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The Lighthouse People

Twenty years, 700 lighthouses, no money in the bank. Life is good.

By JEFF KLINKENBERG
Published April 26, 2007

Alaska's Eldred Rock Lighthouse has an octagonal tower protruding from the center of an octagonal building with a sloping roof. First lit in 1905, it is still operated by the Coast Guard and is closed to the public.
	[Photo: Bob Shanklin ]

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Scott Keeler] A saltwater pond reflects the St. Marks Lighthouse, built in 1842, in what is now the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, near St. Marks in the Florida Panhandle. [Times photo: Jeff Klinkenberg] Sandra and Bob Shanklin give ranger Andy Edel their attention as he tells them the history of the St. Marks lighthouse near Tallahassee.

NEWPORT -- Bob Shanklin was born in Iowa, land of corn and goldfinches - a heaven on earth except for one, unhappy fact. You could look for years and never find a lighthouse in Iowa. Shanklin, 80, now lives in the Florida Panhandle. When he wants to explore a lighthouse, he can find one, no problem. The other day he and his wife, Sandra, 68, were visiting St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge near Tallahassee. A very fine lighthouse, built before the Civil War, waited for them on Apalachicola Bay. They were very happy to look at the old lighthouse, even though they had seen it many times. They never tire of lighthouses. They are enthralled by the history. On their honeymoon in 1987, they snapped a few pictures of the Portland Head Lighthouse in Maine for their scrapbook. It was like eating potato chips: They couldn't stop after one. That's how they became the famous "Lighthouse People."

In the past two decades, the Shanklins have photographed every lighthouse in the United States. When they began their mission, they thought there might be a couple of hundred lighthouses at most.

Being the Shanklins, they did not retire their cameras after they photographed Lighthouse No. 700, at Kelauea Kilauea Point in Hawaii, on Feb. 3, 1999. Instead, they began revisiting lighthouses to shoot interiors or document storm damage.

"Photographing lighthouses is an addiction with no known cure," Bob explains in a surprisingly pugnacious manner, his shaving-brush beard bristling and his dark eyes flashing.

"If we don't photograph them, who will?" adds tough-gal Sandra, who has crawled over boulders, through briar thickets and into mosquito-infested swamps to get close enough for a Kodak moment.

In their former lives, Sandra painted pretty landscapes. Bob was a commercial photographer who once took classes from Ansel Adams, famous for his black-and-white masterpieces of the Western wilderness. "He irritated me," says Bob, an old-school contrarian. "Adams said, 'There are two ways to make a picture: the Ansel Adams way and the wrong way.' I'm sorry, that kind of a talk doesn't sit well with me."

Sandra was divorced. Bob was a widower. They met at an art show. They talked about many things during their courtship, but lighthouses were not on their horizon.

Now they arrive at them in motor cars, pickup trucks, speedboats, lobster skiffs, seaplanes, helicopters and on foot, cameras clicking furiously.

"When I look at a lighthouse," Sandra explains, "I think 'national security.' A lighthouse makes me feel very good about our country."

"For me," Bob says, "lighthouses are all about history."

The Shanklins are celebrities in the lighthouse world, cult figures to hobbyists who read about lighthouses, visit lighthouses, photograph lighthouses. Bob and Sandra are frequently asked, "Aren't you the Lighthouse People?" by complete strangers at a site. They have been profiled in magazines and interviewed on television.

In 2003, a series of their lighthouse photographs turned up in Scary Movie 3.

"I have been going to the movies, I'd say, 75, 76, maybe 77 years," Bob grumbles as he drives his car toward the St. Marks Lighthouse. "Scary Movie 3 is the worst movie I have ever seen."

"At least they paid us," Sandra said.

Money matters to the Lighthouse People. Although they sell photos and books, and charge money for speeches at trade shows, they live by their wits.

"We're broke, basically," Sandra pipes up.

"We don't have financial security," Bob says without regret. "We had to make a decision: Count our pennies or do something we feel passionate about.

"We'll never be able to retire. We work until we have enough money to travel, and we travel until we have to go back to work."

In 2005, Sandra discovered a new means of funding their passion. Wendy's, Coca-Cola and Air-Tran had a promotion: Collect 64 soft drink cups and win a round-trip airline ticket.

"We drank a lot of Coke and ate a lot of hamburgers," Sandra says. "Then I became a Dumpster lady. There are lots of cups in Dumpsters. Some restaurants, they'd see me coming, and maybe they felt sorry, 'cause they'd say, 'Lady, here are some cups that fell on the floor. You want 'em?' And of course I did."

She collected 512 cups, enough for eight round-trip tickets destined for lighthouse expeditions.

Lately they have visited Coast Guard offices and maritime museums to scan old lighthouse photographs into their laptops. A magazine, Lighthouse Digest, helps fund them. But they also solicit donations on their Web site without apology.

"Lighthouse history is disappearing," Bob says. "A lot of records kept in New Orleans were wiped out during Hurricane Katrina. So were a couple of lighthouses."

