The Good, The Great, and The Ugly

Please note that the following is an egocentric rambling of bad lifeguards and represent only the opinions and nightmares of the Camping Lifeguard and not necessarily that of other lifeguards, blogspot, or Google ;)

I like to classify lifeguards into 3 different categories. I have had both the fortune and misfortune to work with all of them. There are lifeguards who became certified for the same reason I did, they like to work with kids. Many camp counselors fall into this category, including myself.

Along with that are the lifeguards who became a lifeguard so they can get a job. Most of these guards are actually quite good at their job and maybe are a little more focused at small loads of swimmers compared to those of us like me who will hang around the family and chat with them and teach the little ones how to swim. Paying attention in their certification class they know the horrors of what can happen as a lifeguard, and wanting their certification they try their hardest to pass.

There is also a subgroup of that, which are guards part of the time, and water athletes the rest.  For some reason they are highly attracted to chlorine and are always in the water or watching it.  Their time doing sports makes them focused, their time in the water makes them fast.  They will have you out of the water before you know your drowning.  These are especially the ones you want in a lake or ocean.

Then there are the lifeguards who cause nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat…the Baywatch guards. Disclaimer: I have never watched Baywatch nor do I want to, but based on what I have heard of that show I would probably curl up on the couch and cry at the horrors. These guards are mainly teens who want the money, but also want the cute high school girls or guys and what better place then where you can show off your sexy tan body and never have to wear a shirt. And with a tight swimsuit on the girls and naked arms on the men, it’s all about the curves!

I worked at a pool the summer after my freshman year of college, where most of the guards were they Baywatch type. I have many stories about that pool and the guards there, but one stood out the most, whose antics almost resulted in at least 3 concussions and a drowning, and that was during my shifts. It appears that a way to impress girls is to take a basketball and wing it across the pool and put it into a hoop. Well, he never got the hoop, but instead went past it and not one time did the ball land more than a foot from a child. Had ball found head, we would have to deal with an unconscious child and very angry parent.

The scariest incident by this lifeguard came while I was guarding the diving board… In the diving well there is a diving board and a set of drop-slides. Dumb Dumb decided that a fun way to flirt with the lifeguard on the opposite side of the deep end from me was to jump off the diving board and towards her. He however landed at the same time a little girl, maybe 8 years old, plopped out of the drop slide nearest to the board and hit the water. Under normal conditions this would have worked out fine, as the slide and board have about 6-8 feet between them. Dumb Dumb decided though that the closer he got to his target the better, which resulted in about a foot gap between him and the little girl. After scolding this on break lifeguard, his response was "Chill out dude, I know what I am doing." Make sure you mention that when you do knock out a kid.

I know this may sound a little nuts that this was just part of the issues of that pool, but if you don’t believe me, ask my parents. On the way back up to Ashland, my dad told me it was ok to flip the pool off as we drove by.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

If it's Brown

Please note that the following acknowledges that there is more than just water in pools. Reader discretion is advised

Guarding for 6 years, I have come up with a phase, "if it’s brown and floating around, get out of town!" To put it bluntly, shit happens…a lot.

My first pool, the local YMCA, was the pool where I was certified. It was also the first time I had to clean up a stranger's poop. Occasionally when lifeguarding you see stuff float by the lifeguard chair. Any good pool has enough of a current that diving rings will be constantly moving towards the deep end. If something is brown, it’s a good idea to grab the scoop net to remove it. Normal procedure at the Y is to first close the pool and direct people to take a good long shower. Step two is to remove the solid waste and add chlorine to the pool to shock it. Step three is waiting 45 minutes for the pool to cycle thru the filter and get cleaned. 45 minutes later the chlorine levels drop to less than 7 parts per million and swimmers can go back in.

Most of the time it was that routine, though you cant help but laugh every time it happens. Then there was the night that no body laughed.

I came in to lifeguard at 5 pm that night and upon entering the Y I noticed there were no swimmers in the water. I figured it was just another quiet night, then I got to the office and talked to the lifeguards. About 40 minutes ago they had to close the pool due to some do. Yay, a 5-minute break before I guard. Too bad I am just ready to work. After a check of the chemical we deemed it safe to open the pool, so one of the guards went home and the other guard and I went out to open the doors and let people in. There was a small crowd there playing in the wells (super shallow area with water sprayers) and the slide, so I sod next to the wells and the other guard went up to the top of the slide. After about 15 minutes I notice something. Something brown. Something floating. Time to grab the net.

