Lifeguard dreams

I haven’t paid attention to lifeguards for quite some time (even my daughters have outgrown them), but my memory was stirred when I came upon an obituary that I saved from May 2004. It reported the untimely passing of Larry Capune, the once golden boy who kept watch over the bay off Balboa Island.

Until I turned 17 and became aware that it wasn’t actually water I needed rescuing from, I had a major crush on lifeguards.

There they would sit, high atop their towers, protecting the powerless from invisible currents. As predictors of impending tidal treacheries, they would warn us with a green, yellow or red flag wafting in the breeze high above them, and they were astonishingly vigilant considering bikini distractions, ready to sprint at the slightest splash, orange life-buoy deftly tucked under one massively muscular, bronzed arm. Our boyfriends didn’t stand a chance.

One of the qualifications for this summer stint must have been man-boy looks and flawless skin tone. These fathers of sons who are probably now Abercrombie models always tanned, never burned, and they were the only ones whose appearance could get away with and actually be enhanced by zinc oxide slathered across their noses. Our hopeful dates to the beach sighed with resignation, surrendered to the unattainable physicality of their summer competition.

My trail of red swimming-trunk romances began at Annandale Country Club in Pasadena at the age of 6. An intrepid swimmer, I owed my prowess to none other than Steve, the Greek god who spent more time having suntan lotion rubbed on his back by a bevy of young females than he did actually performing any daring rescues. He needn’t have stressed; he could teach the various levels of kick-boarding and then lie in the sun with his admiring entourage. To this very day, just the faintest whiff of Sea & Ski renders me weak in the knees.

As the result of his tutelage, I could dive a flawless jackknife. But the moment I loved him deeper than any deep-end arrived when I jumped off the high board for the first time, paralyzing fear allayed by his steady hand outstretched as it held a pole for me to cling to while plunging into the abyss. Would there ever be such a man in my adult life?

I could barely conceal my jealous rage as I watched beautiful older girls giggle and coo while nestling next to his brightly striped beach towel. I would never be that age; it would take far too long for me to grow up. Yet I remained faithful to my betrothed until the closing of the Annandale pool, and my affection did not wander for years.

Our family started to escape the heat and smog and rented a summer house at Newport Beach. There I lost my heart at 10th Street Beach at the end of the sidewalk that led through the ice plant and down to the wooden tower -- lifeguard station No. 6. I carried handfuls of grapes and two ice-cold Cokes down that concrete trail to 20-year-old Tim. There wasn’t much conversation, but surely my attention to his hunger and thirst would spur his affection. Besides, I didn’t really need words to document my feelings; just to curl up in the warm dry sand at the foot of his tower and watch his perfect profile gazing out to sea took me, at 10, as far as I needed to go.

My next and final fantasy fling with a sand-man was Larry, the movie star of Balboa Island. Laguna Beach had its greeter, but we had Larry, the perpetually golden Apollo who manned the waters of Balboa Bay.

Seldom did a summer sun rise when you didn’t see a lifeguard somewhere -- and his admirers close by. They were all just like Larry, flashing blond hair and white teeth reflecting such bright light you needed sunglasses to look at them. How were we supposed to ignore these icons and give a fighting chance to the everyday boys who vied for our fleeting affection?

Now that the tide has turned and female lifeguards also work the towers, I feel sorry for my own daughters. In addition to the many other arenas of daily life, feminism has hit the beach, and it is no longer the exclusive prerogative of girls to ogle the lifeguards. My daughters and I were watching television when a commercial for recycling aired -- the one with the empty bottle that discovers purpose when it is removed from the trash and transformed into the orange buoy tucked under the arm of a svelte female lifeguard. My youngest, on her way out the door to the surf and sand to join her boyfriend, bemoaned the national broadcast of the latest lifeguarding competition as she tugged on her bathing suit, struggling to cover the areas she hadn’t had time to tone.

“That’s just what I want Chris to see at the beach!” she remarked facetiously as she wrapped her towel more snuggly around her hips and turned her eyes from the screen to roll them heavenward.

“Save me.”