Scott was born there in June of 1966 and we stayed there until my enlistment was up in Nov of 1966(4 1/2 year enlistment thanks to a 6 month involuntary Viet Nam extension).

In November of 1966 we moved to Erie, PA and I got a job as an Electronics Technician at a local manufacturing plant in Erie. We used to take rides on Sunday to the Presque Isle and Erie Land Lighthouses. We decided to go back into the service because we both liked the service life and the travel. I joined the Coast Guard in April 1967 because of it being a smaller and more personal service.

The Coast Guard gave me my choice of duty stations and I chose Mayport, FL. During the 5 months that I was stationed in Mayport I got to work on the electronics equipment inside Saint Simons, Mayport(new) and Cape Canaveral Lighthouses. I got to climb them, enjoyed the view and started to appreciate lighthouses. My daughter Kellee was born in July of 1967 and I received orders for Viet Nam in August 1967.

I left for Viet Nam on board the USCGC Androscoggin, a 255' High Endurance Cutter in September of 1967 from USCG Base Miami Beach, FL. We spent a year away from home and returned to Miami Beach in October 1968. I saw many places that I would not normally have seen like Panama Canal Zone, Honolulu, Subic Bay, Philippines, Hong Kong(1 month during Chinese New Year), Bangkok, Thailand, Singapore, Japan and many off-shore areas of Viet Nam.

Upon return from Viet Nam in October 1968 I was stationed at both USCG Base Miami Beach and the Coast Guard's 7th District Office until January 1971. We visited Cape Florida and Key West Lighthouses and I worked on Fowey Rock Lighthouse.

In January 1971 I received orders to the USCGC Ingham. a 327' High Endurance Cutter that was homeported in Berkley, VA across from Portsmouth, VA. The ship pulled International Ice Patrols referred to in the Coast Guard as Ocean Station Patrols for 45-60 days at a time. These patrols were established after the Titantic sinking. Our main job was to report ice bergs and provide navigation for airplanes crossing the Atlantic. The airline pilots were so thankful for us providing location positions for them that they took personal messages from individuals and mailed a post card to our wives when they landed. Amy could not figure out, when she got that first postcard, how a postcard signed by me and postmarked Miami, could happen when I was in the North Atlantic in the middle of the ocean. I explained when I got home how this happened. Amy got many post cards from places in Europe and the United States with a message from me written on them thanks to these grateful pilots. Ham radio operators were also instumental in patching calls from our shipboard Ham Station to our families at home. These patrols were mostly boring because you stayed in a 100 square mile grid and mostly drifted during this patrol period. I was able to see Halifax, Nova Scotia, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Bermuda, Bahamas and Jamaica. We also visited Old Point Comfort, Cape Henry and Cape Charles Lighthouses.

In May 1973 I received orders to the USCG Lifesaving Station in New Smyrna Beach, FL. At this time the actual beacon for Ponce De Leon Lighthouse was located across the inlet on the Coast Guard Station while Ponce De Leon was decommissioned. The electronics was still located in the lighthouse and during my tour of duty at New Smyrna Beach I got to work on the electronics at Ponce De Leon, Cape Canaveral and Jupiter Lighthouses. I also worked on 30', 40', 44', 82' and 95' Coast Guard vessels repairing the electronics.

I received orders to an isolated LORAN "A" Station in Yakatat, AK in January 1976 and stayed there a year. The fishing, hunting and scenery was great.

In January 1977 I received orders to the USCG Oceanographic Units located in Washington, DC. By this time I had been a Chief Petty Office(E7) since 1971 and during my duty at the Oceanographic Unit I made Chief Warrant Officer(W2) and was transferred to USCG Headquarters in October 1978. I was responsible for buying the electronics replacement equipment for 255', 310' and 327 High Endurance Cutters, Polar Class, Wind Class and Mackinaw Ice Breakers, all Buoy Tenders and small boats and my favorite the USCG Barque Eagle. I have a piece of the original teak decking from the Eagle with bicentennial coins on each side of the wood. It was a gift from the Commanding Officer of the Eagle when the Eagle underwent a massive electronics update at the Coast Guard Yards in Curtis Bay MD in the early 80's. I retired from the Coast Guard in May 1985 as a Chief Warrant Office(W3).

We moved to Ocala, FL in June 1985 where I got a job with a large defense contractor as a Production Operations Supervisor. I retired from my second career 20 years later in 2005.

