Gordon Miller is never off duty.
He oversees 20 lifeguards across three beaches on Cape Cod National Seashore: that’s Race Point, Head of the Meadow, and Herring Cove — where he's Head Guard on Tuesdays.
We met in Truro on Ballston Beach, one of the handful of Outer Cape beaches where he’s not in charge. But that doesn’t mean he’s relaxed.
“I was talking to some other lifeguards about this,” he said, smiling. “We go to the beach, and we can't really ever relax, because you're looking. You're like scanning the beach.”
Case in point: while we talked, dark clouds began to move in. Thunder clapped. And the vacationers? They stayed planted in their beach chairs. When lighting started, Miller jumped into action.
“Hey, ‘scuse me, folks,” his voice boomed. “Some lightning coming! Lightning! Lightning!”
A few couples and young families turned to look at Miller, taking in his 6-foot, 250-pound frame: smiling, but commanding the space.
“Can't help it,” he said with a laugh.
The vacationers took down their umbrellas and thanked him as they filed off the beach.
From Rural Tennessee to Cape Cod
After 40 years, and some 15,000 hours watching the skies seas, monitoring for dark fins, and rescuing children from riptides, Miller has become an expert at the art of keeping beachgoers safe. It’s a role that’s sustained and fulfilled him since he arrived on Cape Cod in 1984 at 23 years old and first sat in that tall white chair.
“To be perfectly honest,” he said, “I really love being a lifeguard. I love working on the beach, and I didn't want to ever get a real job. And I've been successful so far.”
But Miller couldn’t imagine this would be his life when he was a kid. He’s the third of eight brothers and sisters, raised by parents who ran a grocery store — one of the only Black-owned businesses in his rural Tennessee hometown.
Miller saw the ocean for the first time the summer after his freshman year of college. He was 19 years old, working at Acadia National Park in Maine.
“There was a little knot behind my head my entire life that released that summer,” he said. “So I'm like, ‘Okay, there's something here.’ But it was almost a cellular connection, you know? The saltwater, and the ocean, and the whole thing, all of it.”
I Think, Therefore I Am (A Lifeguard)
After college, he went on to graduate school and earned a master’s degree in philosophy. It’s an area of study he uses just about every day as a lifeguard.
“Sitting in a chair by yourself, your mind can roam all over everything,” he said. “All the way from Plato to Descartes, up into Derrida. You get to do it all there.”
Like the greats, when he’s sitting, he can find time to think about the world around him — about how sea creatures find opportunities to thrive, how climate change has reshaped the coast, and how he wants to be a role model for beachgoers.
“Oh, if I see a little Black kid, I go and talk to them all the time,” he said. “I was working at Herring Cove on Tuesday, and this little Black kid – I was giving him the thumbs up,” he said, laughing.
Pushing Limits
Of course, not all the work is sitting and talking. Miller has had his share of Baywatch moments. This season on the Cape Cod National Seashore, he said there was only one real rescue and about 100 so-called “assists.”
The growing number of great white sharks has changed how everyone interacts with the ocean, Miller said.
"My lifeguards have not made a deep water rescue in eight years because people don’t swim out, and we don't let people swim out anymore.”
Today, Miller is 63, but retirement isn’t in the picture. Another lifeguard he works with is 72. Miller says it’s all about being fit enough to do the job.
“We have this swim/run every year. You have to swim 600 yards and run a half mile in under 20 minutes,” he said. “As long as you can do that, you can stay here.”
Now that Labor Day has passed, lifeguard stands will be empty until next spring. But Miller — who spends winters in Hawaii — plans to back here on the seashore next May for his 41st season.
