Of Lighthouses and Bells

We Pit Stop For A Loud, Steep Visit

Old Orchard Lighthouse Museum along Lake Ontario.

She looks straight up the “stairs” to the top of the lighthouse.

“Daddy, those aren’t stairs!”

“Nope,” the lighthouse steward tells her, “two ladders are what will take you up.”

“Think you can do it,” I ask.

She just smiles and begins to climb.

We’re inside Oak Orchard Lighthouse Museum, perched right on the junction of two waters, one great and one little - Lake Ontario and Old Orchard Creek. We’re tooling through North-Western NY, winding our way home, searching for shells, and snacks, and swans, and water; we’ve found all those things here - a tiny harbor in a tiny town with a tiny lighthouse.

And a bell, a bell up top that Little Bean desperately wants to ring. She climbs up, in flip-flops, rung by rung and I follow behind to catch her if she falls. I need not worry though, she fears heights no more than she fears bugs or water or trampolines.

At the first level, where the bunk for the lighthouse operator was located, we pause to catch our breath.

Technically, this lighthouse is only 14 years old. It is a historically accurate reproduction of the original lighthouse that stood sentinel here from 1870 to 1916, when a late December storm washed the building into the lake.

We finally make it up to the top and sure enough, a golden bell with a long rope pull awaits. She hesitates to ring it.

“Is mommy looking,” she asks.

I peek out the lighthouse window. My wife is sitting on a bench in the park below enjoying the garden.

“Hang on,” I say. I take out my phone and call her.

When she picks up, Little Bean shouts, “Listen mommy” and gives that bell such a ringing! The sound echoes off the harbor. Tourists all look up. The seagulls take flight!

“Oh my,” my wife says.

But Little Bean can’t hear her, over her peals of laughter, there in an old repo lighthouse by a great lake with the thunder of the harbor bells still ringing in our ears.

About to let loose with some bell music!

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