The Lifeguard

By Chris Gibbons – Originally published in the Philadelphia Daily News, August 7, 2007

I recently walked along a deserted beach, momentarily lost in my thoughts until I suddenly came upon a lifeguard stand.  It was unoccupied, but as I looked up at the empty wooden seat my thoughts drifted back in time, and in my mind I could still picture the lifeguard.

It’s been over 35 years, but my memory of him hasn’t faded.  I can still see him sitting on his stand, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger.  And I’ll also never forget what he did on that hot summer day in 1972.

For a young kid from Philadelphia’s Roxborough neighborhood, summer was the smell of a freshly mowed lawn, or the squeak of high-top Chuck Taylor’s skidding on the asphalt during a game of wire-ball.  Summer was the taste of a hand-me-down baseball glove as you chewed on its frayed laces during a little-league game.  It was throwing rocks in the Wissahickon creek, playing wiffle-ball in the driveway, burning cap-gun ammo with a magnifying glass.  It was looking up at the stars and wishing that life would always be this good.

To many Philadelphians, summer also meant the Jersey shore.

In July of 1972, my family vacationed in Ocean City.  I remember running to the beach as soon as we arrived. The expanse of ocean that greeted me was overwhelming.  I was one of 11 children and our home was crowded, but the ocean represented room, and freedom, and possibilities.

That was also the day I first saw the lifeguard.  His incessant whistling, and arm-waving was the start of my disdain for him  He reminded me of my teachers as he continually interrupted the fun with his shrill whistle: move over, come in closer, and stop throwing wet sand at your little brother.

One day, my little brother Pat and I were bodysurfing. The waves were unusually rough, with the two of us frequently getting tossed around by the surf.  After getting pounded by a huge wave, I stood up, cleared the water from my eyes and noticed that I couldn’t find Pat.

I thought he’d been right next to me before the wave hit.  Finally, I saw him.  He was farther out than he should’ve been. I quickly realized that he was in water well above his head, and he was struggling.  He was definitely struggling.

I started to swim out to him, but the water was too rough, and my skinny body wasn’t making any headway. Pat was being pulled out into deeper water as he must’ve been caught in a riptide. I began to panic and started to scream for help.  I was thrashing around, and swallowing the salty seawater.  Pat was clearly in trouble, continually going under and resurfacing.  I was trying to scream, but was gagging so badly that I couldn’t.

I looked out again, and for the first time, I didn’t see Pat.  My God, I thought to myself, my little brother has drowned!

Suddenly, something shot over my right shoulder.  It knifed into the water just ahead of me, barely making a splash.  It quickly emerged, arms and feet flailing like a powerful machine.  It was the lifeguard, and he was moving like a torpedo toward my brother. I’ll never forget how quickly he got to Pat.

The lifeguard got Pat out of the water and back to the beach.  Pat was OK, but he was spitting up water. A few people gathered around him and I knelt down next to him. We looked at each other and didn’t say anything.

We both had tears in our eyes, but for different reasons.  He was a pain in the neck, but he was my little brother and I loved him, and he’d come within seconds of losing his life. You’re supposed to look out for your little brother, but I failed.  I looked up at the lifeguard and hoped he could understand what I wanted to say, but couldn’t.  I think he did.

In a heartbreaking twist of fate, just a few days after we returned from our vacation, my oldest brother Jack drowned in the Schuylkill River while swimming with friends. Nothing would ever be the same again for my family.

A house in a Philadelphia neighborhood wailed in sorrow that night, and the awful sound of it drifted across the hills of Roxborough.  Some of the other houses heard it, and they began to sob as well.  It was during that terrible night that a wishful image first came to my mind and continues to haunt me to this day.

It’s an image of a lifeguard stand.  It sits on the banks of the Schuylkill River. Sitting atop the stand is a young kid, with long blond hair and white sunscreen on his nose, slowly twirling a silver whistle around his finger on a hot August day in the summer of ’72.

Chris Gibbons is a Philadelphia writer. gibbonscg@aol.com

More stories of growing up in Philadelphia, as well as the harrowing stories of America’s war veterans, and the triumphs of space exploration can be found in the new book by Philadelphia writer, Chris Gibbons: “Soldiers, Space, and Stories of Life”. Amazon.com link is below: