This is John Batchel, conversation with the author Max Boot, his new book, Reagan, The Life and Legend.

Max tells the story here of Reagan as a lifeguard, starting when he was 15 in Illinois along the

Rock River, and how many people he saved, and what it meant to him, gave himself esteem coming from

a troubled family. Max Boot, Ronald Reagan, the teenage lifeguard.

More of this later tonight. Absolutely. And this was a very formative experience for him.

He spent most of his high school and college years in the summers working as a lifeguard on the

Rock River. And during that time, he saved 77 people from drowning.

And there are cynics of a later age who questioned that claim and suggest that maybe

that there were some girls who just feigned drowning to be rescued by this handsome lifeguard.

But in fact, I mean, I researched it as best as I could, and I concluded that he really had saved 77

people, and he became kind of a small town hero because of that. And I think that gave him

a taste of what it was like to be renowned, admired, to be useful to the community. And, you know,

Reagan himself was never very self-reflective. He was a very

frustrating subject for interviewers, but I found a remark that he made in the late 1930s to a

movie fan magazine. And by the way, movie fan magazines were one of my best sources on Ronald Reagan's

life because they were just such fascinating vignettes before he entered politics.

But he made this comment to a movie fan magazine where he talked about why he liked being a lifeguard so much.

And what he said was he liked sitting up on this high chair with everybody looking up at him.

And I thought that was very revealing of his psyche.