By Jerry Zezima
If Sports Illustrated ever does a male version of its famous Swimsuit Issue, I could be on the cover for two very good reasons:
1) I just got a stylish new swimsuit, which impressed a lifeguard at the pool where I took my granddaughters for a swim.
2) It’s not a Speedo.
You can add my wife and our younger daughter to the other eight billion people on Earth who wouldn’t want to see me in a Speedo.
That’s why they went to the store, the one place I hate more than the beach, and bought the snazzy trunks for me.
They’re red and white with an array of ocean creatures and symbols: lobsters, tunas, octopuses, seashells, shrimp, crabs, sailor’s knots, ship’s bells, captain’s wheels and compasses.
The only nautical images that aren’t on my new bathing suit are — yo ho ho — bottles of rum.
I don’t need them to drive pool club members and beachgoers to drink.
It’s exactly what would happen if I wore a Speedo, which has less material than a Kleenex facial tissue and can barely keep the average man out of legal trouble.
On the positive side, a pair on the wrong guy could even repel sharks.
My new trunks are comfortably loose-fitting with a drawstring to hold them up and legs that reach almost to my knees.
For a man of my age (old), I look pretty good in them, just as Martha Stewart looked pretty good for a woman of her age (even older) when she was on the cover of the 2023 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
If memory serves (I’d like it to serve me a margarita), Martha was photographed at both the beach and the pool.
The last time I went to the beach was several years ago, when I was dive-bombed by a flighty flock of foul feathered fiends.
It was a case of boy meets gull. Things took a turn for the worse when several terns voiced their displeasure at my faded old swim trunks. Two of them collided in midair and fell, stunned, to the ground.
Birdbrains.
Aerial bombardment, plus the fact that sand can be found for weeks in your bathing suit and various parts of your anatomy, plus the additional fact that the vast majority of people in skimpy swimwear are younger and better-looking than I am, plus the final fact that I have no interest in feeling like a broiled halibut, is why I don’t go to the beach anymore.
I prefer the pool, where at least I am not humiliated by either sadistic seabirds or other old guys who actually do wear Speedos (the guys, not the birds).
It’s why I wear sunglasses.
It’s also why I don’t want to be one of those guys.
My granddaughters seemed grateful when I took them to the pool recently. They liked my new bathing suit but otherwise didn’t pay much attention to it. They preferred to float in the deep end and frolic in the shallow end, where they did some impressive handstands.
I tried to do a handstand, but it lasted for approximately four seconds. And I got water up my nose.
When I asked if I should try to touch bottom at the deep end, which is 11 feet, one of the girls said, “No, Poppie! I don’t think your heart can take it.”
But it did my heart good when Ava, a wonderfully pleasant lifeguard, said she liked my new bathing suit.
“It’s nice,” she said.
“What’s the best way to break it in?” I wondered.
“Do a cannonball,” Ava suggested.
“I don’t want to get water up my nose,” I said. “Do you have any further advice for a geezer like me?”
Ava smiled and said, “Don’t wear a Speedo.”
I’m sure Sports Illustrated would agree.
Copyright 2026 by Jerry Zezima
Originally Published on http://jerryzezima.blogspot.com
