Tag Archives: lifeguard

I’m pretty sure this is NOT what he signed up for.

12 Jun

While Alan’s stuck in London for work, he’s encouraged me to use his community’s pool. And since it’s been hovering around 100 degrees and humid, I’ve taken him up on the offer. Repeatedly.

Yesterday, after swimming my mile, it was so hot that I just stood in the shallow end and read 100 pages of a book.

Hell, it’s been so hot that the lifeguard himself stands in the pool half the time. I can’t blame him.

Speaking of the lifeguard, I gave Alan a full report on him the other day so he would know what he was missing. (Each year the lifeguard is a kid from some Eastern European country here as part a summer exchange program. I’m sure they envision Baywatch and are mildly disappointed to realize they’ll be assigned to a pool in suburban Virginia with decidedly American waist-lines.)

This year’s lifeguard, whom we’ll call Grigor, is a bit clumsy. Or he has bad luck. Either way, I’ve had a lot of updates for Alan.

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You may call him the Gipper, but at least 77 people call him Lifeguard.

7 Feb

Yesterday would have been Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday, so NPR ran a story discussing his life and legacy. It was a generous, human look at an actor-turned-politician.

From what I hear, people apparently adore the man. I won’t say anything beyond that, because my last few attempts to write a sentence ended up with: a) an essay about Alzheimer’s, and b) imagining how I would feel about a puppy becoming the POTUS. While both are debatably relevant to this post, neither is especially helpful nor likely to endear me to you, my patient readers.

So what I learned while listening to NPR’s profile that was REALLY fascinating to me is that Reagan allegedly pulled 77 people out of the water when he was a lifeguard. (They interviewed #70, who said that “Dutch” was a really great guy.)

A few observations…

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