By Michael J. Walsh, Cape May County Gazette Leader, Wednesday, August 21, 1996

Imagine a lifetime spent on the beach, enjoying the sun, sea and air, while keeping those around you safe from an entity that can toss ships around like deadwood. Joe Bowen of the Wildwood Beach Patrol has been doing that for the past 45 years.

Bowen began his lifeguarding career in Sea Isle City in 1951 at the age of 14. He has lifeguarded every year straight except for one summer in 1958 when he worked in his father’s bar in Philadelphia.

The senior guard in South Jersey has worked four different beach patrols in New Jersey and Florida. He summer guarded in Sea Isle City from 1951 until 1984, became a lieutenant in 1961, and was the captain there from 1965 to 1969. During the winter he worked in Daytona Beach, Fla., from 1955 to 1959 before working in Hollywood Beach, Fla., from 1960 until the mid-80s full time. As time passed in Florida he was able to amass enough vacation time each year to work summers in Sea Isle City and continue to work full time in Florida. In 1984, when the Sea Isle lieutenant John McCann took the captain’s position in Wildwood, Bowen moved over with him and has stayed ever since.

“I didn’t plan on being a lifeguard for 45 years, it just ended up that way,” says Bowen. Originally, he wanted to go to college, but he got married in 1961, and had a child soon afterward. After that nothing ever “popped” up other than lifeguarding.

In response to the differences in lifeguarding now versus his early years, Bowen says, “Lifeguarding is a profession now, then it was just a summer job. At that time there were only a few people working full time. Now the yearly salaries are way up, close to that of police and fire personnel.

“Back in the 50s and 60s it was a lot more fun. Much less profession oriented, and less people. Working for the beach patrols got tougher as they got larger and better.” Bowen says now the lifeguards are better and more regularly trained. “In the early days, there was some mandatory training, but nothing like now. Between the new standards for lifeguarding and all the different lifeguard meets, they train all the time now.”

The lifeguards are better trained now, according to Bowen, because of the creation of the United States Lifesaving Association. The USLA retooled almost every aspect of lifeguarding. It has tried to standardize the profession to the point where almost every beach in the country tries to live up to those standards. Before the USLA, each beach patrol trained its own guards by its own standards.

In regards to all the lifeguard meets, Bowen still competes in the master group races, although he has cut back recently. Just a couple of years ago he competed in the national regionals in Cape May. He started the first South Florida lifeguard tournament in 1964. Then there were only four teams; now it has grown to 15. He was a five-time swim champion in Sea Isle City, a five time South Jersey entrant, won a few Tri-City meets and won the first-ever South Florida Swim Championship. Bowen figures he has competed in every type of lifeguarding event there is.

He believes the hardest thing about lifeguarding is still the same — boredom. “It’s not so bad here, where on a nice day the water is filled with bathers,” he says. “But in the winter in Florida, or dark rainy days anywhere, where you won’t see a soul for a couple of days, its really tough.”

If Bowen has one pet peeve it’s with a portion of the public. “The public can be very tough, especially in large groups,” says Bowen. “They have no idea of how strong the ocean is. Sometimes you have to threaten them with arrest before you can get them out of the ocean for their own good. Most drownings nowadays involve people swimming after dark.”

The growth in beach use and popularity is evident, Bowen says, in the changes in reporting about surf conditions. “Before, the TV and radio weather reports never gave ocean forecasts. But now they let you know about rip tides and ocean temperature. No one had a clue about the ocean back then, now they do.

Bowen estimates he has made 1,300 rescues. “Now rescues are a bad statistic. You have to be preventative, you have to make sure you keep people out of danger instead of waiting until they get into it. Although it’s impossible to stop all need for rescues, the less you make the better.”

Both his son and daughter have lifeguarding ties. His son Brian was a lifeguard until last season, and his daughter Stacy married a Palm Beach lifeguard.

During the winter, at his home in Florida, he rows 350 to 400 miles with Harry “Buzz” Mogck, who also happens to be a the captain of the Cape May Beach Patrol, to relax and stay in shape.

In Wildwood, Bowen, who will turn 60 in September, is a lifeguard training officer and a South End Beach Jeep driver. Previously, he had been working in the substation office, but he wanted to get outside and enjoy the beach again.

Bowen hopes to continue lifeguarding up to his 50th year in the profession. “Maybe then I’ll relax.”

© 1996 The Cape May County Gazette Leader.