Usually you can tell just by how it floats around but it still helps to scoop it up and out to verify, which is what I did. I scooped it out and stared at it. Then I make eye contact with the lifeguard on top of the slide, then one of the dads at the pool. I did not say a single word; everyone just started climbing out of the water. For all we know it could be from the last attack, but it could be fresh and we don't take chances here. Without a word everyone knew that if I am staring into the scoop, I caught something and its time to go home. 45 minutes later we reopened to a quiet and peaceful night.

Another incident that stood out at my Y is that…well lets just say not everything on the pool deck that looks like mud is mud. I had just walled in to lifeguard and noticed next to our office door this big pile of mud. Well I am still early so I figure I might as will clean it up. How that much mud got there I don't know, but it had to be wider than my foot is long. I went to go get a few paper towels and using them I reached down to scoop up some of the mud, and...mud does not have that consistency. No it was constant and the inside was a much lighter color than the outside. A quick glance at the lifeguards and they know what I found too. If it’s on the deck, we don't need to close the pool but a quick look in the well said that we do. Yay for 45-minute break, boo to cleaning up after someone. I don't know but my thought is some kid in the well started to overrun its dippers and decided to get out, then sat down on the deck next to a bench and let it out the rest of the way? I will never know, and not sure I want to.

At college we have a slightly different policy, leave it there. Luckily we have so few swimmers that come in that it does not happen much, only twice since I started, but here is has happened. I was working a Thursday shift, which I seem to have to cover a lot of, and I noticed poop in the water. I did the usual clear the pool and scoop out what I could but couldn't get most of it. I then called maintenance to have them address the problem, as they do all the work. Well by then maintenance had gone home for the night and a quick call to my boss informed me to close the pool, and he will call maintenance in the morning. Right there is 12 hours where the pool is closed and contaminated. Then the email came, pool is closed the rest of the day. On Saturday I talked to maintenance directly and they didn't think the pool wouldn’t be ready to open till Monday. Actually they didn't say that, but since they don’t come in on Sunday we had no idea if it was safe or not, so we waited till Monday when they came in to clear it.

Then there is the less processed food in the pool, and lets just say that it’s much worse. I personally am fine with poop and blood cleanup, but any kind of puke makes me do the same. On another Thursday afternoon shift at about 4:30, there were no swimmers in the pool. I decided to walk around the pool and look at the bottom and inspect it, just as we should. In one corner of the deep end I noticed something odd, maybe one of those big hairballs that sometimes form bundles of tumbleweed. I stuck the net on a pool in the water to pull it up. In the bottom of the net was defiantly not hair, but something else. Looking closely I saw some beans. Beans and hotdogs. In the pool. Someone must have puked hotdogs and beans into the pool.

I hadn't seen anyone all shift, and during the previous two shifts it was only lap swimmers, and they would have told the guards if they lost their lunch or breakfast. After reporting it and closing the pool, I remembered something, the night before was a large group of kids that came in after dinner. They did it! Like the previous poop incident I mentioned, it took till the next Monday to clean up. What I did not expect was what happened the next Tuesday during a shift. No, I didn't find more puke, or some poop, it was worse. In the deep end I could tell there were still beans down there. Four days of closure and they still didn't clean it all. I should have informed my boss and had the pool closed for another four days, but I felt like there was no point. Hopefully, they shocked the pool and at least killed the bacterial and other nasties.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

Seagull Hunting

Back between my junior and senior year, I spent about 10 days at a camp called Lead America. I took the engineering camp, and we had a lead instructor who is a physics professor who went to MIT. One day he told us about an underground group he was in at MIT, which performed pranks on campus. Multiple pranks involved disassembling cars and reassembling them in offices and on top of buildings (even running, and in the case of the police car, warm donuts).

One prank that he and his friends did was to go out every morning to a football field. They all would wear referee shirts and take with them a bag of popcorn. The would feed the seagulls, and the birds would flock to eat the popcorn. Over the corse of a few weeks, the seagulls learned. They knew that whenever someone in a referee’s shirt appears, food is on the way. During some home games, there would be so many birds in the stadium and field they had to stop the game for a while.

