Laguna Lifeguards’ Job Hasn’t Changed Much

In 1929, the water off Laguna Beach was crystal clear and the shoreline was a destination for Hollywood’s elite. That same year, city leaders recognized a need to police the seven-mile stretch of sand and surf to safeguard beachgoers.

Up until that time, rescue missions were left up to a local butcher, whose shop was closest to the water. The city’s Marine Safety Department has come a long way in the last seven decades, said its current chief, Mark Klosterman.

The city started by hiring all of two full-time lifeguards in 1929, paying them $75 a month.

Today, the Department of Marine Safety is 100 strong during summer months, with 42 lifeguards staffing 27 stations daily along the beachfront, which annually attracts millions of sunbathers and swimmers. Lifeguards now earn about $1,900 a month.

But as the city’s crew and many alumni recently celebrated 70 successful years of saving people’s lives, lifeguards acknowledged that some things haven’t changed.

“Technology really hasn’t found a way to help out the lifesaver,” Klosterman said.

About 1,500 ocean rescues are performed each year, with no boat and no helicopter, just a guard swimming out to save a floundering person, Klosterman said. He and others are proud of their record.

“The difference between a save and a drowning is one breath,” Klosterman said. “We haven’t had a drowning on a guarded beach since the late ‘60s.”

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From 1929 until today, the basic job duties and responsibilities for lifeguards remain the same too: preventing drownings and providing medical assistance, ordinance enforcement and safety education.

The qualities needed in new lifeguards have also remained constant.

“The young men and women are intelligent, personable, articulate, and they’re all college kids,” Klosterman said.

Women worked the shores as early as the 1930s when American Red Cross volunteers helped out. It wasn’t until the early ‘70s that women were hired within the department, he said.

Now, women are 10% of the force, Klosterman said.

Klosterman said there are about 3,000 alumni of Laguna’s program, many of whom still live in the area. Most consider themselves members of a close-knit community, he said.

“It’s very much an experience that they carry with them their whole lives--that binding camaraderie of working this shoreline, of serving the community in that lifesaving capacity,” he said.

In the past five years, several esteemed alumni have died.

“Where did they want to go?” Klosterman asked, pointing toward the shoreline. “Out there.”

So Klosterman helped each person make arrangements to be buried at sea.

For some, being a lifeguard is a family tradition.

Two Laguna Beach brothers, John and Lew Parlette, were lifeguards years ago. John worked the Oak Street beach, which was considered a surfers’ beach from 1959 or so up through the mid-’60s. Lew kept watch over Victoria Beach for seven years beginning around 1963.

Their father, Llewellyn, was a guard in Ocean City, N.J., and a rowing champion in 1935. Now, Lew’s son, Casey, is working the Laguna shoreline.

The 20-year-old lifeguard, in his fourth year, said guarding the beach is just about the best job he could imagine.

“You’re at the beach; you get paid to save lives. It’s a fulfilling job,” Parlette said. “It’s the only thing I’ve really enjoyed as far as work goes. It’s been my favorite job.”