Divine Aphasia

I

Lifeguarding has lost its allure for American teenagers. The myth of the tanned, muscular, sunglasses-wearing (only the first describes me) protector of attractive women or men no longer holds the same draw as an office job or internship which looks better on your college resume. This state of affairs (see “At the Shallow End of the Lifeguard Pool,” The Washington Post, June 21, 2006, page B1) makes me wistful and a bit sad. After spending a summer working at the snack bar, I took up the whistle as soon as I could. When you spend long hours at the pool already (though not as much as some others at the pool, who often seem to have nothing to do other than swim for most of July), being paid to do very little becomes an admirable proposition. The pay could be better (it is at other pools, I’m sure—I’m essentially taking a voluntary pay cut to work at the pool which my family belongs to (which this year (the board hired a new management company) is staffed by four veteran guards, a few first-year guards who are members, and a smattering of Eastern Europeans (a popular hiring trend in many summer job sectors, as I’m sure you’ve noticed at your own pools and theme parks), including my boss (Romanian) and Marko (Serbian), as opposed to the large retinue of longtime guard/members who previously ran the place) because I like it here) and the work could be more stimulating, but I don’t see how sensory deprivation in a cubicle is all that much of an improvement. (I will probably be working in a cubicle next summer.)

I ended up not working in a cubicle during summer 2007. Instead, I earned money writing quiz bowl questions, a job which I did in large part sitting in the library, which was a nice change of scenery from the pool, to say nothing of the air conditioning.

II

At swimming pools, the “guarding life” part of lifeguarding rarely comes up. I’ve never made any kind of save, performed CPR (CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) is misnamed. There is really very little hope of restoring normal electrical activity to the heart by pushing on it. The point is really to provide oxygenated blood to the vital organs and the brain (Permanent brain damage can occur after as little as three minutes without oxygen.) until an AED (automated external defibrillator) can be procured to shock the heart back to its normal rhythm.), or even had to deal with major bleeding. Most of the activity comes in the form of enforcing safety rules (no running (Every summer, I develop the habit of telling small children not to run no matter where I am.), no sitting on the lane lines, no diving sticks manufactured before 1999 (These were recalled when children received “rectal and vaginal impalements” from them.), no masks that cover the nose, etc.) and cleaning the bathrooms (which at my pool is a bit of a fool’s errand as the bathhouse was built decades ago and the floor is of painted concrete, which is not actually possible to clean). Crises are far and few between.

III

Rain doesn’t really come out of “gunmetal grey sky.” At least not today. It looks grey peripherally, but then you give the sky a good look, and you see a white background over which slide muted formations of cirrus and cumulus that merge and part and obscure a softly glowing layer of stratus. The rain (which, for a week now, has fallen daily, joined by periodic thunderstorms of varying violence (which make lifeguarding much easier, as 80% of the job (sitting and watching people) is replaced with sitting and not watching people following a crackly PA announcement instructing patrons to please clear the deck in order to avoid what we make out to be certain death), saturating the ground and thus precipitating the worst yet-flood of my dad’s basement office) falls at a rate that falls in the depressing range between inconsequential drizzles and exciting downpours onto the tennis courts and vacated pool, not quite obscuring the bottom (though it soon will).