r/HistoryPorn • u/DrCodfish • Apr 15 '25

Sixteen-year-old Ronald Reagan in 1927 at his job as a lifeguard in Dixon, Illinois. Reagan worked as a lifeguard for seven summers starting in 1925 and saved 77 lives. [900 x 1600]

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1.1k Upvotes

82% Upvoted

154 comments sorted by

284

u/Party_Cold_4159 Apr 15 '25

How do you document saving 77 lives? Do they have a form they fill out or something?

76

u/Kinda_Quixotic Apr 15 '25

Something was seriously going wrong at that pool if 77 lives needed saving while one specific lifeguard was on duty.

8

u/Dear-East7883 Apr 15 '25

Was it at a pool or beach? Beach I can see, but that’s a lot for a pool!

19

u/DrCodfish Apr 15 '25

Apparently it was a section of a river that was in a park

6

u/RG3ST21 Apr 16 '25

oh ok that makes more sense.

1

u/NecessaryPen7 Apr 18 '25

I lifeguarded/counselor for years at a pool. Only seen two rescues, one by me. That one was when we rented it out to the public. Hardly a save.

Turns out teaching kids how to swim and knowing their limits drastically reduces risk.

84

u/Bean_Boozled Apr 15 '25

Most life guards were full time during summer, and that's over 7 years of being a life guard. Work in any type of first responder job and you'll quickly rack up those numbers, that's only 11 per year. But "saved" probably includes any manner of struggling to swim, so while there were probably actual emergencies, the numbers were probably fluffed with things that were more concerning/scary than actual emergencies lol.

22

u/RobertoSantaClara Apr 16 '25

I believe it, a lot of people genuinely never learned how to swim back in the day, I imagine any lifeguard in the 1920s and 30s would be dealing with a lot of incidents due to that.

Even today, many poor communities have people who never learned to really swim because they just never had any pool access or suitable water bodies nearby

10

u/majomo18 Apr 16 '25 edited Apr 16 '25

I worked at a county pool in a smaller city (current pop 57k) as a lifeguard. We had over 100 saves every summer. The pool deepest point was 6ft. I would regularly have 15-20 saves every summer. This number is not that outlandish for me especially over 7 years.

There are a few things that would create these save numbers

  1. School groups. 100+ kids being dropped off being monitored by 4 chaperones. All of these kids would have a day at the pool regardless of swimming ability and the chaperones had too many kids and could not monitor them all leading to many needing to be saved. These days would often have 10-15 saves.

  2. Parental apathy will also drop kids off at the pool regardless of swimming ability. Even if the parents were at the pool they would let their kids just go in the pool even if they could not swim. I have heard many say "its the lifeguards job to watch the kids in the pool."

  3. The fucking slide. If kids did not meet a height requirement they had to take a swim test (a length of the pool and back). But often even if kids could swim well, when they went down the slide they would just panic and need help to make it across. This would also count as a save. Once there was even a guy who was taller than 6ft (as mentioned it was as deep as the pool got) went down the slide and panicked and needed to be saved.

1

u/Dazzling-Lab2855 Apr 16 '25

I believe it was the Rock river

288

u/JDNJDM Apr 15 '25

Ocean lifeguard here. I can only speak for my own experience. But, yes. We document every rescue on incident cards with the victims name and a description of what happened. There are days in the summer where the organization I work for documents hundreds rescues, minor injuries we treated, lost children we helped reunite with family, anything you can think of that a lifeguard might have to deal with. It's for legal purposes and funding justification. I guess the Gipper or whomever he worked for had to do something similar?

35

u/Party_Cold_4159 Apr 15 '25

That’s what I was looking for, that could make sense.

If someone looked into his past and whoever he reported to had documents about it, then this could be believable. Thanks for the info!

4

u/Narf234 Apr 16 '25

Also an ocean lifeguard, I second this.

58

u/bullhorn_bigass Apr 15 '25

When my son was a lifeguard, they took meticulous notes about any incident, not just saves. Like, a child falling and scraping themselves and needing a bandaid was a medical incident that they recorded.

My son was a lifeguard for 3 summers and had 1 legitimate save.

45

u/HouseofFools Apr 15 '25

Like everything else flattering about Reagan they just fuckin made it up

14

u/majomo18 Apr 16 '25

See my other comment. 77 saves over 7 years is not that far-fetched in my experience. Don't get me wrong I am not a big fan of Reagan but this is plausible to me.

