By Scott Brinton
As a child, Reggie Jones spent many days dog-paddling in the murky creeks of south Baldwin, where he grew up in the 1930s and '40s. As a teenager, he earned a reputation as one scrappy wrestler at Baldwin High. After school, he pumped gasoline at his father's Sinclair Station. Gas went for 17 cents a gallon in those days.
The lifeguards at Jones Beach State Park, most from New York City, regularly pulled up in their shiny cars when summer rolled around. Jones, now 80, longed to leave the station behind for the open air of Jones Beach, which was known as the "Riviera of New York City" back then.
Jones chatted up the lifeguards with his wry Irish wit and charmed them with his easy smile. They often brought him to the beach, and taught him to swim with confidence in the choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1944, when Jones turned 17, he tried out for the Jones Beach Lifeguard Corps with his best friend, Artie Wink. He was nervous, especially after meeting the more than 120 muscled young men with whom he was competing for a job. "I went down and looked at these guys," Jones remembered as he sat recently in the living room of the ranch house that he built on a south Bellmore canal in 1954. "I said, I'm not going to make it. I'm going to be in my father's grease pit for life."
As it turned out, he was one of 10 to earn a spot that year, and he spent the rest of his summers at Jones Beach. Jones, whose tanned arms remain toned and his chest broad six decades later, is still working as a lifeguard there. At season's end, he will complete 64 straight summers as a Jones Beach lifeguard. He is the park's oldest guard - one of 10 over age 60 and two older than 70 in a corps of 500.
George Gorman, director of operations for the Long Island region of the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said, "Reggie Jones is the Jack LaLanne of lifeguards. He is in outstanding physical shape. He has no problem passing the requalifying swim because of his top physical condition."
Ocean lifeguarding requires strength and stamina, and so it is often thought of as an avocation for young people. By exercising six days a week, Jones, a retired Garden City social studies teacher, has stayed in the game decades after many thought he would have retired.
A love affair with the beach
When Jones started in the corps, lifeguards had to pass a three-week boot camp, during which they were tested daily. They ran up flights of stairs and on the beach, and navigated swift-moving currents during long-distance swims in the bays and the ocean. By the time the camp ended, only 30 or so of the original applicants remained.
When Jones served his first year as a Jones Beach guard, World War II still raged. When he turned 18 he was drafted into the Navy and sent to combat training in Sampson, N.Y. The war ended shortly thereafter.
Jones was called before a commanding officer. "Seaman Jones, do you plan to make a career of the Navy?" the officer asked in a bellicose voice.
"No, sir," Jones recalled saying.
"What are your plans, Seaman Jones?"
"To get out of the Navy, sir."
The officer commented that he appreciated Jones's straightforward manner. He received an honorable discharge and, he said, "I went back to the beach."
Over the years, Jones befriended Leopold "Lee" Hahn, now 63, who has been a Jones Beach guard since 1962, and who taught social studies at Levittown High School for 36 years before retiring in 2000.
In many ways, Jones and Hahn, of Merrick, are kindred spirits. All four of Hahn's children, who range in age from 29 to 37, grew up to become Jones Beach lifeguards. (Three are former members of the corps and one is still active.) Jones's two sons, ages 57 and 45, are lifeguards as well - the older for the Town of Hempstead and the younger for the Atlantic Beach Club in Atlantic Beach.
Jones and Hahn, who often swim together at the Freeport Recreation Center pool, think of Jones Beach as a second home. The beach, Hahn said during an interview at his quaint Merrick Woods home, "is a beautiful place to be. You're around a lot of young people. I like swimming. I like the ocean. I'd rather be around the ocean than the pool."
Jones, whose wife of 58 years, Betty, died last year, said, "I do it because it is a great social thing. You meet a lot of great people down there. I do not want to sit at home and watch the tomatoes grow. I never considered lifeguarding work. I tell the young guys, If you think this is work, you're crazy. Digging ditches is work."
Experience is key
Both Jones and Hahn believe they still have much to offer as lifeguards. Most important, they said, they possess extensive knowledge of the ocean - its tides and "sweeps" and fierce rip currents that can, in an instant, drag a swimmer under or into dangerously deep water.
