BY CHRISTINE GRIMALDI
Staff Writer
SCOTT PILLING staff James DiBella, 89, goes for a swim last week at Milltown’s public pool, where he’s been a regular since it was actually a “mud hole.” MILLTOWN – It’s hard to miss James DiBella.
With an old blue thermometer in one hand and a shiny yellow one topped by a plastic duck in the other, he is the go-to guy on whether Milltown’s community pool is too chilly for a swim.
DiBella doesn’t let the cold get in his way, though. As long as the water he tests is 50 degrees or higher, the 89-year-old will get in his daily 150- to 200-yard swim.
“Everyone says, ‘Oh, it’s cold,’ but I’m a polar bear,” he said.
His deep tan is 61 years in the making. That’s how long DiBella has lived in Milltown and daily frequented the pool. Back in the day, it was a “mud hole” filled with water that he did laps in during the summer months, and ice skated on when it froze for the winter.
DiBella has been athletically active his whole life. He met his wife, the Milltown-born and raised Pauline Komie, when the two played for the same roller skate hockey team, pre-World War II.
When he returned from military service in 1945, he married and moved from New Brunswick to the Lafayette Street residence he shared with Pauline until her death a few months ago.
In those years, he worked for Johnson & Johnson and pitched softball for its industrial team, winning three central New Jersey championships.
He would swim in the ocean for what amounted to three or four miles daily when he had a summer home in Seaside Heights. He still carries with him a Seaside Heights VIP pass, now over 30 years old, that continues to grant him access to that beach’s lifeguard stations and facilities.
DiBella will turn 90 next month. He said he’s only missed one day at the pool this summer.
It was raining.
“I just do it,” he said.
He walks a couple of miles every morning, modifying the three or four he used to jog every day. He also gardens, does odd jobs as a handyman, and said he does not often watch television. Family life also sustains him. He has two daughters, three grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
“That’s why you live so long,” DiBella said. “You can’t be a couch potato. That’ll kill you.”
DiBella arrives at the pool around noon and stays until about 3 p.m. He usually sits poolside with a group of women, mostly retired school teachers, and is “sort of a lifeguard” for them.
“We’ve been hanging around for years,” DiBella said. “They feel safe when I’m in the water.”
It’s true, the pool community seems happy to have him around.
“We look for him every day,” said pool manager Helen Jolly. “He’s a very nice man.”
And useful.
“We wouldn’t know the temperature without him,” lifeguard Zack Olesinski said.