At my job as a lifeguard, I am a people-watcher. I am paid to sit on a stand and observe everyone in the pool for 15 to 30 minutes at a time. During this time I often find myself thinking about who these patrons are or once were. They all are people, just like you and I, who live there life practically the same way, and yet, they are all inherently different. They have different clothes, different attitudes, different schedules, and so on. I chose this one night to observe people in the pool ,as I sat there on the stand, in as much detail as I possibly could.
The first man that I observed was at the pool with his wife. Both of them were older people, and I would have to guess between 75 and 80 years old. The wife helps the man, who moves quite slow outside of the pool, get ready to swim and then he gets in the pool and just walks from one end to the other, which is good for someone of that age to do. I have noticed that his hands shake quite a bit, so he must have some sort of disorder. The wife just sits by the side of the pool and reads until the the man is ready to get out, at which point she is ready with a towel and has his things for him. Given what I have observed, the wife probably loves the man dearly and she is doing this for him out of that love for him. She is always happy to help him and she always has a smile on her face. Given the way the man's hands shake, they way that his wife helps him, his slowness outside of the pool, and the low-impact of his routine, I would have to assume that he has at least mild arthritis and another disorder to cause his hands to shake. Given the fact that they come in everyday almost and admission is $2.12 per senior, they must be at least somewhat well off, because that starts to add up after a while.
The next man I observed was here with his wife as well, but in this case both of them get into the pool together. These people were younger than the previous couple, but they were still at least 50-60 years old. They both exercise together in the pool and mainly just swim laps together. By together I mean that they occasionally swim side by side and tend to talk at the ends of the pool, but for the most part swim independently. They walk in wearing clothes that are what you might imagine any middle-class, older couple to wear; they had jeans, shirts, and average tennis-shoes on. They also keep their workouts in the pool light, mainly swimming leisurely from one end to the other, leading me to believe that this this is mainly just to get out and do something. Since I know that they are middle-class (they also come in every night and it is $4.50 each for them) and both of them are somewhat large, I believe that their jobs are probably well-paying ones that require mainly sedentary work.
The final person that I observed is an older gentleman who comes in alone a few times a week. He is probably around the same age as the previous people (50-60), but he actually quite muscular. He has well defined abs and looks like he could bench around 275 pounds. He keeps his head completely blond and is tan year-round, so he must use than tanning bed or get spray tans (he does not have a naturally tan complexion because the tan is faintly orange/golden). So for an older gentleman, he looks younger than he probably is. When he comes in, he is always wearing nice clothes and his keys have the BMW logo on them. From this information, I believe that he has or had a job that was quite well paying and would put him in the upper upper-middle class. However, since he puts a lot of money into his exterior appearance (tan, body, clothes, car), I believe that he is concerned of the way that people perceive him to be and therefore attempts to look the best he possibly can.
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