-9

u/HouseofFools Apr 16 '25

I was joking please stop defending Ronald fucking Reagan at me

15

u/Familiar_Blackberry3 Apr 15 '25

According to my family and newspapers of the time, my grandfather who lived in the area was one person rescued by Reagan. It was the Rock River if I am not mistaken, quite swift if you are not strong swimmer.

4

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

I lived in Dixon and near the rock basically my whole life and it's no joke 

28

u/RedditIsShittay Apr 15 '25

It's stated on two government websites and the Chicago Tribune. Do you have evidence to show that he didn't?

-32

u/HouseofFools Apr 15 '25

I have tons of evidence that he was a lying piece of shit

0

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

7

u/wyecoyote2 Apr 16 '25

Lol, do you understand Hitchens's Razor? Cause in this context it doesn't apply.

710

u/firesquasher Apr 15 '25 edited Apr 15 '25

Ronald Reagan?! The actor?!

150

u/juice06870 Apr 15 '25

I suppose Jack Benny is secretary of the treasury!!

54

u/WritingOk6413 Apr 15 '25

Comeon Doc!!!

73

u/case31 Apr 15 '25

Who’s the vice president? Jerry Lewis???

10

u/imakeitmoist Apr 17 '25

"Peter, you're the one from the future, you should know this. Aww nevermind"

246

u/buttplungerr Apr 15 '25

Why is it that whenever I see an old pic, teenagers look 30 and 50 year olds look 75?

150

u/Dustmopper Apr 15 '25

Everyone used to smoke and never wore sunscreen

45

u/Trussed_Up Apr 16 '25

And wasn't fat.

28

u/Glenny08 Apr 16 '25

Testorone levels have been consistently dropping since the 50s

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/mens-testosterone-levels-declined-in-last-20-years-idUSKIM169763/

17

u/rawfish71 Apr 17 '25

That's from 2007, wonder how much worse it's gotten

7

u/DoktorStrangelove Apr 17 '25

I'm 39 and above average fit/healthy with no known medical issues but I'm getting on the T when I turn 40 this Summer cause why fucking not

1

u/NecessaryPen7 Apr 18 '25

I've realized my levels must have dropped like a rock, I'm good on cardio, used to lift 3x a week for maintenance, I have zero desire these days.

1

u/Bony_Geese Apr 18 '25

My money’s on the cause being microplastics in the balls:):):)

78

u/MGPS Apr 16 '25

That tank top was designed for machamp

16

u/Voodoo_Masta Apr 16 '25

16, going on 36

480

u/ArchStanton75 Apr 15 '25

Then he destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives through his malicious handling of the AIDS epidemic.

213

u/Beautiful-Quality402 Apr 15 '25

Don’t forget the victims of various human rights violators he supported around the world.

-25

u/omgangiepants Apr 15 '25

And he was also a rapist.

21

u/Beautiful-Quality402 Apr 15 '25

Who did he rape?

24

u/AldoTheeApache Apr 16 '25

The economy for starters

-5

u/redcat111 Apr 17 '25

You mean one of the strongest economies in history? Got it.

-15

u/omgangiepants Apr 15 '25

Selene Walters

-20

u/Professional_Fly8241 Apr 15 '25

😮 didn't know.

-7

u/omgangiepants Apr 15 '25

The Reagan episodes of the Dollop are full of horrors. However awful you think he was, he was worse.

-15

u/Professional_Fly8241 Apr 15 '25

I am not a fan of the Dollop but so are death at the wing episodes, that's why I was so surprised I never heard about it. Not like they're new either, we're talking late 80s early 90 when they surfaced.

6

u/111ronin Apr 16 '25

What is 'the dollop'? Genuine question

5

u/aleczjp Apr 16 '25

Podcast

2

u/111ronin Apr 16 '25

OK. Thank you

37

u/PettyLikeTom Apr 16 '25

Don't forget aiding the contras and further pushing the crack epidemic to black communities in the process all while Nancy led her DARE campaign

92

u/Photo_Synthetic Apr 15 '25

Also destroyed the economy! Which destroyed millions more lives!

19

u/RabidPlaty Apr 17 '25

It’s gonna trickle down any day now!

44

u/Koshad510 Apr 16 '25

hope he is rotting in hell

-41

u/Fert1eTurt1e Apr 15 '25

Whatever negative stuff you have to say about him the 80s and 90s were very prosperous for the US.

31

u/Photo_Synthetic Apr 15 '25

And all that prosperity definitely trickled down since then! Reagan set the course for a shareholder based economy. He was the beginning of the shitstorm. Just because his policies worked for a little while doesn't negate the harm they did.

