I’ve been fascinated with the water tower since long before I was professionally associated with it.

After a late-afternoon storm, I’ve seen it as the only thing on the horizon lit by the setting sun, standing out in front of a sky of slate-grey clouds, and wished I’d had my camera.

At dawn, with the airplane beacon circling, it stands out like a clean, white thumb.

I usually like to take pictures of more natural things, but I’ve been photographing this base for almost ten years, capturing its decay and rebirth on film, and that water tower has been my constant landmark. The clean lines and industrial scale of the fittings are beautiful, as long as I don’t have to be the one to climb it and fix anything.

Now, it’s mine, at least by contract, and has been for a couple of years. I happen to be the only one on-call to attend to it at night for the next couple of weeks, and by god, if I want to go wander my grounds at night, I will.

So when I drove out to the Air Museum loaded up with camera and tripod only to find it closed, I kept on driving. The fog was rolling in and the moon was rising, and we were surrounded by a brightly lit but empty parking lot, thanks to the holiday. So there was no one there to look at me funny for setting up the camera pointing skyward and waiting until the beacon circled my way again.

The lights interacted with the fog to make what I’d call moondogs, if they were from the moon and not streetlamps, but they were beautiful just the same.

No, I’ve never climbed it, and I never will. I can see getting about ten feet off the ground and completely freezing up, and there’s no point to that. We just had divers climb it and clean it out from the inside this year, and I watched the video. That was good enough.

And for good measure, I stopped at the flag pole on the way out. It’s not lit half as spectacularly as the water tower, and the flag kept drifting in the wind, but I’m happy with the quality of the photo anyway. I’ve watched this landmark for the last ten years too.

Good night, folks, and have a Merry Christmas.