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For Junior Lifeguards—Southern California's sun-kissed hybrid of scouts and
Baywatch—a bad day in the sand and surf is still sweeter than a good day anywhere else
I hate to admit it, but I'm the least bit envious of my 11-year-old son. (Call it envy “light,” though, because I’m exceedingly happy for him.) I realize this during a noontime visit to see him at his Junior Lifeguards program. Quite simply, his life is too damn good.
The sun is just breaking through the morning fog at Santa Barbara’s East Beach when I arrive and scan the sand for my son. It’s not easy to pick out your kid among the 260 scattered across the beach—all between 10 and 17 years old and all wearing red swimsuits, the uniform of the East Beach “Junior Guards” (JGs) or simply “Guards,” as they’re also known.
Finally I spot him. He’s lying on the sand, eating lunch with some of his friends, eight or so girls and boys from the “C” group, the alphabetical designation for 10- and 11-year-olds. (The B’s are 12 and 13, the A’s are 14 and 15, and the AA’s are 16 and 17 and every bit as energized as their battery-powered moniker.)
They’ve arranged themselves in the shape of a slightly lopsided wheel, their heads at the oval hub and their bodies and legs emanating outward like irregular spokes. Several of them wear pink zinc oxide war paint. Some have visors or baseball caps cranked sideways. All have the deep tan of beach regulars. They talk and laugh while they eat. My son is just getting interested in girls, and in the circle are a couple of those he has said he likes. Lucky guy. Envy light.
I grew up with the existential dilemma of loving the beach more than any place in the world, but living far from it in the infamous San Fernando Valley. The surf was only 20 miles away, but it might as well have been in Zanzibar. I yearned for the ocean and was sure that if only I could live beside it, life would be perfect. But it never happened.
I craved local status but remained a visitor on the sand. I wanted blonde hair and a deep tan but had dark hair and light skin. I wanted to know those beach girls I’d see on my rare visits to the beach but spent most summer days playing whiffle ball in the Valley with the other suburbanite kids.
I smile at my son’s good fortune. He’s a local. He doesn’t wonder how to meet girls; he spends his summer days running, swimming, paddling and otherwise working out with a whole troop of them. His friendships with them are easy and natural, and their innocent flirtations occur in a context of play, exercise and competition that unfolds beneath a bright blue sky. He’s a strong runner and a good swimmer, but the Junior Guard girls who play water polo or swim on teams are much better in the ocean. He admires their ability, thinks nothing of being routinely trounced by them in the water.
It’s affirming to see these early cross-gender encounters occur in such a healthy, unhurried, unselfconscious atmosphere, and for him to be interested in girls as much for their abilities as for their appearance. I look at the bronzed spokes of that wobbly human wheel and marvel at how joyfully those kids are spinning through this particularly golden arc of their youth.
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