Here at the beach, we have seagull problems already. People feed them and they get to a point where they attack kids for food. Their poop, when washed from the ground and pilings they sit on, can raise the e-coli levels to a level where it is unsafe and we have to close the beach (also when the nearby creek that runs thru the city gets a lot of water and makes things worse at the beach). This happened already this summer after a heavy rain; we had to close shore, but apparently it was fine to go off the diving board. Made for a very boring lifeguarding day.

Normally we have to tell people to stop feeding the seagulls. Today I got to work and saw someone feeding seagulls. I asked her to stop feeding them, then I went hunting! I don’t know why, I just did.

I am not a gun person besides nerf guns, but I came to work on my bike, and being a lifeguard, I had my whistle. So I hopped on my bike, whistle in mouth, and tried to run them down on my bike, blowing my whistle the entire time. After a few passes, about a dozen, most of the seagulls left the area. On my break I did it again as another group of people were feeding the seagulls.

I am hoping over time the seagulls will learn to stay away for good. I doubt that will happen, but at minimum they will learn that crazy people on a bike wearing red with a whistle is something to avoid. What would really be great is instead being any time a biker goes by OR wearing red OR blows a whistle, then they will flee instead of bike AND red AND whistle.

If my cousins are reading this, they know what is coming because of OR and AND, but for the rest of you, well I just can’t leave enough alone. Yes, I am already brainstorming a program to write where each seagull and person is an object. Have hundreds of seagulls and hundreds of people, and on a given day most of the seagull objects and dozens of people objects with come into play on the “beach”. Each person is either walking, biking, or driving by, some people with group with other people to make “families” with different bonding levels. Each person might pass thru, stop, eat, swim. Those who stop and eat are most likly to feed the seagulls. Kids each have random excitment level, and the more excitable, the more likly to chase of seagulls. Each person also will have described color of shirt, pants, hat, glasses, whistle, and transportation (bike, skateboard, or car (which can’t leave the parking lot)). There will be special people (lifeguards) which stop any and all feeding of seagulls then scare them.

The seagull objects will keep track of when they are scared off people and what they are wearing or on. When scared, they will remember that they have been scared by those properties of the people. They won’t have the best memory, maybe three or four scares, depending on the health of the bird, and if they don’t get scared by say someone with a red shirt for 4 scares, they forget that they were scared by a red shirt. Every time they get scared by a red shirt after the first one, the memory countdown is reset, and they keep track of how many time they have been scared by a red shirt since they first started keeping track. The more often a seagull is scared by people, no matter what they are wearing, the more distance they keep from people. On the other hand, you can domesticate seagulls by feeding them, resulting them in being less likely to be scared. Where seagulls go, home to perch or to the beach to eat, or even elsewhere, depends how hungry the seagull is, and also other seagulls feel about that gull. Over time all seagulls like each other but if a seagull takes food from other another seagull or gets something good (fish from the lake) and other gulls are not able to get the food from them.

Where, what, and how much seagulls eat depends on the number of people in other areas (eat on beach or at Pamida), water temperature (fish), wind (strong wind makes it harder to hunt). Number of people and what they are doing is based on air temperature (amount of swimmers), wind speed and direction (water temperature), day of week (weekends have more travelers), and if there is a special event.

Oviously there is a lot there, and I plan to take it in small parts, and I have higher priorities, but this here is enough for me to remember what I want to do.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

Bay Days

Every third weekend in July is a celebration called Bay Days. Bay Days is a three day festival at Bay view park and beach, featuring food, rides, bands, competitions, races, and a triathlon.

For me Bay Days started on Saturday morning helping out with the 5K and 10K triathlon. My main job was just telling them where to go. Unfortunately it was really hot and humid out, so standing out in the sun was not fun. Between the runs and lifeguarding, I was able to do some swimming and return a table back to our beach (Read Operation: Table).

My lifeguarding shift for the day was from 11:30 to 5:30. Knowing it was going to be very hot out, I planned to do my entire shift on the rescue board, so I could just hang out in the water, staying cool. Unfortunately a guard didn’t show due to being sick (now our second guard currently sick), so I was alone until 2:00. After the next guard showed, I was able to go have a snack of fried bread then hang out in the water on my board. Being in the water, I was constantly floating away, resulting in regularly swimming back to where I wanted to be at.

It had the makings for a good day, except for multiple rounds of teens who did not care about their safety, resulting in much yelling and eventually the calling of the police.