In June of 1994 Amy bought me my first Harbour Lights, Ponce De Leon Lighthouse, and the rest is history. I started buying all the lighthouses I had worked on, then it was all the lighthouse we had seen or visited, then it was the lighthouses on Lake Erie, then all the Great Lakes lighthouse, and finally ALL Harbour Lights Lighthouses. After trading 12 extra lighthouses to get the final lighthouse(Coquille) to complete my collection, and being on autoship so that I could continue buying them all, I needed a new challenge. I started buying variations such as "green water" pieces, lightning rod pieces, color variation pieces, etc. I also collect the lens and Anchor Bay Ships and have ALL my Anchor Bays under glass cases. I must have everything looking the same so when the glass cases were discontinued I bought extra Anchor Bays so that I would have the wooden bases. I then made my own glass covers to be placed on the bases and had brass plates made up with the ships name. I have 7 full size and 2 smaller curio cabinets full of Harbour Lights(I display them all). I have no more room for additional curios but through compacted display I feel that I can continue to collect for another 3 years before I run out of room. There will be no option then. I will have to stop collecting as Amy said there will be no additions added to the house for additional curios. I am an avid collector of THINGS including lighthouse stamps, Hallmark train ornaments, autographed footballs and helmets and of course lighthouses. We continue to visit lighthouses as time permits and have visited Cape Hatteras, Bodie Island, Currituck, St Augustine and Amelia Island. Amy's back problem limits our travelling to lighthouses and attending reunions so the collecting of Harbour Lights has been a substitute for seeing the real thing.

Rich, that's a LLLONNNGGG tough act to follow, but here goes!
I was born in New Bedford, MA, once the "Whaling Capital of the World" and still has one of the largest fishing fleets in the world. The city has a very long maritime history, and although I never really gravitated toward anything "maritime", it still had somewhat of an influence on me as I am a very interested history "buff", if you will. Especially American history.
My adult life has been spent managing food service and retail operations, and it was while running a local convenience store chain store in 1984 that an opening popped up on Cape Cod and I jumped at the chance to relocate here, about an hour's drive, or so from New Bedford, (of course, having my future wife Karen living on Cape Cod didn't hurt the decision either! )
Karen and her two kids from a previous marriage moved in with me, (we eventually married in 2000, wanted to be sure we were right for each other!), and in 2003, I started my first on-line business called The Cape Cod Vacationer.com. The Cape Cod Vacationer was a monthly subscription newsletter which reviewed Cape Cod restaurants, lodgings, golf courses, attractions, beaches,and anything else tourists on Cape Cod would frequent. Karen and I would actually go to the attractions and beaches, stay at the hotels, eat at the restaurants, (her favorite part), and although neither of us are golfers, I would enlist friends who were members of Cape Cod golf courses to give me a hole-by-hole description of his/her course. We accepted no advertising, did everything incognito, as if we were just your average every day tourist, then I'd write an honest review about the subject, good or bad. We marketed the newsletter as that, an honest, unbiased, no pleasing advertisers because they were paying us money, publication. Sounds like any tourist would jump at the opportunity, right?
For $24.95 a year, you could get a six page newsletter which would review anywhere from 6-12 businesses on the Cape each month, (at least one hotel/motel/B&B), two restaurants, and any number of attractions, gift shops, etc.). There was then and remains today nothing like this on Cape Cod. Needless to say, we just couldn't get enough subscriptions to cover the cost of the newsletter.
In order to subsidise the cost, we added a little "gift shop" to the website. We had our own Cape Cod mugs and t-shirts done up, and added some local Cape Cod foodstuffs, jams and jellies, and the like. As time went on, we discovered that we were bringing in more income from the little gift shop than we were from the newsletter. I came to the ultimate conclusion that great ideas just don't work sometimes, while tried and true methods do, and we discontinued the newsletter. That little "gift shop", however, expanded greatly and got its own website called The Cape Cod Store.com. One of the very first lines we added to the new and improved retail site was Scaasis lighthouses.
Because of my early days in New Bedford, as well as living on Cape Cod, it is hard not to have at least a passing interest in lighthouses. I was always intrigued by them, but never really thought about them very much. The website was growing, especially anything lighthouse related, and one night while I was lying in bed, (it seems that's where and when I get most of my ideas), I came up with the concept of the Lighthouse Encyclopedia. That is absolutely when my real love for lighthouses was born.
As I stated before, I have a real love for history, and when I started researching lighthouses for the Encyclopedia, I realized what a rich and glorious, (and sometimes unglorious), history these treasures really have. The more I researched, the more I became hooked. I started visiting the local lighthouses in a new light.
I am always in search of new products and product lines to add to the website. In September of 2007, I knew that we had to have another line of lighthouse collectibles for the site. Scaasis has always been good for us, but they were retiring more and more of their lighthouses and we needed to find a line which would grow with us. We found Harbour Lights.
In November of 2007, just in time for the Christmas season, the entire Harbour Lights line was added to the website. First the LE's, then the LLOM's, then the GLOWS, then the Anchor Bays, all within about ten days. It was a large undertaking, especially at that time of year, but we had made a commitment to HL that we would be a full-service dealer. (We have since become a regional and Society Redemption center, as well as added all of the coffee mugs, ornaments, the collector's guide, etc.).
While adding the HL line to our website, I was perusing the HL website, trying to learn as much as possible about the line. I saw a link which said "Seahorses, what seahorses?", and couldn't help but be curious what that was all about. It led me to this forum, and I began to read the posts. Much of what I was reading was educating me about what HL's are all about. Feeling like I snuck in through a broken window in the basement, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be here. (Maybe some of the non-members who are reading this post feel that way too). To be on the safe side, I signed up to be a member of these forums and announced right away my true intentions of why I was here...a brand new dealer looking to learn as much as I could about the line from the people who probably knew it better than anyone, the collectors.
I was welcome with opened arms, (well, mostly after some of my posts), and I have learned much from the members here. As a thank you to all of you, I have tried to interject some perspective from the dealer's side of things, so that all of us can be better off. I've said this a number of times, but it bears repeating. There are three levels in this business, Harbour Lights (the supplier), dealers, and collectors. If all three don't work together, none of us thrives. Due to, in a large part, our association with Harbour Lights, we experienced phenominal growth throughout most of last year. We remain dedicated to this line. We have been able to add our good friend Dana Jacques as coordinator of our Lighthouse Club and Guess-the-Lighthouse contest, (a couple more of those late night ideas). Many of you have gotten to know her through those venues and we are very proud she's decided to join us. She's a great "kid"!
By the way, back to the personal stuff, Our kids are now 30 and 28. My daughter Jennifer, the oldest, just this week moved out on her own! Our son Josh is married to our fantastic daughter-in-law Kristina, and many of you know about our three-year-old granddaughter Madi, (short for Madison). Josh and Kristina are expecting another girl next month, as yet nameless, (Karen and I are "subtly" suggesting she be named Taylor), and of course, there's our almost 10-year old Min Pin- Whippet mix aptly named "Whippet", (imaginative, ain't it?)
Thanks for bearing with me through this post, but I think it's personal history worth mentioning and helps all of you know why I'm here and what drives me. Perhaps this will encourage you to post and tell us more about why you're here.

