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Charles Atlas Opened Door To A Cool Summer Job

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 28, 2007

A recent assignment for the creative writing club I belong to was to prepare a story describing a job we had while in high school. Even though that was so very long ago, I still possess vivid memories.

My very best job while a high school student was as a lifeguard in Lenape, Pa., in a wonderful amusement park with an Olympic-size swimming pool.

How did I get such a really cool job? Inasmuch as all our writing club members are about of the same vintage, I assumed they could remember the proliferation of comic books in the 1940s and '50s, and I asked if they could picture the very back page.

There was a beach scene with a scrawny little guy on a blanket with a gorgeous girl beside him. Then a big burly dude jogs close by and kicks sand on the young couple. The kid jumps to his feet in protest, only to be shoved back. He is obviously highly embarrassed by the unfortunate incident, especially when the girl finds it amusing.

In desperation, the young lad responds to a Charles Atlas advertisement, and a short time later, with a body now full of rippling muscle, returns to the beach and promptly decks the aforementioned bully when he makes a terrible mistake in an attempt to further embarrass our young hero.

That scrawny little kid could have been me.

'Mother Of God!'

I never lived that scenario, but I felt the reality of it. So, one day, with comic book in hand, I approached my mom with the idea that if I took the Charles Atlas course, I, too, could become one of the world's most perfectly developed men.

Mom, bless her heart, being sensitive to my feelings of extreme ineptitude and my lack of self-confidence, never pooh-poohed the idea but gave the impression she was somewhat interested in helping me become more confident.

That is, until she discovered the entire course, over time, would amount to $250 in monthly installments!

Being a persistent little creature, I kept the pressure on poor mom. She remained steadfast, however, and did not give in until I approached her with the final, once-in-a-lifetime "deal" from the iron man himself: For only $25 in one lump sum, submitted immediately, I could receive the entire course in just one envelope.

She acquiesced and wrote a check to the order of Charles Atlas. I completed the form.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity for my course to make it to our address. Making sure I would not miss delivery, I positioned myself by the mailbox whenever possible, awaiting the arrival of our mailman, old Mr. Burns, in his rickety Model A Ford.

And so it went for at least a month. Just when I had pretty much given up, and Mom figured her money was gone with the wind, Mr. Burns chugged up the lane one day tooting the horn and waving a huge yellow envelope.

It was a rather fat parcel that contained every one of the 12 "lessons" as promised. I could hardly wait to begin! Very quickly I became engrossed in the precious pages before me. In fact, I was so completely taken in by the "secrets" of Charles Atlas, for the very first time in my life I missed Mom's call for dinner.

Later that evening, Mom climbed the stairs with a sandwich and a glass of milk, and what a surprise she received. By this time I was well into the first lesson, which strongly advised that I do all the dynamic tension exercises in the buff while facing a large mirror.

Mom, as was her practice, barged right in, and with a look of shock and dismay, proclaimed "Mother of God!" and simultaneously sent the tray of food flying all over my room.

Unconvinced about my hurried explanation, even when I showed her exactly where in the literature that exercising nude was advised, she swept up my precious packet and stormed out of my room. I was devastated.

But a few days later, after an obvious perusal of the material, Mom once again climbed the stairs to my room and tossed the envelope on my bed. With an admonishment to lock my door while exercising, she left me to begin anew what turned out to be the greatest transition in my young life.

Comic Book Hero

I eventually transitioned from that pitiful creature in the advertisement to a "hunk." I certainly wasn't a perfectly developed man, granted, but a 200-pound, finely tuned, well-muscled and unusually strong 17-year-old reasonable facsimile of one.

With my hard-earned physique, I was hired as a lifeguard. What a coup that was. And later that summer I became the assistant manager of the pool.

It was to my great satisfaction to stroll the decks of the pool, twirling my ever-present silver whistle on its leather strap, or perch in the head lifeguard chair while basking in the flattering comments of the multitude of bikini-clad cuties.

There was only one terrible moment that could have drastically altered my opinion of that job. One day, a busload of mentally challenged children and adults arrived, all properly attired for a dip. To my horror, it became immediately obvious that many of them did not have a clue how to swim or what it meant for someone to drown.

Fortunately, all 10 of us lifeguards were well-trained and in a manner of seconds were able to pull everyone out of the pool before anyone drowned.

On rainy or particularly cool days the pool would not open, and all the guards were expected to help where needed elsewhere in the park. At least twice a summer, when the weather was not suitable for swimming, the owner, Mr. Gibney, asked me and a fellow guard to take one of the canoes and search adjacent ponds for bullfrogs. The owner's favorite meal consisted of frog legs and onion rings fried in butter.

That was great fun, but my favorite foul-weather job was helping Brian, my best high school friend, collect tickets and prevent monkey business on the merry-go-round. It was so neat, as he taught me how to step on and off the contraption while in full-speed revolutions. We were main attractions there, at least we thought, as we became extremely proficient at these maneuvers.

Even today, on those rare occasions when we get back to Pennsylvania and meet up with Brian, we still laugh about those good old days, and revel in those dear sweet memories of our favorite high school jobs.

The writer, a retired General Motors benefits administrator, is a seasonal resident of Zephyrhills.

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