Just Say No Speedo

Ah, summer …

Did you hear the one about the 61-year-old lifeguard in New York who was fired from his job because he refused to wear a Speedo swimsuit for a swim test?

Roy Lester sued the state, saying the requirement to wear a form-hugging Speedo suit was age discrimination and aimed at ridding the beaches of aging lifeguards.

“I wore a Speedo when I was in my 20s,” Lester was quoted as saying in a story in the New York Daily News. “But come on. There should be a law prohibiting anyone over the age of 50 from wearing a Speedo.”

Anybody who’s witnessed a man over 50 wearing a Speedo on a beach or at a pool can likely sympathize with Lester’s view on the tiny suit.

I’ve never been able to figure it out. Unless you’re in REALLY good shape, a Speedo just doesn’t do it. Don’t these guys have mirrors in their houses?

Either that, or they just want to get … uh, noticed.

Whatever the case, there’s about a million other swimsuit styles that are much more appropriate for places where children and the faint-hearted might be present.

Now judging by the photo that ran with the story, Lester is no beer gut, over-the-hill loser. Because he’s been lifeguarding and swimming for more than 40 years, he’s in great shape even for someone half his age.

Lester said he usually wears biking-style, thigh-covering shorts when he’s on lifeguard duty. Certainly a more modest and age-appropriate choice.

He said he believes the Speedo test requirement was recently implemented to rid area beaches of aging lifeguards, who he estimated make up more than 80 percent of those guarding lives.

Eighty percent? Jeez …

Anyway, Lester told the Daily News he’s determined to fight the new requirement for lifeguard recertification that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the state.

“At a certain point you have to stand up and say this isn’t right,” he said. “To me, to back down would have made me a hypocrite.”

OK, I agree with everything he says and the stand he’s taking. But the story does raise some puzzling questions.
First, why would a 61-year-old guy want to be a lifeguard in the first place? Aren’t lifeguards supposed to be young bucks and buck-ettes who love getting sunburns and hanging out with the nubile crowd?

And who spends 40 years doing that? Forty years of watching over screaming and yelling kids, breaking up arguments over the best beach spots and viewing the endless parade of less-than-fit humanity cavorting in the surf?

I dunno. It just seems this guy and the rest of the aging area lifesavers should be off doing something a little more productive with their time.

And letting a new crop of lifeguards who don’t mind sporting a Speedo take over.

It’s just another classic case of the older generation refusing to gracefully move aside for a new generation, I guess.

But who knew it might take a Speedo to make it happen?

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