Walk please..no drowning

In the past week I have had to pull three kids out of the pool. I saved their little lives, I hope they grow up to be presidents and doctors and put me in their memoirs. Two were from this summer youth group that got rewarded a pool day. I think right before they came their counselors showed them some lifeguard videos of how to perfectly portray an active drowning because they executed it perfectly. Hands flailing overhead, little bubbles coming up from the bottom. Remember fellow and future lifeguards...look for bubbles. As I climbed out of the pool soaking wet and went back to my guard chair it caused me to reflect on my life as a lifeguard...meaning while I should have been paying close attention to the pool I was composing a blog in my head. A life that started at 14 while being a junior lifeguard, dare I say that I have been lifeguarding for close to a decade now?! Where is my corner office and 401k? During this time I have seen the laughter and the tears that comes with spending hours hovering around 4 ft of chlorinated water...as well as the puke,blood and diareaha.
Let's take a swim down memory lane and recall a few highlights. I have been a lifeguard at 8 different pools across 4 states. I think some of my most memorable experiences happened at the Travis Aquatic Center...we fondly called Travis High because it had the social schematics and maturity level of a high school. The military insituted a standard that if there was "fecal contamination" then we must close the pool for 24 hours. Maybe they shouldn't have told this to a bunch of teenage lifeguards who were spending 40 hours a week of their summer at Travis High. One afternoon I had just finished swimming laps and was headed towards the ladder when something under the water caught my eye. Is that..? Could it be..? I swim in for a closer look with my goggles and bubbles of sheer joy escape from my mouth (which I probably should have been keeping shut) IT IS! POO! A small pile of glorious fecal contamination and the key to a day off. I spring out of the pool to inform my fellow guards and their reaction is the same, ...where is the child that did this so that we can carry him around on our shoulders and express our gratitude. Why this is almost as good as the day that a rat ran into to the pool and we were payed to watch movies all day. There were sunblock fights and rainy days spent golfing into the pool, trying to hit kickboards while our one patron, a little kid swam and collected the balls for us. We had the pool rats, every pool does and I don't mean the hairy kind but these are the kids that get dropped off everyday an hour before the pool opens and they patiently wait outside until we opened and then their parents collected them when we closed that night. My favorite was Derrick and Alicia. Their parents were getting divorced and I think the pool was free daycare. No public was allowed in our office except Derrick and Alicia and the guards would eat their lunches with them and let them sit on the stands and pretend to be lifeguards. Maybe we'll be in one of their memoirs.
There was a girl in Idaho that I was teaching lessons to. She had a lot of trouble keeping her face in for more than 3-5 seconds and it was frustrating for her and me because she was really trying hard. Then her mom took me aside and thanked me for working with her. She told me that the year before they had been driving to swim lessons and got into a car accident. Their car landed in a canal and a lot of water came in but they were able to get out, she had been afraid of water since then. I realized how brave this little girl was being by still trying so hard, I felt bad for getting frustrated and it was really cool to work with her.
I used to work at the Vacaville pool and had to open for the 5 am lap swim. This meant that I had to get there by 4:30...dark, during the winter, rain or shine. I would get soaked pulling the covers off (which is hard work if you ever try it)One girl injured her back pulling off covers, the swim coach said she needed to be doing more ab excercices, not the thing to tell a chubby girl. She filed a sexual harrasment complaint against him. Then I would sit the rest of the 2.5 hours watching the steam rise off the pool and saying hello to the same people every morning. Richard would always say "Oh fair and a meddlin" when you asked how he was. Hard as it was to get up that early, it always felt great watching the sun come up on autunm days. When I left for school they had a breakfast for me and some of the ladies embroidred a laundry bag with my name on it for college. I have found similar people at each pool I've worked at. One sweet lady in her eighties met a hunk here at the Kailua pool, a charming man also in his eighties. They became sweethearts and she asked him to go on a trip with her, he said she would have to marry him first. So she agreed and they were going to get married but he passed away during a simple operation last month. But she still comes everyday to the pool and tells you she is taking it one day at a time.
I guess on the surface, lifeguarding has been a constant full-time or part-time job that has provided me with income. But after looking back on 10 years (i know...i know..it isn't that long) but I would say it has been a little serendipitous.