714: Day at the Beach

This American Life

Society & Culture, News, Politics, Arts

4.6 • 88.8K Ratings

🗓️ 13 August 2023

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s the last few weeks of summer, so we’re going to the beach! This week, stories from the surf and sand.

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. (15 minutes)
Act Two: Alex Blumberg talks to Shane Dubow about a time decades ago, when Shane went sea kayaking and camping with his friends on the beach in Baja California, Mexico. When Shane’s neck stiffens up on him, he finds himself looking for an unlikely chiropractor, in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes)
Act Three: This clip is from what Ira calls “the beachiest show” public radio ever made. It’s a segment from NPR’s 1970’s show, Ocean Hour. In it we hear from a man who lives on the beach, literally. He explains how it provides him everything he needs to survive. You can hear the original hour of radio, which included The Beachcomber, courtesy of Nation Public Radio, Inc. (3 minutes)
Act Four: David Sedaris comes from a big family, who for many years growing up, took annual vacations to the same beach house. In this story, David tells us about losing a sister, and how her death prompted a family reunion back at the beach. David is the author of many books, including Calypso. (27 minutes)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Me? I'm not crazy about the beach. I started to think of a less comfortable place to
0:13.5	read a book than flat on a blanket under the scorching sun. Going in the waves, totally
0:19.5	fun for a little bit, but like all day, and like many people over 40, I have no desire
0:26.7	to ever be seen in a bathing suit by anyone ever for the rest of my life. But, no
0:34.0	many times I've been to the beach this summer. Okay, there were two quickie day trips and
0:39.3	a seven day beach vacation. I don't like the beach, but I've been a bunch. And why? Well,
0:50.5	because people I love love the beach. Hating the beach during summer, and I believe I can
0:56.3	say this with authority from personal experience, hating the beach in summer is like being
0:59.9	a Jew at Christmas. You can try to sit it out, but it's just too big. At some point, you're
1:06.6	going to drink some eggnog. And you know what? When I go to the beach, I try. I really
1:18.5	try to get into it. To have a nice time, to appreciate the waves and the sand and the
1:22.9	heat. And I think about many hundreds and thousands of years of families and brought their
1:27.4	kids to the water's edge to play pretty much exactly the same dumb way that we play in the
1:31.6	sand and waves today. How many ways are there to do that anyway? And you know, some people
1:36.3	really love it so much. A while back here on a radio show, we all saw this article about
1:41.8	somebody like that. At the time, he was a 66 year old lifeguard who was suing New York
1:46.8	State for age discrimination. And I just want to pause on that for a second. A 66 year
1:52.1	old lifeguard. All of us here in our staff, we had no idea like that could even exist.
1:56.6	We all thought lifeguarding is something you do when you're in high school, maybe a couple
2:00.1	years after and you're 20s, like who's still lifeguarding at 66? And then it was even more
2:06.2	of a question when we realized that the lifeguard in the story, he has another job. He's a lawyer.
2:11.5	He's a working lawyer. His name is Rory Lester. He's a bankruptcy attorney. He's got his own
	...

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