Thirty years ago, when I was working for the Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Company in Cleveland, I suggested that the company buy a lighthouse to use as an employees' retreat. After all, the company's corporate logo was a lighthouse, and I couldn't imagine a more serene or inviting getaway. These structures represent a safe harbor, good deeds and selfless service to humanity. My boss didn't like the idea. He told me I was a crazy romantic. So I started looking for another job.

Many years later, with stops at Westinghouse Television, as president, and now at Thirteen/WNET New York, the flagship PBS station, I finally got my lighthouse. After dipping into my personal savings and securing a low-interest loan, I bought Henry Island in Nova Scotia at a reduced price from a family that knew I had to have the place. It is a 150-acre island with a beautiful 100-year-old, 65-foot-high wooden octagonal lighthouse and a lighthouse keeper's house. The lighthouse is still owned by the Canadian Coast Guard, but they let me take care of it. The rest of the place is our family retreat. Four miles off shore, I'm delivered by a fishing boat captained by Bertie Smith who grew up on a neighboring island.

On Henry Island, we may be missing a few amenities like the flush toilet, but nobody in the family minds, including my wife and adult daughters and a son-in-law. My older daughter, a winery owner, was proposed to on the island. She and her husband are thinking of planting grapes for a special vintage.

What do I do there? Mostly I read think and ponder. My younger daughter, a nurse at Memorial Sloan - Kettering Hospital, recently built a labyrinth on the island. We all pitched in, hauling a half-ton of rocks up the hill. But, are we centered now!

So when I say during Thirteen's on-air membership drives that our public television station is like a lighthouse, "beaming a light over the great city and helping enlighten viewers," I know what I'm talking about. After all, I am a real light-house-keeper.