Boy you are both hard to follow but here goes.

I was born in Joplin, MO in 1959. Moved to Corona, CA just before I turned three. My family life is another long and difficult to understand story. But when I was three my mother gave up three of us for adoption. I went to live with some wonderful people who took guardianship of me. They raised me and as far as I was concerned they were my mom and dad. I have three sisters, a brother and two half sisters from my birth family and I was raised with two boys who were nine and eleven years older then me.
My husband Bill and I were married met and married in 1985. We have three children RaeAnn, Chris, and Justin. We moved to Tennessee in August of 1992. This is where our children have grown up. I am a bank teller and Bill is a Firefighter and is a constrution worker on his days off from the Fire Dept. We have both been members of our local Rescue Squad for 15 years, our children grewup around it and are active members also. RaeAnn lives in Missouri with her husband Randy and their son Austin. Chris and Cassie just got married this past August and Have Makayla, the two year old. Both work nights so that is why Bill and I have her so much. Cassie also has two other children Katrina and Jonathan but they live with their dad right now and we do not get to see them as often as we would like. Our youngest son Justin is an EMT. He is 21 and has had a few girlfriends but nothing real serious. He is enjoying being on his own.
I have always liked lighthouses but really got interested when I got older and of course after we moved from California.
We went to visit friends in Maine in July of 2003 and visited lighthouses on that trip. I had told my husband we were not going to Maine without seeing some lighthouses. That is the first time I saw the Harbour Lights lighthouses and the rest is history.
Bill likes car shows and races so we do a little of both when we take a trip.

Well...I was born in the Capital of the South, Richmond, Virginia, then moved to Virginia Beach at age 3 after my dad got a job offer that paid 25% more than he was making. A short time later my dad discovered the company was crooked and quit (without a job lined up). He did odd jobs for a couple months before getting full time work again. My parents had to refinance everything and it took years to recover, however, we never missed a meal (but it did keep me skinny for a long time).

While growing up in Virginia, I visited James Town, Williamsburg and lots of Civil War battlefields. My uncle in Fredericksburg, Virginia told me many things about Virginia History especially the Civil War. My grandfather on my mom's side was a dairy farmer. He was one of the nicest people I have every met. My grand mother was a great cook. Since I was a slow learner at the time, I did not realize I was suppose to have another set of grand parents. The reason is my dad's mom died in child birth and 3 years later his dad died from dental surgury (they could not stop the bleeding). His grand parents raised him (and did a good job).

