History
Reggie Jones, 77 and the "oldest lifeguard at Jones Beach" in 2004 reflected on the beach's history and his work, "From his wooden lifeguard tower." He remembered, "when everything was closed on Sundays -- the blue laws -- and most families had one car and there were no downtown shopping malls. For 25 cents you got in the car and took the kids to the beach. This was the poor man's Riviera." He wore the "itchy" one-piece woolen lifeguard suit "instead of the Tommy Hilfiger trunks that are today's standard issue." Fashions of beachgoers also changed with "The girls are wearing dental floss" as opposed to the dresses that he remembered being worn. Jones Beach gets more visitors annually than Yellowstone and Yosemite combined with 8 million people visiting in 2003, a steep drop from the 13.3 million who visited in 1970.
Read more about this topic: Lifeguard Tower
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Revolutions are the periods of history when individuals count most.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)