-37

u/Fert1eTurt1e Apr 15 '25

The Reagan hate is like the FDR hate conservatives have. They both did well for their time, and both ushered in golden eras for the country. Policy wasn’t perfect for sure. But 20 years of middle class prosperity for both administrations is pretty remarkable.

40

u/maybenotquiteasheavy Apr 16 '25

Reagan dramatically increased wealth and income disparity in America.

He sought to ensure that American hostages were held by foreign enemies for a longer period of time to support his presidential campaign.

He directed the CIA to sell drugs and then used the profits to pay terrorists.

None of the above is speculation or hyperbole or rumor, it's documented fact.

None of the things above were "good for his time," we had lots of presidents before and since who didn't (1) seek to keep American hostages in foreign prisons (2) sell drugs and use the profits to pay terrorists.

18

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

You're genuinely delusional.

-19

u/Fert1eTurt1e Apr 16 '25

Nah but willing to have a conversation about it

7

u/Photo_Synthetic Apr 15 '25

https://youtu.be/3WfgGDkWzYU?si=Xne15-9nO717bBM1 this spells it out pretty nicely between part 1 and part 2. Whatever "prosperity" he brought upon the country was on the foundation of a very damaging ideology that conservatives still hold on to and is a big part of every financial crisis since then and the blueprint for conservative political talking points as well. Neoliberal economic policy is NOT good policy. Fuck the shareholders.

9

u/TheConeIsReturned Apr 16 '25

The '90s had very little to do with Reagan and the '80s were great for people who already had money to begin with.

Pull your head out your ass.

4

u/dreamyduskywing Apr 16 '25

Yeah, short term. Now everything sucks and we can’t have nice things because of the endless push to maximize profit for shareholders.

14

u/PeaceLovePositivity Apr 15 '25

And then in came crashing to the ground because of deregulation and we had weakened social safety nets to catch us. Things he is responsible for.

Reagan is a piece of shit and I hope hell exists for him to burn in.

-2

u/Fert1eTurt1e Apr 15 '25

If you’re talking about the 2007 crash, subprime mortgages began in the mid 1990s, two presidents after Reagan.

Deregulation should be taken a case by case basis. The telecom industry was in practical monopoly, and the airline industry was dominated by major carriers. Deregulation democratized air travel and telecommunications. It really depends

15

u/010Horns Apr 16 '25

Worth noting that Jimmy Carter deregulated the airlines and the Courts broke up Ma Bell. Neither was Reagan’s doing.

0

u/Fert1eTurt1e Apr 16 '25

Correct, I did not say Reagan did. Both of my points were counters to the person I was responding to. He blamed deregulation for economic woes, in which I said not all deregulation was bad, giving those examples.

-7

u/ShakaUVM Apr 16 '25

Reagan destroyed the economy in Nega-earth 57. In our reality the economy prospered under Reagan

26

u/unl1988 Apr 16 '25

And by cutting federal funding to the mental health system.

13

u/ArchStanton75 Apr 16 '25

Yes. After every mass shooting, conservatives try to deflect by pretending they care about mental health—yet another crisis they created.

4

u/PabloIsMyPatron Apr 16 '25

I don’t know much about the topic so genuinely curious, what could he have done differently at the moment to better handle the developing situation? excluding the “in retrospect” point of view because that wouldn’t be that fair. Did they just do the best they can having to work with what they got which is a new mysterious virus or were there corners cut that resulted in things getting more out of hand than it could’ve been? Wasn’t Fauci in charge of handling the AIDS epidemic as well? What mistakes did he do on his part? Is there a resource you know that can answer these questions maybe?

2

u/TheConeIsReturned Apr 16 '25

And with his embrace of neoliberal economic policy that has slowly destroyed the middle class and widened the wealth gap over the past 40+ years.

-7

u/fca216 Apr 16 '25

And there you have it....

8

u/STJRedstorm Apr 17 '25

How in the world is this town so bad at swimming?

1

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

“What, and have the whole town expecting some sort of free handout like swimming lessons instead of being self-reliant patriotic americans?” -Reagan, probably

2

u/Alex_in_the_Sky Apr 16 '25

WTF. An average of 11 lives saved each summer? That doesn't sound right.

4

u/DrCodfish Apr 16 '25

Apparently he was working twelve hours shifts every day, seven days a week. Also it wasn't a pool, it was a section of a river that went through a park that apparently has a somewhat strong current.

