He automated the light in 1987. Wrote the code himself, tested it for six months, handed the harbor master a binder. The beam has not missed a single rotation since.

He still shows up at dusk. Signs the log. Makes coffee. Watches the water.

Somebody asked him once why he bothers. He said: the automation handles the light. I'm here for the other thing. Nobody asked what the other thing was. He didn't volunteer it.

In the margin of his logbook — beneath thirty-seven years of weather observations and vessel counts, in handwriting that has gotten smaller and more deliberate with each decade — he wrote a single note on a page that otherwise records an unremarkable Tuesday:

*The fee was always the part nobody thought to negotiate.*

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The logbook is still out there. The light still turns. He'll be back tomorrow.