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 MOUNT DESERT ROCK -- In June 1928, Wilbur York was 2 and his sister Shirley 4 when they and their parents, George and Helen York, went to live on Mount Desert Rock. They stayed for eight years.
Mr. York remembers that time on the barren, windswept, wave-washed, storm-tossed rock- a ledge of 1 1/2 acres at high tide, 3 acres at low, 25 miles out from the mainland-as the most wonderful period in his life. This year, he was thrilled to accept an offer from Allied Whale, the Bar Harbor organization which now uses the lighthouse station to observe whales, to take him back out for a visit. He called Shirley, who lives in Arizona, and she also jumped at the chance.
"We had always said we were going to go back out there," Mr. York said recently, sitting in the kitchen of his small home in Surry, "we talked with Sean Todd, and he said he'd get us out there."
Mr. Todd, Allied Whale's director, was as good as his word, and the pair visited the rock in July, for the first time in the 64 years since their father retired from the United States Lighthouse Service. Allied Whale, a College of the Atlantic organization which maintains a contingent of researchers on the rock part of the year, took Mr. York out a couple more times over the summer. He hopes to visit again in September.
"I loved it," he said after his three-day August trip.
At 74, Mr. York is a wiry man with an easy smile. A bit absentminded, he refers frequently to a leather-clad, pocket notebook, where he jots down information he wants to remember. His small home seems confining and dark, for a man who fondly recalls his youth by the vast and wild sea. But one old photo shows two beautiful children sitting with their loving parents, all four squeezed in a cozy comer by the coal-fired stove and the radio. It makes you think perhaps small spaces are less confining than they are a protective and loving sanctuary from the harsh environment outside.
Mr. York's father, George, was lighthouse keeper for eight years, until November 1936. A Brooklin native, he had been working as a warden with the Sea and Shore Fisheries Service, something like today's Maine Marine Patrol. That was probably an advantageous career, since he was also likely a rum-runner, Mr. York says. The important thing, though, is that he loved being on and around the water. So when the chance came up for him to join the Lighthouse Service, he seized it.
The service was a venerable institution, established under George Washington and divided into 17 districts. The Maine and New Hampshire district was serviced by two tenders. Mr. York remembers one of these, the Ilex, bringing supplies for the keeper, his two assistants, and the station's general upkeep.
At the time, the houses and other structures, many of which are gone now or in disrepair, were in top shape. Built in 1847 (although Mr. York hadn't known that until his first visit this summer. The date plaque on the tower had been hidden by a covered walkway when he was a kid; the walkway is gone now), the lighthouse was joined by two houses, five sheds, a paint locker, oil house, bell tower and boathouse. The main house had a roofed porch with attractive lattice rails. A covered walkway led to the lighthouse and a nice boardwalk circled the house. Inside the lighthouse, the whitewashed walls were pristine, the copious brass always gleamed. Even the brass buttons on his dad's uniform glinted in the sun.
In fact, of all the keeper's arduous tasks-keeping the vapor lamps pumped, maintaining two transmitters, two generating motors, two fog signal engines, the dangerous annual whitewashing up the tower's 100-foot height, repairing storm damage-polishing brass was not an insignificant portion.
"You had to keep the brass clean so it wouldn't corrode," says Mr. York. "Someone would put a hand on it, and it'd have to be polished all over again."
 Mr. York collects lighthouse literature, and got a kick out of long lament on "the bane of a Light-keeper's life," written by a Lighthouse Service machinist, asking, What makes him look ghast!y consumptive and thin,/What robs him of health and vigor and vim - the tower lamp, reflector and shade, tools and accessories, oil containers, doorknobs, clockwork, fog-signal bell, coal hods, dustpans, well pump, even stars awarded for excellence were brass.
Mr. York's stepmother wasn't so thrilled about the life-they had just married -but she was game.
His father couldn't have been happier. He hated having to take his family back to the mainland three weeks every summer to visit relatives.
"Oh, yes, that was his life, out there," Mr. York says.
