Grand Illumination Night arrives at the Camp Ground in Oak Bluffs on Wednesday, August 14 at 7:30 p.m. The annual event goes back 150 years — that’s right, way back to 1869.

The evening begins with a community sing in the Tabernacle. Then, as darkness falls, the lanterns are lit in the surrounding gingerbread cottages.

As you wander through the narrow pathways and pay visits to various porches, it is easy to imagine that afterwards you will travel home by horse and cart rather than automobile, and that instead of flicking a light switch, you will light a candle to read beside or just linger with long into the night, as you wonder what the future will bring and whether it will be as beautiful as this night.

May it be so.