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Thinking about lifeguards, a lot of images spring to mind. Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, of course, is a popular one. The sight of his bronzed shoulders plunging through the California surf, so often seen on television, has become synonymous for many with the word lifeguard. The strong jaw. The bleached curls. Every one of them is just a jock, hunk, or a pretty boy, right?
Not really, says Gordon Hesse, author of a new book titled “All Summer Long: Tales and Lore of Lifeguarding on the Atlantic.” Hesse’s book, which collects first-person accounts of lifeguards who’ve patrolled the beaches of Lavallette New Jersey, where Hesse himself guarded in the 1960s and 1970s, reveals unique behind-the-scenes stories about beach culture and life over the span of seven decades.
Though many in Delaware will recognize Hesse as the public relations director of its 58,000-member YMCA, here Hesse steps into the role of writer and researcher. Working on the book since 1996, Hesse interviewed nearly three dozen lifeguards in an effort to shine light on a group of people everyone recognizes, but few actually know much about.
“In my research I found there was a lot of leeway between the stereotypes,” he said. “There’s a very unique, very personal oral culture.”
Though “oral tradition” is a phrase people associate more with primitive tribes than with lifeguards, Hesse reveals that the bonds between lifeguards are all caught up in their spoken lore.
“We had a lot of unique humor,” said Hesse. “For instance, 13- and 14-year-old girls often think talking to the lifeguard is really impressive. And after a while they can get kind of pesky. So we’d ask them to go down to the next beach and see if they could get the key to the oarlocks. Of course the joke was to see how far they would go before realizing.”
Hesse digs up stories from as far back as the 1930s when he interviews a guard about the skullduggery old time guards used during their lifeguarding competitions. He said many schemed to use lightweight boats for the races, or the thinnest possible string in a swimming contest where the guards had to drag a rope behind them.
By showcasing lifeguard stories in their own words, Hesse captures every aspect of their culture, including the not so admirable. Hesse never shies away from the truth. He’s the first to admit that one of the main perks of being a lifeguard was being a guy paid to watch women walking around in scanty outfits.
“A lot of times it felt like I was lifeguarding with Animal House,” he said. “It was a little different then and some of the guards could be pretty wild. Some looked like they just got out of bed all day. But they had good intentions and always got the job done.
Hesse begins his book with a visit to a present day New Jersey beach only to find that a lot has changed since the ’70s. He says the lifeguards now are more fit, more organized and better trained, using high tech equipment like defibrillators.
There are also many more women guards now, he said. His book records the beginning of this trend in a personal way since Hesse’s own mother was Lavallette’s first female lifeguard. “All Summer Long” also speaks to many early female guards who were forced to baby-sit New Jersey’s bays because they were thought to be unable to guard in strong currents.
“It’s much more egalitarian today,” Hesse said. “Now you see the women out there rowing right beside the men and they’re doing well at it.
Still, Hesse says the oral culture of lifeguards binds them together no matter how different life on the beach may become.
“I really had no problem talking to other lifeguards from the 1930s. They went through much of the same things that I did,” he said. “There’s a real bond there that crosses time.”
He says at its foundation, lifeguards are a young group of men and women saddled with momentous responsibility for the first time in their lives.
“It hit me the very first day on the job,” Hesse said. “I was looking out at 300 people who I was responsible for and out ahead of them was this enormous ocean,” he said. “It can be scary, but also very exciting.”
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