And it was young Wilbur's life; it was all he knew. Others might wonder what there is to do for two children living on a heap of granite. On the contrary, there was no time for boredom or loneliness. First off, the children's stepmother kept up a rigorous home schooling program - in their seats by 8 a.m., a 10 minute break at 10, "dinner" at noon, and out at 3:30 p.m., just like the mainland kids. Young Wilbur was a bit of a scamp.
"I had to stay after school an awful lot because I liked to look around a lot and didn't do my studying," he remembers.
Other times, they played tag and ran around on the rocks. A photograph shows the youngsters with their father, an assistant, and a young visitor playing baseball, ranged across a precarious ledge "field."
"Of course, it didn't take much to amuse me, because I didn't know any better," he says.
Sometimes, the children played with their toy boats in a small, fresh water pool. The fresh water would trickle up at the rate of glass every half-hour or so.
 "A workman came out one time and said he could blast it and we'd get all the fresh water we wanted. And he blasted it and that ended it. We never got another drop."
Evenings, the family relaxed in their cozy living room, listening to the radio or reading. His father enjoyed taking pictures, and developed the prints himself. He also kept busy fishing, salting down his catch to sell for $1.50 for 100 pounds and trapping lobster at 5 cents a pound.
Holidays weren't much of anything, although there were a few treats. A flying Santa buzzed the rock and dropped goodies for the kids. And Mr. York still has the patterned tin box that was full of Whitman's chocolates, a gift from the Sunbeam II on Christmas.
Then there were chores-things like lugging coal in for the cook-stove and helping dad polish all that brass. The Lighthouse Service's biannual inspection tour kept the family busy. A retired naval officer gave every cranny the white-glove test, while an erect George York stood by. A speck of dust meant cleaning everything again.
There was the excitement of the monthly supply runs. Just before winter set in, the family piled on extra - a couple of 50-pound sacks of flour, lard and peanut butter by the 25-pound tub, cases of canned milk. Mr. York's sister developed a taste for canned milk; to this day, she won't drink fresh.
When the fog was thick, someone would have to run up to the tower and ring the bell by hand. A big weight had to be cranked up by hand to make the light rotate. The world's longest telephone cable to a single phone had been run out to the island during World War I, but it wasn't until 1933 that a generator arrived. A coal stove kept the house plenty cozy, even when the bitter winter wind drove the surf up onto the house to freeze.
Storms were fearful. Everyone was called to the tower during a savage February 1933 storm, which washed the boardwalk away and blew the roofs off a couple of outbuildings; the surf surged halfway up the bell tower. An enormous boulder washed right up onto the porch; they had to break the railing to get it off. The supply boat couldn't get in, and the family and assistants were close to starvation.
"We run out of everything. Mother made biscuits, and we had molasses. The very last day before they come out, she run out of lard for the biscuits. And Harvard Beal come out with supplies, and boy, that was some good."
All this, the good and the frightening, made the family extremely close -brother and sister, especially. The two had a code of honor; they would never tell on each other. One time, one or another left the peanut butter pail on the steps, and dad ran out and tripped on it, cracking a couple of ribs.
"He came in and yelled, 'Shirley and Bill, who left that pail on the step?' But we wouldn't tell, so he said, 'OK, I'll give you both a licking and that way I'll be sure to get the right one.' And that's the way we always were."
In the end, the life became too much. His stepmother became pregnant with twins out on the desolate ledge, but lost the babies -he thinks they were stillborn-because she couldn't get back to the mainland for medical care. In 1936, she became pregnant again and also quite ill, and they decided to go ashore for good. On moving to Ellsworth, the parents went into the motel and dairy business, the two children enrolled in public school, and two more babies made their appearance. Mr. York went on to serve in the Navy, work with a fish processing firm, and drive a school bus for many years.
Today, his bad eyesight prevents him from doing the woodworking and some other things he's enjoyed over the years. But he can't wait to get back to his childhood haunt.
There's a twinkle in his eye.
"I told Allied Whale I'd just as soon go out this winter and keep thing going, if they want."
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