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Sept 5, 2003 So I am working on the Jersey Shore as a lifeguard and anyone interested in what really goes on in our stoic minds should read on. First off, we really don't need to pay attention to you swimmers. Except for you kids because you are always trying to wrestle or land on someone's neck. Not to mention dunking your siblings underwater in an attempt to drown them in some type of primitive need to gain your parent's attention. Yeah, for the most part, we don't have to save you much. In fact, no one really ever drowns in a pool. It is also common knowledge that at a typical Jersey Shore beach, only one save per season happens. And that's a beach, with hundreds of kids doing that summer in the water shenanagins!! Thank God,though, since all you drowning victims like to fight us LIfe savers off when we are attempting to bring you back to land. The nerve! I mean, there has got to be a moment when you say, "Ok, I am going to stop kicking this person now as opposed to filling up with water and becoming fish food." The funnier thing is, I am from one of the five Boroughs of New York, where survival is like your first instinct. Sometimes though, when it comes to the act of having to save someone, I get the eebie jeebies when pondering the actual moment in the pool. I mean the whole method of keeping the back safe or neck from spinal injuries is not that safe. When I was testing for the position of life guard, I pretended to save another dude, and my tester was like, "Way too violent!" And that means essentially, that I would do more harm than good to the poor soon-to-be-paralyzed person...so in effect, I think I am more like the "Don't make me save your LIfe!" Lifeguard. And of course you get the Johnny Comedians walking by with lines like, "Save anyone yet!" "Don't look so excited!" and "Almost time to go home." (sympathetic face). Which brings up a point. How do you know that when the situation arrives, when you need to save a life, you won't chicken out and have to run to the bathroom, scared and whimpering, in flight- like reactionism? That could be heavy duty. To tell you the truth, oh safe swimmer, I think that even though I may appear not to care, that I may be reading my book on the Etruscans and their tombs, that even though I look tan and aloof, that I would come to your rescue if I had to. That all the fear of the self would disappear. I know this to be true, since once my cousin got japped by my cat on the head and I remained cool like a garden cucumber and led him to safety. He was scared and crying, but like Supergirl, I knew what I had to do. And that makes all the darn difference, now doesn't it? ------------ Email Deirdre Verdolino: sugartums@yahoo.com Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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