Where did all the lifeguards go?

I spent my summer afternoons as a tween at my local public pool in Milwaukee with a gaggle of neighborhood kids. I was there for Marco Polo, water tag, and proudly modeling the matching purple nose plugs and goggles that I'd bought with my allowance. My girlfriends, a year or two older, were most interested in catching the eye of the male lifeguards.

I would gamely follow along as they made conversation with our tanned and fit overseers. The teenage and 20-something guards held celebrity status in our eyes. And, as far as I can remember, they were reasonably good sports about getting pestered by a bunch of hormonally charged grade schoolers.



By the time school started back up at the end of August, my dark-brown hair would be tinged with orange, proudly earned proof of my participation in the storied summer tradition of chlorine and sun. Too many kids growing up in America today, however, won't know what any of that was like — the lifeguard is now on life support . The American Lifeguard Association reported last year that one-third of the country's 309,000 public swimming pools would either close for the summer season or operate in a limited capacity, marking the third year in a row for dramatically reduced pool access nationwide.

My childhood pool — where my grandfather worked as a locker-room attendant in the 1940s and my dad learned to swim in the 1960s — has been closed to the public since 2020. Public beaches share the struggle. This year, the predicament continues.