We stayed in Virginia Beach until August of 1970 when my dad got a promotion which took us to Winter Park, Fl (one year before Walt Disney World opened). I was 12 years old. I saw Orlando before Disney changed most everything (some good, some bad). I was not too crazy about the rain, humidity and the bugs. The beach was OK but no better than the beaches in Virginia, although you can drive your car at Daytona Beach and New Symrna Beach. I was very surprised we got to go to Disney the first year it was opened.

While the rest of my growing up was in Winter Park (next to Orlando). I continued my Boy Scouts that I started in Virginia and made it to Eagle Scout with Bronze Palms (I was one of the surprised people).

Next I had this crazy idea that I could improve our elected government. So I went to college locally at the Florida Technological University (now University of Central Florida). I was surprised to graduate with a double major (Political Science and History). Since moving to Florida I had a paper route at age 12, worked for a pet shop at age 15 and then at a Credit Union at age 17. After graduation I tried being a manager trainee at Kenny's Shoe Store, but after a few months I went back to the Credit Union (I did learn a thing or two while there). I would end up working for the Credit Union for a total of 30 years with a one year break in the middle (before they threw me out the door...I think I made too much money).

At age 21 (while going to college) however, I ran for the Winter Park City Commission and lost. Headlines like student runs for office. So to prove I was serious I ran the next year too. I lost again. The average age of people in Winter Park was high and many of them had grand kids older than me, so it was a tuff sell and with a small war chest, I really never had a chance. But I could not still get that crazy idea out of my head, so a few years later I ran for State Representive against an incumbant that seemed to do very little and had his office outside the district. Well money problems again, so before I had to pay the filing fee to get on the ballot, I ask the local party guy, if I was the Party nominee could I at least get back my fee (It would have been borrowed money). He said they did not believe I had a chance and would not. So I withdrew. The guy I ran against was unopposed and campaigned for his party (helping his dim wit friend win). He did move the office inside the district (I know small victory). Now after this you would think I had enough, but NO I came back a few years later and ran for School Board. I came in 2nd out of 3 but still it was a loss. Oh well, at least I tried, which is more than most people can say.

Oh, did I mention that I met Susan in College and married her after I graduated (poor girl, she knew I was interested in politics but was not ready for all that). Believe it or not we are stilled married with 3 kids (one grown and on his own, one in High School and one in middle school). Steven, Ian and Brooke.

Some where in the early 1990's I had another crazy idea. Go back to college and earn at Master's in History. Now my grades had NOT been so good while earning my B.A. (in part because I was helping the Boy Scouts, Jaycees and ran for City Commission twice, not to mention towards the end studying Susan with more interest than the books). Well they said take a class or two and if you can make an A or B in those classes we may let you in. Well I did and they did. I had to burn the candle at both ends since I kept my day job. All went well until the theses. To make a really long story short, I really did not have a choice on the thesis advisor and she would never let me thesis go to committee for approval...it nearly killed me (especially since I was granted membership in Phi Alpha Theta). However, I met some good people and learned a lot, but in the end no Master's degree.

After the failed attempt, I ran for the Soil and Water Board and this time I was elected for four years (63% of the vote). I only missed one meeting. The draw back was not much power and it paid nothing (a true public servant).

So finally while in Daytona Beach for the weekend, we went to Ponce Inlet Lighthouse in 2002. I learned a few things that day about lighthouses. It was not my first visit to one, but the first one that had a gift shop and lots of information. When I got home I went on the internet and looked for some other lightouses to see and to my surprise there was a state organization for lighthouses...The Florida Lighthouse Association (FLA) and I decided to join (to the best of my memory no local lightouse groups had a website). We went to the quarterly meetings, where I began to learn about lighthouse preservation. I also learned about high quality, fine detail lighthouse models (Harbour Lights) and started to slowly collect a few (never enough money to collect a lot).

Since then my job changed (see above) and I now work for Mears driving buses (and Motor Coaches).

As far as Lighthouses, I helped Cape St. George Lighthouse group rebuild there lighthouse, which included chipping bricks, serving on the board of directors for two year, and helped get them publicity and raise a few dollars for them too (some of which helped for the matching requirements of grant money). I have served on committees and am currently the Executive Vice President of FLA. Then there is another crazy idea, helping the Florida Keys Reef Lights Foundation. Currently I am President. Hopefully this one turns out better than the crazy ideas above (then again, most everyone thought we were crazy to rebuilt Cape St. George Lighthouse until they saw the band wagon rolling down the hill and could not wait to get on).