Bob has no plans to retire, ever. During the past decade, he photographed 1,013 weddings, and thousands of babies, to raise travel money. "I never tell anyone to say 'cheese!' And I hate it when anyone tells me to say 'cheese.' I want to bash them between the eyes."

Unlike human subjects, lighthouses require no cheerleading.

- - -

If you want to see lighthouses, head for the Great Lakes. Michigan, with 115, has more lighthouses than any other state. Even Wisconsin counts 46. Florida boasts a respectable 29, including one of the Shanklins' favorites, near Key West. When they arrived by boat at Loggerhead Key, Wally, a Labrador retriever excited by visitors, greeted them at the dock. "Welcome to Wally's World," said the lighthouse keeper, who had raised Wally on the island.

The lighthouse at St. Marks is a two-hour drive from their home. It doesn't have a Wally, but it has another lighthouse enthusiast, Andy Edel. A refuge ranger and historian, Edel gives occasional lighthouse tours and dresses in a snow-white, 19th century lighthouse keeper uniform. "I have heard a lot about you," he tells the Shanklins. "It's an honor."

The lighthouse, Edel explains, was built in 1831 and rebuilt in 1842. It survived hurricanes, erosion and the Second Seminole War. It survived the Civil War and the 20th century.

Lighthouse keepers and their families, he continues, lived in an adjacent house, almost a fortress, with 4-foot concrete walls that failed to rebuff every danger. Lighthouse dwellers died of TB and drowned in storms. At least one was mortally wounded by an alligator.

"The lighthouse keeper's duty was keeping the lantern lit no matter what," Edel says. "Maintaining the lighthouse took precedence over everything, even the family."

In the 21st century, the lighthouse requires no staff. The light, no longer kept going by candlepower and whale oil, is electrified and automated.

The Shanklins are excited about getting a peek inside. They want a picture of its famous spiral staircase.

"There are 81 wood steps - wood steps are unusual," Edel says. A steel ladder with 12 rungs waits above. The ladder goes through a trapdoor into the lantern room 82 feet above the bay.

Bob takes his pictures from downstairs. He can't climb anymore. He wrecked his right knee years ago jumping off a lighthouse pier onto a boat bucking in the rough seas of the Pacific.

Despite her bum knee, injured when she stepped into a hole making a photograph, Sandra hobbles up the lighthouse stairs at St. Marks, stopping to catch her breath and pray that her leg muscles hold up.

Climbing Mount Everest and swimming with sharks is probably a more dangerous endeavor. But Lighthouse People can keep the conversation going with hair-raising tales of their own.

- - -

In 2005, Sandra crawled under the lighthouse at St. George Island near Apalachicola to make a photo. Sandra usually doesn't mind a little dirt or mud, but she was worried. Damaged by hurricanes, the lighthouse was leaning precariously. It didn't fall on her, but it fell a few months later.

If a pilot is willing to fly in foul weather, so are the Shanklins. They have traveled through the air in rain, sleet, snow and fog to get the money shot.

Bob is blessed with an iron stomach; Sandra suffers from mal de mer. On the airplane trip to photograph the Ship Shoal Lighthouse near the mouth of the Mississippi, Sandra kept the airsick bag on one knee, her Nikon on the other.

At least once, though, Sandra noticed that Bob was the pale one, as if he had seen a ghost.

He thought he had.

The Shanklins had received permission to spend the night in the nation's oldest lighthouse, Gurnet Light, built in Massachusetts in 1768. "I couldn't sleep," Bob says. "I was lying in bed, watching the light on the ceiling, when I saw something strange. It was a woman's face looming just above Sandra, who was asleep.

"The old woman had sad eyes and sunken cheeks. Her mouth twitched like she wanted to say something.

"I must have looked away just for a second, because when I turned back she was gone. I think it was the ghost of Hannah Thomas, who was lighthouse keeper for 60 years. I will never stop regretting that I didn't speak to that woman."

Bob, of course, would have refrained from advising Mrs. Thomas to say "cheese."

Jeff Klinkenberg can be reached at (727) 893-8727 or klink@sptimes.com.

FAST FACTS

Florida has 29 lighthouses, listed here geographically from the northeast corner of the state, around the Keys and up the west coast to the Panhandle.

East coast: Amelia Island, St. Johns River, Mayport, St. Augustine, Ponce Inlet, Cape Canaveral, Jupiter Inlet, Hillsboro Inlet, Cape Florida, Fowey Rocks

The Keys: Carysfort Reef, Alligator Reef, Sombrero Key, American Shoal, Sand Key, Key West

West coast: Fort Jefferson, Loggerhead Key, Sanibel Island, Boca Grande, Gasparilla Rear Range, Egmont Key, Anclote Key, Cedar Keys Light, St. Marks, above, Crooked River, Cape San Blas, St. Joseph Point, Pensacola

THE LIGHTHOUSE PEOPLE
To find out more about the Lighthouse People, their books and their fundraising activities, call (850) 862-4069 or go to www.thelighthousepeople.com.

[Last modified April 25, 2007, 21:06:28]