By John Woestendiek, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, August 24, 1997

So I don’t have the deep tan, the washboard stomach, the sun–bleached hair, or the youthful vigor. Up here – eight feet above the crowd, behind my cool shades – I’m positively Hasselhoffian.

Up here, on the lifeguard stand, the view is unobstructed, the breeze is unblocked, the sand is unkicked, and, most miraculously, tennage girls are smiling at me, which hasn’t happened since, well, come to think of it, it has never happened.

No, I’m not a lifeguard, and I don’t play one on TV, unlike David Hasselhoff. I’m just (minus the official Wildwood Beach Patrol tank top, nose zinc and – darnit– whistle) spending the day with one.

He is Jack McGinnis, an eight–year veteran, who – unlike on TV’s Baywatch, which features several rescues per episode – has yet to pull anyone out of the sea.

Instead, we’re dispensing Band–Aids, whistling at people out too deep, answering dumb questions. Either real life is a lot different from TV, or New Jersey is a lot different from California. Most likely, it’s a little of both.

In Wildwood, for one thing, you still see bathing caps. Here, the typical female bathing suit is not a thong, but one with a billowy skirt that, if necessary, could double as a parasail. Men, meanwhile, opt for either very large or very tiny trunks, not letting beer bellies the size of beach balls keep them from wedging into Speedos, resulting in a spectacle that, were I in charge, would be at least a misdemeanor.

Here, unlike on Baywatch, the crowd is not all cast from the same tanned–toned mold; they come in every imaginable shape and color. They don’t hop onto the beach from convertibles; they often come by the busload from the city, some on their first visit to the ocean.

“Some of them don’t even realize it’s an ocean,” said McGinnis, 25, a Philadelphia substitute teacher during the non–summer months. “People ask me,‘What lake is this? Where does it go? Can you get the seaweed out of the water?’ Once, I was asked to turn up the waves.”

As we surveyed our domain – OK, his domain – a woman asked the first question: “Is it high tide?” “No, it’s low,” McGinnis said. “Why is it so rough? Is there a hurricane coming or something?” “No, it’s just a little windy.” “When will it unroughen? What time will the dolphins be here?” “I’m not sure.” He shook his head as she walked away. “They think it’s Sea World or something.”

For the next few hours, we tell people what time it is, wave and nod, discourage ball playing in the surf, and identify creatures pulled from the sea. “Throw it back in, and your wish will come true,” he says. Mostly we just sit there, as banner–toting airplanes slice through the sky advertising car dealers, computer training institutes, and even virtue: “True Love Waits for Marriage,” which I know isn’t always true, at least not on Baywatch.

“We don’t have those interesting subplots they have on Baywatch,” says McGinnis, one of 68 lifeguards who patrol the mile–and–a–half–long beach at Wildwood. “Real lifeguarding is not that exciting.”

“We practice preventative lifeguarding,” explained Lou Cirelli, head of the beach patrol. “We don’t wait until something bad happens.” And while prevention – nagging beachgoers for an hour – may not play well on TV, there have been no drownings while lifeguards were on duty in Wildwood since the early 1980s, a claim Baywatch can’t make.

Still, I wanted excitement. And it came – my damsel in distress. She was crying, and biting her fist. I climbed down, handed her my pad and pen, and asked her if she could write her name. It was “Ariel.” She was 6. She talked. I almost had her last name figured out when her parents came by, said, “C’mon,” and casually walked away with her.

Sure, McGinnis said, people do some stupid things at the beach – like the guy who, buried up to his neck in sand, made a suggestive remark to a passing girl, then became a punching bag for her friends.

Nothing like that happened on my watch. But I learned what people need to be protected from at the Shore. It’s not riptides, bullies or sea creatures. It’s themselves.

© 1997 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Reproduced with permission.