That's all folks! (for now)

Almost forgot, I did help in several fund rasing projects some years ago for a statue for the Battle of the Bulge. It was built and can be seen downtown Orlando by Lake Eola.

I will try to post my story sometime tomarrow, if not then, by the end of the week.

It's now 2:15am and I'm going to bed!

I'm working on a draft to post here.

Do you want the long version or do you want the short version???

I like long versions.

Rich,
I don't suppose you have any pictures of Fowey Rocks when you worked on it? Let me know please.
Eric

No, back then a lighthouse was a lighthouse and all it meant was another day to do work.

Eric, I have one you may be able to use. E-mail me with how you'd like to use it, and I'll be happy to send it to you, (it's a copyrighted photo).

I was born in Appleton, Wisconsin. My father was a baker's apprentice at the time. When I turned 4, he found a bakery for rent in West Bend, Wi. We lived there for 4 years. My Dad decided it was getting to much like Milwaukee and didn't want us to grow up in that type of environment. Besides, we lived on Main Street and really had no place to play.
One summer, we went to Port Washington for a picnic and swimming in Lake Michigan. I saw the lighthouse at the end of the breakwater and was intrigued by it. My father said it was too "dangerous" to walk out there.
Shortly after that he bought a bakery in Winneconne. It was small and close to his family. The Wolf River runs through the middle of our village. It runs into Lake Winnebago.
I have lived here ever since except for two briefs periods when my husband was in the Army. I spent a short time in Missouri and 1 month in Alabama.
I grew up working in the bakery. Our home was a 4 bedroom apartment above it. The only thing that I did not do was to actually mix any of the doughs. My nickname in high school was Doughnut. We had a really laid back study hall where you could bring cookies or what not from home to share with the rest of the study hall. Of course I always brought doughnuts.....
Lighthouses did not resurface until our kids were gone from the nest. My husband had never gone on vacations when he was growing up or traveling to see different attractions...so I started him out slowly. Our first sightseeing tour was to Manitowoc to visit the Maritime Museum and submarine there.
I was awestruck with Lake Michigan and remembered the lighthouse that I had seen when I was little. So, I pleaded for a closer look.
He went down the road and turned into a marina. We sat in the car and looked at the boats and the water and this island in front of us. I noticed people coming a going around this island
...there was a side walk that disappeared around it. I wanted to check it out and see where it went and why so many people were coming and going. He tried to put me off with "we should get going" but it was only noon and I wanted to know what was over there!
I told him that we hadn't had an adventure since we were dating in high school and I gave him my best "puppy eyes".
Around that island was the Manitowoc Breakwater light. My first lighthouse as an adult! We were both curious and thought it was so cool to stand in front of it with the waves splashing up at us...and the view!
The rest as they say is "history"...we have been lighthousing ever since. He has always been fascinated with freighters...especially the "Fitz". I have come to learn alot about them and be awed by their size and that they have such a connection to lighthouses.
We try to combine the two...but he enjoys the lighthouses by themselves too.
I didn't discover Harbour Lights until we went to Sault Ste Marie and saw them in the many shops there. That led me to the Harbour Lights website to find a dealer.
Shortly after that I was looking for more information on different pieces and Harbour Lights directed me to the Collectors Forums.
I also enjoy baking, drawing & painting, gardening, birds,hunting, and racing. My husband has been racing for the past 17 years.
We have 3 children- 1 son and 2 daughters. They have given us one grandaughter and 4 grandsons. Our 3 youngest grandsons are lighthouse lovers and enjoy looking for the sea horse on each Hl.
They have already started with "What lighthouse are we going to this summer, Gram?"

Well, I guess as the youngest (known active) member of our forums, I have the shortest story. But I’ve packed a lot into it.

I came into this world at 9:33 AM on 28 January 1990, at a hospital in Summit, NJ. I’ve lived in the same house in central Jersey my entire life with my parents and younger brother. Our town is a bit “cosmopolitan-suburban,” but beneath the Starbucks-wielding highlighted women, it’s a nice place. I went to the local high school, and am currently in my freshman year at Fordham University.

My lighthousing started on 5 August 1999. My grandparents were celebrating their 45th anniversary and 70th birthdays at The Cloister in Sea Island, GA, and our entire family went there to celebrate for a few days. I was a hyper little 9-year-old, and pretty soon I’d driven everybody up the wall with my antics. In a last-ditch effort, my mom got the valet to bring us my aunt’s big white Suburban (which six of us had taken from Atlanta to Sea Island), and headed over to St. Simon’s Island to see the lighthouse.
I remember that day pretty well, considering it was a decade ago. I remember climbing the tower; touring the museum; walking around the grounds. I remember thinking that “second order Fresnel lens” meant the second one requested from the factory. But the most important part of this visit, like so many, was the gift shop.
There, I purchased a 1000-piece puzzle of about eighty American lighthouses. I was amazed. I’d be cognizant of the existence of other lighthouses, but I never thought there were that many. I set a goal: to visit all eighty of these lighthouses before I died.

