One night, the nightwatchman said to the lamplighter, βWhat were the lamps like when your father was a boy?β
The lamplighter, with a distant look in his eyes, began to have flashbacks of long, long ago. He remembered the old gas lamps that his father used to light with a match, the warm glow they cast on the cobblestone streets, and the sense of safety and community they brought to the people. He recalled the stories his father told him about the days before electric lamps, when the streets were darker and the nights seemed longer. no they are just the same now said the lamplighter and he had inherited his fathers job and become a lamplighter in his footsteps like his father was