Late in the afternoon on a recent 80-degree Friday, Hahn was on duty on a tall, white lifeguard stand near the East Bathhouse at Jones Beach's Field 5, keeping close watch on two teenagers who were bobbing like errant buoys in the rough surf. Hahn, dressed in blue, standard-issue Jones Beach lifeguard shorts, a faded T-shirt and brown sunglasses, noted how the boys were wearing shirts in the water. They likely did so because the ocean was cold that day. But, Hahn said, that told him the pair knew little about staying safe in the surf. A wet shirt, he said, weighs a swimmer down, and makes it hard to get back to the surface if he or she is pulled under by a rip current. Hahn also worried because he spotted brown water streaming around the boys; that meant the sandy floor beneath them was giving way as the waves crashed onto the beach and rapidly receded.
Hahn was perched at the edge of his stand, ready to take off on a rescue at any moment. Soon, however, the teenagers moved out of the brown water and were swimming safely, and Hahn relaxed.
Gorman said that older lifeguards like Jones and Hahn have expertise rarely found in younger members of the corps. "They'll see somebody who's in trouble that a less experienced lifeguard might not," he said.
Age discrimination?
Roy Lester, a Long Beach resident who fell in love with the ocean as a child, started as a Jones Beach lifeguard in 1968. But the 57-year-old was not allowed to take the corps' requalifying test in May, even though, according to his past times, he would have passed it easily. Until this summer, lifeguards were allowed to wear any swimsuits they wanted during the annual retest. Then the state Parks Department decided that lifeguards must try out in the swimsuits they would wear on the beach - either boxer-style suits or slim Speedos. As Lester had in past years, he wanted to wear a Jammer, a longer, tight-fitting Speedo racing suit that resembles a pair of cycling shorts. So the state barred him from taking the requalifying test.
Lifeguard hopefuls trying out for the first time must pass a series of swimming tests, in both the pool and the ocean, as well as a quarter-mile run. In the requalifying test, returning guards with fewer than 10 years of experience must swim 100 yards in a pool in less than 1 minute, 15 seconds, and guards with more than 10 years experience must complete the distance in less than 1 minute, 20 seconds. Last year, Lester, an accomplished triathlete, finished the 100 in 59.7 seconds. (Hahn did it in 1:12, and Jones in 1:17, this year.)
Lester, an attorney and past lifeguard union representative, refused to wear anything but a Jammer in order to make a point. He believes the new state requirement is a subtle form of age discrimination, and he plans to file suit against the Parks Department to overturn it.
Lester said the boxer-short suits are baggy and cause drag in the water, costing applicants precious fractions of seconds on their requalifying swims, which would work against older lifeguards, as their times tend to fall off over the years. And, Lester said, most older guards don't want anything to do with the bikini-like Speedos.
Lester explained that upstate lifeguards are allowed to take the requalifying test in Jammers. He recently traveled to Yorktown, N.Y., to videotape and photograph applicants in Jammers at their rehire retest.
Things have changed a great deal since 1971, when the state sought to bar anyone over age 35 from becoming a Jones Beach lifeguard. A strike, which Reggie Jones helped lead, ensued, and the state relented.
But, Lester contends, the state continues to look for ways to keep older lifeguards off the beach. "They can't just say you're not going to be a lifeguard because you're older, so they put little roadblocks in," Lester said from his expansive office overlooking Old Country Road in Garden City.
By way of reply, Gorman said, "There is no discrimination. We have a very age-diverse work force in the lifeguard corps. We have high school- and college-age lifeguards up to retired age."
Gorman added that the Parks Department is considering revising its requirements for upstate lifeguards, but he said the retesting rules on Long Island have to be more stringent because lifeguards here are subjected to harsher working conditions. "Our lifeguards have to be able to fight the elements," Gorman said. "Upstate, they don't see the extreme surf conditions we do."
Keeping the dream alive
Older guards like Jones and Hahn train throughout the year in order to pass the requalifying test. Jones has an acronym for his workout routine: R.I.P. (for run, iron, pedal). One day he runs, and the next he lifts weights. The next day, he rides a bike. Every day, he swims. He follows that regimen for six days and then rests for a day.
Hahn eats in moderation, with plenty of fruits and vegetables, rides a bike to do errands and swims three-quarters of a mile a day. As the years pass, he said, "It gets harder to do the workout. I feel great when I'm leaving the pool. The hardest part is starting, saying I'm going to the pool."
What motivates Hahn to work out each day is the terrible thought of needing more than 80 seconds to finish that crucial 100-yard swim. "I worry about what I'll do when I fail the test," he said. "That day will come."
Jones plans to "stay in there and keep it up" as long as he can. With a smile crossing his lips, he said, "You've got to keep the dream alive."
Comments about this story? SBrinton@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 203.