A few weeks later, I went to my grandparents’ beach house in Spring Lake, NJ. We visited Navesink and Sandy Hook lights one day. Then we went to the Sea Girt Lighthouse one town away. Immediately, I fell in love with the building. The attached tower, exposed brick, and beautiful porch formed what became quickly my favourite lighthouse. Today, it’s my moniker across the lighthouse world, as well as a good part of the rest of the Internet.

From there, things skyrocketed. By the end of 1999, I’d visited all the Atlantic coast lights of New Jersey. In the summer of 2000, we visited the Outer Banks for the first time, and toured from Currituck to Ocracoke. Since then, I’ve spent about six months combined of my life on the gorgeous sandy strip of North Carolina.

The next years brought family lighthousing vacations. We did the first New Jersey Lighthouse Challenge in October 2000 – actually called “New Jersey Lighthouse 2000.” Easter 2001 took us to the main Chesapeake lights. In October 2002, my dad and I did the New Jersey challenge again in his BMW 2002tii.

On 23 December 2002, I joined these Collector Forums with my first post: a suggestion in the 2002 NJ Challenge wrap up thread for a group bus trip. I’d find it, but I have a self-conscious aversion to reading my own posts more than a few months old.

In June 2003, I joined the New Jersey Lighthouse Society, and attended my first meeting at Stony Point, NY. Many people in the lighthouse community still remember meeting me for the first time there, five years ago.

Then, things got serious. In August 2003, I did my first large-scale lighthouse trip, a 3-day, 44-light jaunt from Stamford, CT to Nobska, MA. I was hooked on “hardcore lighthousing” and fell in love with New England. In April 2004, I went with my dad along the Seaway Trail in New York for three days, an excursion of beautiful lights and rolling farmland. In November 2004, we finished off Massachusetts with a 2-day journey from Cape Cod to Cape Ann.

In 2004, we started a tradition of taking an annual “men’s gathering” sailing trip on my dad’s friend Moe’s 30 foot sailboat. Based out of the Hamptons, that first cruise took me to most of the lights of eastern Long Island Sound.

2004 was also the year I did my first event with the New England Lighthouse Lovers, the Hot Chocolate event in the Mystic, CT area. My mom and I had a ton of fun, freezing with other lighthouse enthusiasts. I grew to love group lighthousing, but I was limited to where my parents wanted to go, being but 14.

2005 took me to Block Island, 2006 to the lower latitudes of the Great Lakes on a return from a roadtrip to Colorado. I remember walking down Navy Pier to see Chicago Pierhead, my first pierhead light at Michigan City, and my first Michigan light at St. Joseph’s.

In 2007, I got two very important things. The first was my driver’s license, my passport to solo lighthousing. The second was my trusty 1993 Range Rover County LWB, “Spen.” Spen succeeded our first Land Rover, a 1994 Discovery, which carried me on most of my early lighthouse journeys. After being totaled by a tree branch in 2005, hopes for a future with me were lost. Instead, the Range Rover and I have gone many miles together the past few years in the pursuit of lighthouses, and though the paint is faded, the leather is a bit worn, and the electrics are funky, we always make it home and have a good time.

In 2007, I did my first overnight trip alone, the NELL fall meeting cruise up the Hudson. I decided to get a spot first and ask my parents later, namely when I needed their credit card to book my hotel. I immediately fell back into the NELL family, and I’ve gone to all but one meeting since.

I turned 18 in 2008, so to celebrate I went to Staten Island. (As a borough of New York, you can’t drive there until you’re 18.) And from there, the solo lighthousing took off. I did the Long Island Lighthouse Challenge in May, taking the Rover and I across all of “The Island” in one whirlwind 18-hour day. I then did a three-day trip to Cape Cod and the Islands, doing the Vineyard and Nantucket by bike to save ferry costs. In July and August, my mom, brother and I toured California, and I added a third coast to my record.

Odds and ends in the last few months have taken me to lights in Montreal and the Bahamas. No matter where I go, I seek out the lights. As of 24 February 2009, I’ve seen 225 lighthouses in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Mexico, and the Bahamas. And I’m not stopping.
In three weeks, I’m loading the Rangey back up and heading for a week in Maine. In all this lighthousing, I have not touched the “Holy Land.” And in May, I’m going to see lights in England and the Isle of Man before coming home on the Queen Mary 2.