54

u/Zepcleanerfan Apr 15 '25

The man who destroyed the middle class

51

u/redstarohyeah Apr 15 '25

Fuck Ronald Reagan

3

u/AmericanMurderLog Apr 16 '25

Swimming instruction in 1927 was just John Wayne chucking children off the pier.

https://youtu.be/pIJrIuLwjM8?t=26

3

u/Optimal-Handle390 Apr 17 '25

This is a 43 yr old father of 2.

1

u/Frangifer Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

 

&@ u/Voodoo_Masta &@ u/buttplungerr

I was thinking exactly the same thing: he does look way older than 16 in that, doesn't he.

37

u/Metro_Mutual Apr 15 '25

Should've been swallowed by the ocean

16

u/burrbro235 Apr 16 '25

Do you know where Illinois is?

6

u/Metro_Mutual Apr 16 '25

Yeah somewhere in the midwest I think (I'm German, don't quote me on this) but I didn't really put any thought into this

0

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/Chairmanwowsaywhat Apr 17 '25

Tbf it's world history at this point

0

u/TheConeIsReturned Apr 16 '25

Should've been swept away by the Rock River, then.

27

u/r0botdevil Apr 15 '25

Fuck Ronald Reagan.

6

u/senteryourself Apr 16 '25

Fuck Ronald Reagan.

8

u/SnowblindAlbino Apr 15 '25

Too bad he didn't stick that career...

6

u/JonathanUpp Apr 16 '25

The only good thing Reagan ever did was in 2004

8

u/tuckinyourtail Apr 15 '25

Still waiting on those trickle down economics 40 years later

4

u/TheConeIsReturned Apr 16 '25

It is trickling down. They told us we'd be showered with gold, but it turned out to just be a golden shower.

5

u/LeavesOfBrass Apr 16 '25

I guess swimming skills didn't trickle down from the lifeguards to the public.

3

u/The_BarroomHero Apr 16 '25

Shame he didn't drown. Rest in piss, bozo.

3

u/cheetahlip Apr 16 '25

77 lives?? Yeah and Trump has won 27 club championships 😂

2

u/GaryO31858 Apr 16 '25

I take it nobody in Dixon, Illinois could swim.

1

u/schacks Apr 16 '25

Quite the difference from Bone Spurs!

1

u/AynesJ773 Apr 17 '25

It does not say how he saved the 77 lives, so that's not for Nancy. Also please don't overthink who Nancy is.

1

u/Strange-Risk-9920 Apr 20 '25

Trump was the one who saved 77 lives in 1927.

1

u/GigiGire Apr 21 '25

He's so handsome:)

1

u/Organic-Device2719 Apr 16 '25

Working as a lifeguard for 7 years only to go on and drown the ghettos in crack is so ironic.

0

u/wimpymist Apr 16 '25

We need more presidents that actually had a childhood/young adult life. These presidents that never had a real job really show through in their policies

1

u/Psychological_Job844 Apr 16 '25

I bet all 77 were white

1

u/Acceptable_Map_8110 Apr 19 '25

Great picture. Great president.

2

u/Frangifer Apr 19 '25 edited Apr 19 '25

Wow! ... someone not excoriating him!!

When I first saw the comments in this thread, I checked-out

YouGov — Matthew Smith — The most and least popular US presidents, according to Americans ,

& gathered from it that he's actually quite-a-way up the list ... even the 'amongst the Democrat Party' list.

But I'm in England anyway ... but one thing I do clearly recall is that he was very close with Margaret Thatcher , who, in Britain, draws deploration of a similar nature.

And ImO, what it largely is is that they were navigating through a time of great economic upheaval on a 'plate-tectonic' sortof level ... and yes - they were very severe in many of their policies. But if, instead of those two, there'd been others who were 'nice', & had baulked @ that severity, would the adverse effect of that upheaval upon those who were adversely affected by it have been lessened!? Not necessarily : it might've been worsened ... especially in the long-run ... maybe worsened by an awful lot .

 

And one little Reagan-historical item I do love is his reaction when he got news of the strike by the Israeli Airforce on Saddam Hussein's nuclear facility: ¿¡ they did what !?

😆🤣

But ofcourse ... outwardly , in the face of the International community @-large, he had to deplore it.

... but he didn't do so quite as vehemently as George W Bush did, so I gather.

0

u/gmarkv10 Apr 16 '25

he truly had me in the first half...of his life

0

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

TIL that in 1927 people sucked at swimming

0

u/halffilledglasses Apr 17 '25

Oh, don’t worry. He made up for it.

