594: My Summer Self
This American Life
This American Life
4.6 • 88.8K Ratings
🗓️ 6 July 2025
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Summer is a time when change seems more possible than ever. But is that really how it happens? Can people actually reinvent themselves in the warmer months? This week, we present stories — and some comedy — about people and their summer selves.
Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass reflects on his feelings about going to the beach. (3 minutes)
- Act One: Producer Dana Chivvis explores the case of a 66-year-old working lifeguard who is suing New York State for age discrimination after refusing to wear a Speedo on the job. (16 minutes)
- Act Two: A troupe of comedians tells personal stories about summer experiences and improvises scenes based on them. (23 minutes)
- Act Three: Producer Neil Drumming tells the story of his dad and his family’s timeshare in Orlando, Florida. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Me, I'm not crazy about the beach. |
| 0:09.0 | Going in the waves, totally fun for a little bit, but like all day. |
| 0:15.5 | And like many people over 40, I have no desire to ever be seen in a bathing suit by anyone ever for the rest of my life. |
| 0:23.7 | But you know where I'm heading? Just hours from now? After I leave the studio today? |
| 0:29.1 | The beach. For a week. And why? Because it's summer. |
| 0:42.3 | Hating the beach during summer, and I believe I can say this with authority from personal experience, Hating the beach in summer is like being a Jew at Christmas. |
| 0:46.3 | You can try to sit it out, but it's just too big. |
| 0:49.3 | At some point, you're going to drink some eggnog. And you know what? When I go to the beach, I try. I really try to get into it. |
| 1:03.0 | Have a nice time to appreciate the waves and the sand and the heat. |
| 1:06.0 | And I think about how many hundreds and thousands of years of families have brought their kids to the Waters Edge to play pretty much exactly the same dumb way that we play in the sand and |
| 1:15.2 | waves today. How many ways are there to do that anyway? It's just nice to be part of something |
| 1:19.5 | that's been happening forever. And, you know, some people really love it so much. A while back |
| 1:26.2 | here on a radio show, we all saw this article about somebody like that. |
| 1:29.5 | At the time, he was a 66-year-old lifeguard who was suing New York State for age discrimination. |
| 1:35.9 | And I just want to pause on that for a second, a 66-year-old lifeguard. |
| 1:40.1 | All of us here in our staff, we had no idea that could even exist. |
| 1:44.0 | We all thought lifeguarding is something you do when you're in high school, maybe a couple |
| 1:46.5 | years after, into your 20s. |
| 1:47.9 | Like, who's still lifeguarding at 66? |
| 1:51.1 | And then it was even more of a question when we realized that the lifeguard in the story, |
| 1:55.3 | he has another job. |
| 1:56.7 | He's a lawyer. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This American Life, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of This American Life and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.