Much has changed in the 150 years or so since the landscape
appeared so largely undisturbed in Frazier’s novel, and of the
many changes that we now experience daily one of the most
profound is the proliferation of night light. Though a great
deal of this is from new strip malls and parking lots, a lot of
it comes from 24-hour a day vapor lights that dot the hillsides
and valleys like the Brown Mountain lights gone bad. I have
wondered many times why people feel such a need for these
lights, particularly when I have been driving home late on a
winter night to my home in Cowee Valley. There is an expanse of
them in both directions on Highway 28, and since most of the
lights are from empty vacation homes, they could be serving no
other purpose but to assist burglars who would ordinarily be
fumbling with a flashlight. While these lights obviously are not
causing anyone direct harm, perhaps we should consider their
wasteful and ecological side effects. According to the
International Dark Sky Association (www.darks