Ooops!

Over the years, I've collected a number of ads, images, and memorabilia that make me chuckle. Unpacking my lighthouse mug collection recently, reminded me of the many errors I've seen. I think the urge to use a lighthouse image--any lighthouse image--is sometimes overwhelming, even if it is the wrong one. Take a look at some of these humorous mistakes.

There's no lighthouse in California that looks like this! The Cape Hatteras misplacement is rampant. So is the St. Augustine one. See for yourself in the next few images.

Neah Bay, Washington? There's not a red-striped lighthouse or a black striped one there. Just Cape Flattery Light, a white tower (that needs a serious cleaning and paint job these days).

Biloxi Lighthouse? Nope.

Is this lighthouse in Bermuda? Absolutely not.

A friend brought back this magnet for me from Puerto Rico. I haven't been there, but I'm 99.999999% sure there's no lighthouse in PR that looks like Portland Head Lighthouse.

Cape Cod has many pretty lighthouses, but none of them look like this. Assateague Lighthouse in Virginia looks like this one, and it's many miles from Cape Cod.

I've never seen a Maine lighthouse like this one, but then I guess this is kind of a metaphor. I lived in Maine in the early 1970s and never found shells like these on the beaches either. And while I'm grousing, it should be Portland Head Light, not Headlight. Headlights are on cars.

I'm still searching for a NYC area lighthouse that looks like this one. I think someone in the PR dept. clipped a drawing of England's Eddystone Light and pasted it into this collage.

I know this is a cartoon, and that the shark is the big draw. But there's no lighthouse with red spiral stripes on Martha's Vineyard, except perhaps on someone's lawn or a sign for a gift shop.

Westport, Washington has its own pretty lighthouse at Grays Harbor. There's no reason to appropriate Sequim's New Dungeness Lighthouse.

Check out the lovely and original Florida Keys handbag with Maine's Cape Neddick "Nubble" lighthouse on it...or maybe that's Nobska Light in Massachusetts.

And speaking of Maine....a pink and white lighthouse? Maine has so many beautiful lighthouses. You'd think the artist would have chosen an authentic image.

I'll close with this old postcard showing a life-line drill at Sandy Hook, New Jersey. I love it, except that the lighthouse on the left is not Sandy Hook Light. Who did the research for this postcard?

I have scads more of these lighthouse-in-error images. I'm still collecting, so if you have any, I'd love to see them. It's kind of fun to pontificate once in a while. We lighthouse aficionados don't usually do that, so I'll ask forgiveness.