Chamberlain, Maine lies on the coast about halfway between Boothbay and Camden. When people ask what it's near, it's hard to think of anything most people have heard of.

My Grandparents, Herb and Esther Dorau, bought a cottage there in 1946. At that time it was a 15 hour drive up from Ridgewood, NJ where they lived - quite a trek.

Around 1956, they built a pool and then, a lighthouse next to it. Although the "official" reason was that it would be a changing room and diving platform, it's not hard to imagine less elaborate structures which would have done the trick.

I was born a couple years before it was done, but I don't ever remember there not being a lighthouse - it's as much a part of "going to Maine" as the house, the rocks or the cove.

When I was about ten, my grandfather build a series of multi-level benches with a built in obstacle course on the second level. Solemnly, he took my cousin Doug and I up the day he finished it and told us that if we could crawl through the maze he'd created, we could be the first members of the "Lighthouse Club".

Even at ten, I was almost too tall to make it, and my first trip was certainly my last. However in my heart I always knew I was a member of the Lighthouse Club.

My grandfather passed away when I was seventeen and he worked until the day he died. I didn't know him as well as I would have liked, but the two things I associate him with are "carpentry" and "puzzles".

With the latter in mind, you'll have to solve a puzzle to becone a member of the Lighthouse Club yourself. When you know the answer, sign in below to join us.

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