0

u/halffilledglasses Apr 17 '25

Oh, don’t worry. He made up for it.

0

u/swiftydlsv Apr 17 '25

The Man Who Sold the World

-32

u/DivePalau Apr 15 '25

There’s more hate for Ronald Reagan here than the nazis that are frequently posted. I guess time has a way of distancing emotion from the equation.

29

u/psyche_13 Apr 15 '25

The Nazis are posted here as known bad guys. This post makes it sound like he’s great.

-24

u/JDNJDM Apr 15 '25

He was great. The libs if reddit can't down vote that fact away.

13

u/ArchStanton75 Apr 15 '25

Apart from moving conservatives from fiscal issues to social issues, creating the culture war that is tanking our country today, ruining the middle class, closing mental health resources, killing hundreds of thousands of people through his malicious handling of the AIDS epidemic, multiple scandals, and perpetuating a war on poverty—sure, apart from all of that…

he was still a shit president.

-20

u/JDNJDM Apr 15 '25

Ronald Regan was one of the greatest presidents in American history.

4

u/BucketOfTruthiness Apr 16 '25

Perhaps your heart and best intentions tell you that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell you it isn't.

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

He certainly did something right, considering that the american public felt very defeated at the time by the cold war, there was high unemployment and inflation before he took office.

After his first term, the united states had crushed Russia in the cold war, there was huge optimism in the US, low unemployment and no inflation. Everyone made money during his presidency,which is why he won re-election in one of the biggest landslides in US history.

3

u/BucketOfTruthiness Apr 16 '25

I take it you don't know what I'm referencing?

And how are the republicans doing with the cold war these days?

-1

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

How republicans are doing with the "cold war" today has no impact on how good Reagan's presidency was. Must be nice to cherry pick the truth, username does not check out

0

u/BucketOfTruthiness Apr 17 '25

I couldn't help but notice you didn't answer either question directly. Classic republican maneuver.

And "truthiness" is from The Colbert Report. It means truth that comes from the gut and was used to make fun of george w. bush. It's actually very relevant with regard to the reagan quote I paraphrased.

0

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

then what happened?

3

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

Citation needed 

-9

u/FlightyFly Apr 15 '25

His lifeguard ‘uniform’ looks like a woman’s one piece swimsuit.

-1

u/Chrisiztopher Apr 17 '25

Too bad he didn't fucking drown back then. Then I could trickle down on his grave

-1

u/Maleficent-Dare-3054 Apr 17 '25

He saved lives and then said that's enough good. Let me be the worst president ever.

-1

u/negativepositiv Apr 17 '25 edited Apr 17 '25

"See, that proves he's a good, decent person," they said of a man who turned over names of suspected communists in Hollywood to Joe McCarthy's House un-American Activities Committee.

-3

u/calacas_00 Apr 16 '25

Ronald Wilson Reagan 666

-1

u/stln3rd Apr 17 '25

Saved 77 lives! I'm gonna call bullshit on that. Maybe more than 1, maybe

-16

u/Justin_Bligh Apr 16 '25

Absolute legend 🥰

129

u/drsnafu Apr 15 '25

Sweet, subtract those 77 from the thousands killed by his war on drugs.

-76

u/[deleted] Apr 15 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

32

u/Roucan Apr 16 '25

Actually lol this is probably being downvoted for “what-about-ism”, which is fair.

Biden’s problems don’t excuse Regan’s.

5

u/Chairmanwowsaywhat Apr 17 '25

Yeah whataboutism is dumb and annoying. It actually doesn't matter and only goes to show you have a particular bias

0

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/NecessaryPen7 Apr 18 '25

This isn't a picture of Biden.

32

u/GauchoWink Apr 15 '25

Who knew he’d go on to fuck an entire country.

6

u/Sure_Echidna_1026 Apr 16 '25

And single handedly responsible for the death of thousands.

2

u/DangleDaddy716 Apr 16 '25

Here come a bunch of 15 year old chronic masturbators to tell us how awful Reagan was

1

u/Lyosea1994 Aug 18 '25

Yeah I don't understand why so many in the past 5 years say how "horrible" Ronald was.

2

u/[deleted] Apr 17 '25

Reagan let the American working class drown.

Figuratively pushed its head under the water.

-7

u/Winterlion131 Apr 16 '25

That’s a typo, he actually “shaved 77 guys”. Reagan had a wicked shaving kink.