Beaches and pools have been my second home since birth.

My parents used to say, “Peel the skin off his neck! There be gills there!”

Pretty good times in college competitions in the 50 and 100 yard sprints.

Once I swam a 4 hour 10k on a dare, just to prove I could do it!

I life-guarded , summers, for high school spend money

and tuition for my BA and MA.

After a while you develop a 6th sense intuition

for what a drowning victim looks like…

especially when he suddenly isn’t there any more…

and the knack of staying riveted to chaos in the waves.

Now, those days have pretty well dried up for me.

But, at 77, I’m still in the indoor-pool of our gray panther community

four times a week in a sort of “tai-chi-meets-lap-sprints” –

55 minutes of perpetual motion- workout

to keep my joints bending, my heart rate over 110 BPM, (once in a while…)

and, yes, my ego intact and assured

’cause it’s mostly grey-haired, olderly guys in the water

and of course, testosteronal competativness dies hard in the old male mind…

But, then, of course, comes the Holy Days

and with them, hordes of kindergarten rug-rats

to visit and be spoiled, (again)

by taciturn Grandpa’s and brag-a-docious Grandma’s,

(All, while Mommy and Daddy disappear for 4 hours

every afternoon, to re-discover and reignite

the kid-free reasons they were so hot to hitch their chariots together

in the first place…)

So!

There they are!!

50 screaming, inexhaustible 4 and 5 year olds

(“guarded” by dozing octogenarians )

creating tsunamis in the 4-5 foot deep end of the pool.

And there I am.

An old fart with a decade of hypertensional lifeguarding

sparking my long-hibernating, fast-reacting synapses in my almost dormant memory.

“SWIM AT YOUR OWN RISK” signs, wall papering the indoor pool!

Sure, the pool is shallow.!

Only 5 foot deep in deep end.

But an adult can successfully drown in 6 inches of water….!

So, while I exercise my body,

my mind is on guard duty

because Grandpa’s snoring and Grandma’s gossiping

and “Ya gotta be ready for the worst eventuality”

and obviously (!) it’s evidently gonna be up to me(!!) to save the day!!!

But, for some reason, yesterday, my thinking wavered…just a bit.

“KEN, YOU DON’T NEED TO SAVE ‘EM IF THEY’RE NOT IN DANGER!”

“THEY’RE NOT DROWNING IF THEY’RE LAUGHING WHEN THEY’RE

COMING UP FOR AIR, SPITTING WATER OUT THEIR NOSES AND MOUTHS!”

“IN ALL PROBABILITY, THEY’RE HAVING THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES!!!”

Now,

that’s a tough lesson for an old-lifeguard to learn.

I tell myself, “Let ’em sink or swim!

May the best tad-pole win!

Count the bodies after closing time!

Besides, it’s not my concern any more!

Hell! I’m too old to do anything, anyway!”

Ha!

Yeah, right!

Look!

There’s 7 little puddles-jumpers in the deep end right now!

Oh! No! There goes a cannon ball right into the middle of the mob!!!

Oh, well.. Here we go!

Marco Polo! Marco Polo!

Sharks and minnows!!

Here we go!

God! I love this!!