From there? Who knows. Give me a map and a camera, and I’m off. I still have some of those eighty lights on that puzzle to see.

I can’t compare to most of you, but here’s a little about myself.

I am 52 years old and have lived in Mobile Alabama most of my life. I am the mother of two, my daughter “Lavada” is 33 and my son “Matthew” is 25. And I have 5 grandchildren (Tommy 15, Edward 7, Jarod 6, Lilly 5, and MaryAnn 3). I was born in Crestview, FL because my father worked construction as a welder and was working a job in the Crestview /Fort Walton area when I was born. We moved a lot in my first few years of life due to construction work. When I was 3 we moved to Houston Texas where we stayed until my parents divorced when I was 8. My mother and I came back to Mobile and lived with my Grandparents and my father stayed in Texas. So from then on I was raised as an only child by my Mother. Visiting with Daddy in TX during the summers. I do have a half-sister, who is 6 years older then I. But she too was raised by her mother as an only child. We hardly knew each other growing up, it is only in our adult years that we have become close. Yet still we see each other very little as we live 700 miles apart.

My first job was at Burger King at the age of 14. I lived 8 miles from my job and would ride my bicycle to work after school everyday. At 16 I was a waitress working full time 11pm - 7am in a 24 hr. restaurant and going to school during the day. With only a few hours to sleep after school and before work, I eventually quit school. I married my first husband at the age of 16 (2 months before my 17th birthday). And we moved to San Jose, California the next day. After a year and a half, at 18 and 6 months pregnant, I hitch hiked back to Mobile from California and filed for a divorce.

After my daughter was born I worked several odd jobs (food waitress, cocktail waitress, convenient store cashier, stock clerk, auto parts delivery driver, etc.) And eventually found myself in the position of Parts Warehouse Manager for a Truck Dealership.

All the while what I really wanted to do was drive those Big Rigs! Don’t ask me why I don’t know, but that had been my dream since I was a small child. At the age of 6 people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would always say that I was going to be a Truck Driver. Where this dream came from I don’t know, there where no truck drivers in the family and I had never been around them. But I knew that this is what I wanted to be. One of my favored places to go when I was a child was the Greyhound Bus Station, I could spend hours just sitting there smelling the diesel exhaust. I said “it smells like traveling and I want to go places“!

At 21 I started pursuing my dream. I went to every trucking company in the Mobile area asking for a job. But no-one would hire me. They all said the same thing, (1) Our insurance won’t cover you until you are 25 and (2) you have no experience. Finally one company told me that I should go to some of the Construction Companies and hire on to drive a Dump Truck. That they don’t have the 25 age requirement on their insurance and that they would be more willing to train me. That driving a Dump Truck would give me the experience in shifting (9 or 13 speed, same as the 18 wheelers) and hauling the heavy weight loads. Then when I turned 25, I could come back and they would be more willing to hire and train me, as I would have all the experience except for pulling the trailer. So that’s what I did…. I went to H.O. Weaver Construction Co. (Road Construction) and told them that I wanted to drive a Truck. That I knew that I could, even though I had never done so. I just had this gut felling that I could do it and that this is what I wanted to do for a living. I asked them to give me a chance to prove, not only to them, but to myself, that I was right. And they agreed to give me a try.

Now here’s the really cool part! Our agreement was that I would ride as a passenger for two weeks with one of their drivers and watch what the driver did. And that I would not be paid for this time. Then for the following two weeks I would drive and the teaching driver would ride with me as my passenger to tell me what to do and when. Again I would not be paid. So basically I would work for a month without pay while training. First day…… I rode with the other driver until noon, when the job foreman (not the same guy that hired me) came over to the truck and asked if I could drive. The lead driver said “We don’t know, she hasn’t been behind the wheel yet!” He said “I need another truck bad”, “put her behind the wheel and ya’ll make a round together, if she can handle it,… give her your truck and I’ll run you back to the shop to get another truck”. That afternoon I was assigned my own truck! And my pay started at 7 am that first morning! My gut felling was right, my first time behind the wheel I went thou all 13 gears without missing a stroke, it was as if I had been doing this all my life! Sure I had a few things to learn, like putting the PTO in gear to raise the bed of the truck to dump the load, always being on level ground to dump so as not to turn the truck over, how to pull out of the sand in the bottom of the pit. But these things too came easy to me.

So for the next 10 years, through 3 more bad marriages and a second child, I drove Dump Trucks. Than finally I had an opportunity to become a co-driver with an ex-brother-in-law who was a Over-the-road Driver, who knew his little brother would never support his child, and also knew that my life long dream was to Drive those big rigs. He called me up one day and said I need a co-driver, would you like the job? Well, of course I did! My mother kept my kids and I went on the road for the next 6 months. After that I drove local and regional for several companies, whatever I could and still be home for my children at night. After several years, I started my first real construction job. H.B. Zachary out of Texas was in town starting the construction of a new Exxon Gas Refinery just outside of Mobile and I hired on as Truck Driver to haul pipe, steel and other goods from their laydown yard to the workers in the field. That is where I met my husband Joe (he is a pipefitter).

