A Fly in My Eye

Okay, okay, it's summer, and I'm feeding my lighthouse obsession before the monsoons and typhoons make that indulgence un-doable. And I had family visiting, so under the guise of Oregon Coast sight-seeing, I dragged said family down to Newport purportedly to see the aquarium.

I will confess that at five hours into the trip, after I had stopped at every vista imaginable, and taken photos of my granddaughter with a large and zaftic plaster-of-Paris mermaid somewhere in Lincoln City (she's a fool for mermaids), the troops were getting restless.

Only one more stop before the aquarium, I assured them: Yaquina Head Lighthouse. They know me well enough to realize I could not be deterred from a lighthouse mission, so they submitted gracefully to yet another side-trip.

I don't know what the hell was going on. Was there a some kind of tidal pull? A full moon? The place was literally swarming with tourists. Was the queen bee lighthouse sending out some kind of siren call to tourist drones? And it was a Tuesday, for chrissakes.

Anyway, we all trudged up to the lighthouse from the absolute furthest spot in the parking lot (the only spot I could get, right next to the crappers), wondering why all the people around the lighthouse were waving. Who were they waving to?

They weren't waving at anything. They were waving off flies. Hordes, masses and squadrons of black flies. The kids sensibly fled out of the fly zone. I was not as sensible. I wanted to go up into the lighthouse.

I got inside, and discovered to my dismay that the place was not only full of tourists, it was full of those same relentless goddam flies. The docent, hair awry and wearing some sort of Colonial-looking costume, was vainly trying to hang up something akin to mosquito netting over the front door. Leaving us trapped inside with some very aggressive flies.

She tugged wisps of hair back off her face, addressed those of us waiting to climb the stairs (yes, there was a line, of all things), and said, "Normally I would never let anyone touch the paint. But if you see a fly..." and she took a rolled up magazine and whomped the wall where about 10 of them had landed.

This was followed by an explanation of the insect invasion, which involved murres, and guano. It was something along the line of the murres not being there this time of year, and the flies feed on the guano, so they're just flying around looking for food ... and oh no, they don't bite humans.

Really? Then who the hell was that nibbling on my ankle? After the ankle-tasting, I was outta there. Enough already. I will go back again some other day, when the flies have their guano to snack on, and the tourists have all found someplace else to swarm.

Anyway, a comment on my Terrible Tilly post made me think about decommissioned lighthouses for sale. Most are located in notoriously desolate spots that might well prove to be depressing to live in; I remember one lighthouse back East where the USCG had to start manning it with two or more people to try to defuse the overwhelming feelings of isolation sole lighthouse keepers were experiencing.

But if anyone out there really really needs to own a lighthouse, check out the Lighthouse Program link on the U.S. General Services Administration website: GSA