We have a rule about the railing. The railing goes around the dock and is made of wood, which means it is not overly strong, just a 1-by-4 piece of wood. Kids seem to enjoy jumping over and sitting on the railing. Problem is that the railing can (and has) snapped, so if the railing snaps, the sitter will fall backwards into the water. On the swimming side of the dock, falling will result in landing in the water, but run the risk of hitting the superstructure that is holding up the dock, or more likely the metal sticking out from it. On the other side, falling off is a very short trip into a few inches of water followed by going splat on parts of the old ore dock the swim dock is built on. Old wood, metal rods, and the occasional nail fill the bottom area of the deck.

Jumping from or over the railing has its own issues. If a swimmer were to collided with the rail or the rail breaks, it can injure them and cause them to fall into the water. Unlike the diving board, the other areas are not checked for being clear of debre, such as wood, rocks, and bikes, and can be too shallow for even a lifeguard with entry knowledge to be safe.

After warnings to not sit on or jump over the railing, I issued orders to leave the beach as I cannot focus on them being unsafe and keep everyone else safe. For the safety of everyone, I had to get them out of the area, and since they would not leave, we called the police, twice! The second time the officer came down he had everyone causing trouble to leave and threatened to close the dock, which would have been nice, since at that time of the day, its mostly troublemakers.

Oh, and to that one guy who talked to me that evening, I would not need anger management classes if you would just follow the rules.

Sunday was a busy, early day with the triathlon at 8 am. The first leg is a 500 yard swim, which I have volunteered for for the last three year. It is always fun to cheer on my boss in the race, however she tends to fall behind because her lifeguard instincts take over and she starts helping the swimmers falling behind and the runners and bikers who are also having problems. It was about 80 out, and the lake is running at roughly 75° right now. As with the other two years I guarded, almost everyone was wearing wetsuits. The wetsuits are normally used to keep the swimmers warm and help them float. Wetsuits are worn even in the Caribbean and Bahamas, as even “warm” water can still cool the body. The disadvantage of wetsuits is that they slow you down during the swim or transition to biking. I can’t imagine how hot they were.

After guarding the race I went to wave the runners around a corner to make sure they didn’t take the longer trail. After the race was done I had to restore the ropes for our beach. Luckily I love that job. The easy part is just swimming the rope around the buoy to the dock. The hard part is moving the buoy. It only took me one try to get it exact, but normally its a multi-trip process of diving to the bottom of the lake, pick up two concrete bricks, and walk them until I need air. Did I talk about this before? It seems familiar.

Lifeguarding started with me working with our other head lifeguard. The first two hours went as normal, occasional yelling of railing sitters and people wanting to jump over the railing, then came chaos. First the lifeguard I was with had to go play in the band. While he was playing with the band, part of the Bay Day events involved cardboard boat races. Teams had to build out of cardboard and duct tape a boat they had to use to float from the beach to the rope and back. Some boats have no chance, others are surprisingly good. One boat, built by the family of one of my swim students from last year, was amazingly strong, though lost due to team with twice as many paddlers. While built for two, after the race they stuffed four into the boat and only did a problem occur when a fifth tried climbing in and broke a support structor. It stayed afloat fine, but was now able to cave in.

After the race was done, and I was able to let people back in, though upon doing so, about half a dozen people jumped over the railing into the water. A yell at them not to stand on and jump over the railing got a reply of only “shut up” and I am sure some words which I could not hear. Another round of over the railing and I told the swimmers to leave. This resulted in yet another round of jumps, a call by me to the police to have them leave. It worked and the rest of the shift being nice...until we herd a big boom. We had a thunderstorm near us and we cleared the beach. The storm gave a nice warm rain that was pleasant to be in (minus the windows in my car left open).

Besides the rain, nature gave me “sorry about the day” with a beautiful gust front from a newer storm to the south. The gust front caused a rolling cloud wall that passed over head while I was parked at a gas station to watch it. Then later there was a nice red sunset.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

5! 4! 3! 2! 1!

Its almost time! Friday was beach setup day, Saturday and Sunday were the weekend and lifeguarding, and today was our staff meeting! Tomorrow is the first day of swim lessons!