Joe and I dated through the last half of the job (about a year), then he went over-seas to a job on Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands and we communicated by phone weekly. After 6 months he was due a two week R&R and asked me to spend his R&R with him in Hawaii. Well gee… what girl wouldn’t except a two week all expense paid trip to Hawaii? To make a long story short we were married in Kona, Hawaii on Valentines Day 1994. When the two weeks where over, he flew back to Kwajalein and I flew back to Mobile. And that is how our marriage has been for the last 15 years! Him in one place and me in another, with only short periods of time together. This arrangement has worked out well for us as we’re never together long enough to get tired of each other.

By the year 1999 Joe had me working construction with him as a pipefitters helper. And though construction pays a lot better than driving a truck, I would get White Line Fever and have to get back on the road again. So for the next 8 years I alternated construction and Truck Driving /Charter Bus (6 months or so here, then 6 months or so there). And for the last year and a half due to health reasons, I have just been a homebody (which is something that I never could have dreamed of before Joe came into my life).

In late 2000 we where working a 5 month construction job together in Wilmington, SC had a 4 day weekend and decided to drive up to Williamsburg, VA. Beings we had plenty of time we took the scenic route up the Outer Banks. Need I say… that’s when we fell in love with Lighthouses! My first lighthouse to climb was Currituck. Hatteras wasn’t open as it had just been moved and ground construction was still going on, but we did get to see it and walk the grounds. Since then… we have now seen well over 300 lighthouses and climbed as many of those as possible, including Hatteras.

Gee, Stephanie, that's just your average everyday Southern Belle life story!

Stephanie - What a totally fabulous story you have! I've know and talked to you many time but now I know the rest of the story and am really impressed. Great job!

And you know the funny thing is both my Father (32 years) and uncle (35 years) were professional truck drivers (short hauls to Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, etc. form my home in Girard, PA.)and were home everynight and I never had a desire to drive truck even though I could handle the rigs (worked for a year at a truck stop on I90 and after filling the rigs we had to move them and park them in a parking area). The hardest part is backing up a trailer and parking it between 2 other rigs. Funny the way life works out.

Here goes my story. I'll apologize for the spelling and grammar in advance!

I was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1962. Not far from the Statue of Liberty. A few blocks from my house we were able to see the construction of the World Trade Center. I remember seeing a crane on one tower and the other tower being much shorted. I spent my summers down in Toms River, not far from where I live now. We had a summer home on a lagoon. I was able to pilot a boat out on Barnegat Bay at a very young age.

My family moved fulltime to our Toms River home in 1971 due to the increase crime in Jersey City. I had a happy, but not too eventful childhood. Played just about every sport. Rooted for the New York Mets and Minnesota Vikings since the 1960’s.

As a young adult I worked as a carpenter while attending college. I got my degrees in Civil Engineering and Computer Science. I met my wife in 1986 and we got engaged on Christmas Eve 1988. Debbie and I married in June 1990. I remember a great family trip to Nova Scotia in 1988, I think this is where my intrigue with lighthouses started.

I worked for a few companies in their IT department, the most noteworthy was Micro Warehouse. Anyone used to get all those Mac Warehouse or Micro Warehouse catalogs? I made my way up to the Manager of International Software Development. Many great memories with traveling to the London, Paris, Frankfort, Sweden, and a few more lesser know cities. I did see some international lighthouses when possible.

With the changing of CIO’s at Micro, I was a casualty. But I did go back as a consultant for a few years when it became apparent I shouldn't have been let go in the first place. Definitely something that puts a smile on your face. I worked a little while longer as a consultant, but with the increasing amount of jobs going to India and China in the early 2000’s , the marker when flat.

I decided to rely back on an old skill, my knowledge of carpentry to start a business. SFJM contracting was born. It started off very well, a local lumberyard handed out my card, plus word of mouth of those who seen my house did wonders. The last couple years haven’t been good, I won’t get into that, we all know why.

A very close friend bought us our first lighthouse replica, a Lefton Barnegat. The large ones that light. At first I bought non Harbour Light replicas thinking the HL’s were too expensive, that is when I made a good income. Now I only buy Harbour Lights even though my income is almost zilch. Too much enjoyment to ever stop!

I’m hanging in there hoping the construction business starts to improve. I hope to continue buying HL’s as long as possible.