Lifeguard Try-out Memory

The following story was written by Jim Kelly in March 2014.  The reference to Eric Jensen's health relates to his fight with a major bacterial infection that has been going on for more than two months. 

Hi Dale:

          Now that Eric is getting better, I feel like I can tell the story of our guard try-outs. Eric and I swam together. We had both been working out in the pool and in the ocean to get used to the temperature for a couple of months before the try-outs. The day in March 1961 that we swam it was very cold and foggy and the water temperature was 53 degrees. There was a northward setting counter-current that must have been running at a half knot or so, because I could normally swim a mile in about 25 minutes and that day it took us over an hour. So we were in the water a long time. I remember Eugene DePaulis and other guards pulling a lot of people out along the way, most of them hypothermic. Eric and I swam together and kept each other going. He thought we should swim backstroke to keep our faces out of the water so we wouldn’t get so cold and it worked. We finally finished and could barely walk up the beach we were so cold. We just sat and shook for at least an hour before we continued with the try-outs. As I recall, everyone who finished the mile swim made the force that day, but there were not many of us. I could not have done it alone. Eric and I kept each other going through the whole swim and I have always been really glad he was swimming next to be the whole way.

Cheers. Jim