Beach guide: Leone Beach

VITALS
Megan Grant, 19
Beach: Leone Park and Beach (7032 N. Lakefront, Touhy Avenue at Lake Michigan)
Title: Mate
Experience: 4 years, plus junior guard training
In her beach bag: Maui Babe tanning lotion ("just in case")
Favorite beach movie: "Step into Liquid"

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Some kids go to summer camp to toast marshmallows. Megan Grant, an Albany Park resident who grew up in Andersonville and the Albany/Peterson Park area, essentially went to camp to practice CPR. Before becoming a lifeguard, she spent several years in the junior guard program at Leone Park and Beach on Chicago's North Side, where she learned rowing, paddleboarding and other rescue skills.

"When I was a kid, that was like my camp," she says.

Now a mate, one step away from lifeguard captain, Grant still spends her summers on the sand. You'll find her at Leone Beach, a stretch that covers everything from Juneway Terrace down to Farwell Avenue.

So what's the crowd like at Leone Beach?
We have four beaches north of us that are all street ends, so we get a lot of people from Rogers Park. ... They usually live in the apartment buildings around the beaches. A lot of times we'll get kids who aren't in camp or anything during the day so they just come down with their siblings to the beach. ... It's a pretty diverse neighborhood.

The weather hasn't been so hot lately. How do lifeguards entertain themselves when no one's around?
We find ways. ... We actually have a floor hockey tournament going on between the lifeguards when they're on their breaks.

Floor hockey? Do you have a beach house or something?
Yeah. Our beach house is one of the oldest buildings on the lakefront, actually. It used to be a pumping station for the village of Rogers Park. So we have a really nice beach house compared to some of the other beaches that have, like, trailers.

Do you think the other guards are jealous of your sweet beach house?
Not really ... but when people get transferred here they're always sort of surprised that we have so much space.

If you could give your beachgoers a piece of unsolicited advice, what would it be?
We have a sandbar at some of our beaches, and we try to keep people off of it because once they get to it they never want to come back in. It's really frustrating because little kids don't understand that it gets deeper before it gets shallow.

Have you ever had to go out there and get someone off of it?
Yeah, they don't really like that. It's happened a few times.

Do you get a lot of people coming up to you and bugging you with questions?
Most people's questions have to do with the rules. ... We have a lot of [regulars who] think they're, like, the best swimmers in the world. And they don't understand why they can't swim out to the buoy. ... It doesn't matter how good of a swimmer you are. You have to obey the rules.

Do you have a favorite beach?
I do! Jarvis. [Muffled sounds in background] ... I'm being told that Jarvis sucks.

Don't listen to them. Tell me why Jarvis is the best.
It has the least rocks. We have natural sand, so it's all mostly rocks, and [Jarvis is] the least rocky and has a nice little park.

Where would you work if you could be a lifeguard anywhere in the world?
Ooh. Probably Australia. They have pretty bad-ass lifeguards.

What are the qualifications for a bad-ass lifeguard, exactly?
Being very good at your job, I guess. And they're all super buff.

M. Kathleen Pratt is the Metromix dining producer. kpratt@tribune.com