Beach setup is always interesting and nerve racking. We have two beaches we setup on, Bayview Beach, which is where we guard at. The other beach, Krare (not how you spell it) we set up but don’t guard it, partially because the deep end is waist deep. At Bayview, AKA Pamida Beach, has a diving board and dock, making it the teens hangout (at least until they break the rules). We setup the rope and buoy so that swimmers don’t stray off and boats keep out. The rope is never that difficult after the annoying untangle, but the buoy is a different story. Two cement blocks hold it down as the anchor. We have to some how get it out to the spot and tie the rope around it. Our boat is a plug short of being able to float so we swim it out...well I.

Normally to move the buoy, I would swim to the bottom and lift the bricks and rocks. Not bad for a short distance, but getting it out there is a long cold way to walk at under the water. Oddly one day while lifeguarding I calculated out that a rescue tube we use for lifeguarding is somewhat more buoyant than a cement brick. Using our two beach tubes, I can keep the entire system above water and swim it to the spot, then pull on the straps and undo a slipknot for both tubes and we are set!

This weekend was supposed to be me lifeguarding, but it was cold and cloudy out. Instead I sat in my car and worked on school work and read part of a book. I have read more this summer than I have all year! Too bad the books I want aren't free.

Today was our meeting for swim lessons and lifeguarding. I found out what my classes are for session 1 (Level 2, 1, preschool, and parent child!). We all then worked on practicing rescue skills for the pool and beach. I am glad we do in-services, because the college pool we do not and we do not have to do a lot of rescues at the beach, so its good to try out stuff. What was interesting is there are three of us regular lifeguards who are certified to teach lifeguarding, so we are kind of looked up to for knowing stuff. I wound up supervising the practice with one of the teachers while the other one was working with two guards on what to do if there was a pool rescue. The pool presents a problem in that there is normally only one guard there at a time. If there was an emergency and we needed to do a rescue, we would be by ourselves for a while and need to get the victim to a state where they cannot drown while we wait for help. Luckly in my 5 years there we have not had anything serious occur.

Tonight I am going to the circus here in town, then tomorrow at 9 is lessons!

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard

Your doing what!? And what!? All while doing what!? AND ON A BIKE!!?

I have already been asked, so I might as well share, just how I am going to take online classes when I am camping with no power or internet? Well, when I don’t have to work a shift I can work for a few hours on school stuff, or stay after evening swim lessons.

Here is what a full day looks like for me, at least last year. I wake up about 8:15, grab breakfast and head to the pool to make sure its ready. Teach from 9-11 am. Lifeguard either at the beach from 11:30-5:30 or at the pool from 11-1 then beach from 3:30-5:30. Evening swim lessons go from 5-7, then the closing shift at the pool from 7-9. Any time I don’t have to lifeguard I can use the school’s internet to go online. If I don’t have to do the evening shift then I can grab a little dinner and work as late as I want. Then its a 18 mile bike ride mostly downhill back to the campsite.

Yea, I know, 18 miles to work and another 18 back is a lot...here in Iowa, add another 4 miles to each and your traveling an entire county twice a day. Back when the US government was restricting where Native Americans lived, the land given to the natives was land that no one else wanted. In the case of the Bad River Reservation, which is where I will be camping, its mostly swamp land. The nice thing about swamp land is it is relatively flat. Between the campsite and the beach I guard at (16 miles difference) the overall elevation climb is only about 10 feet. Assuming no headwind, I can do that in just a little over an hour.

The bad part is going from the beach to the pool. Northland College sits just over 100 feet above the lake, and only a mile away. About a mile of this trip, no matter which method I take, either the highway or the corridor, is fairly flat. It is the other mile is the 100 foot climb. I already know I can go from the beach to the pool in about 20 minutes, so I am not too worried.

I will have my car and bike rack up there too, so if I need to I can take my car to and from work, but that costs money. Good thing I have a third option...the BART bus. Six times a day a bus will stop in Odanah, about 3 miles from the camp site, and can take me to Walmart, the beach, and the pool. Each bart bus has a bike rack, and a ride costs between 25 and 50 cents...well for you. For me and as a student of Northland College last semester, and still carrying my ID card, I, like all Northland students, have paid for unlimited access to the BART system. Just meet the bus in Odanah just before 7, and be at County Market by 7:30. A quick bike ride or walk just 6 block and I am on campus with an hour to work on school work before lessons.

From the guy with his eye on the sky, Travis...the camping lifeguard