SWAMPSCOTT — Bill DiMento’s path into public service began with a flooded tennis court, a complaint to his mother, and a piece of advice he never forgot.

Fresh out of the Army and looking for a place to play tennis in his hometown of Winthrop, DiMento grew frustrated when town workers declined to clear standing water from the courts. His mother offered a simple solution.

“I don’t want to hear complaints,” he recalled her saying. “If you don’t like it, run for Park Commission.”

So he did.

DiMento won a seat on the Winthrop Park Commission, defeating an incumbent who had served for 25 years. It was the first step in a lifetime of civic engagement that would eventually bring him to Swampscott, where he recently stepped down after 53 years as a Town Meeting member.

DiMento’s involvement in public life was woven throughout his own storied professional experience. Throughout his early adulthood, he taught seventh-grade geography, attended law school at night, served on the Winthrop School Committee, and later worked in the Attorney General’s Office.

When he and his wife, Carol, moved to Swampscott in the early 1970s, DiMento quickly found new ways to get involved. He joined Town Meeting in 1973 and won election to the School Committee the following year.

Over the decades, DiMento’s fingerprints appeared throughout several local issues. He served on committees studying everything from a potential rail trail to the future of the Phillips Beach fire station. He chaired the town’s 1991 Charter Commission and spent years as an attorney practicing municipal zoning law, helping residents and businesses navigate development projects throughout the region.

“Every year there was a different thing,” he said. “If a moderator asked me to go on a committee, I did.”

The issues might have changed, but the routine rarely did. Whether the topic was schools, infrastructure, development, or local government, DiMento was usually somewhere in the discussion — either as an elected official, as a committee member, or a passionate resident who is always willing to speak his mind.

Along the way, he watched Swampscott evolve from a town run largely by volunteers and a handful of elected officials into a far more professionalized municipal government. He remembers the civic leaders who helped shape the community during the 1970s and beyond, people like Andrew Linscott, Nelson Darling, and Esther Ewing, who he described as deeply invested in the town’s future.

Now 86, DiMento said he knew it was time for him to resign from Town Meeting, although the decision was not easy.

“It was very difficult,” he said. “I didn’t want to be part of the problem. Sometimes when you get old, you become part of the problem because you lose your perspective.”

Still, DiMento believes the town is entering a promising chapter.

Throughout the interview, DiMento often returned to the same theme: confidence in a new generation of residents and local leaders. He pointed to people who have begun speaking up at Town Meeting, serving on boards and commissions, and taking a more active role in shaping the town’s future.

“These new guys are going to be hell of members of the Board of Selectmen,” he said. “There’s a change in the air. … We’re on the upswing.”

Asked what advice he would offer younger residents considering public service, DiMento encouraged them to stay engaged, ask questions, and pay attention to the motivations behind decisions.

“Look for the conflict of interest,” he said. “Look for people’s real motives. Why are they really running?”

After more than half a century in Town Meeting, however, he said his own time had come.

“It was time for me to give it up,” DiMento said. “There’s a whole bunch of new people in town that I think are wonderful.”

He might be ready to let the next generation of leaders step up, but that does not mean DiMento is walking away from the town he has spent decades helping shape.

DiMento still follows local government closely, tunes into meetings at home, and plans to remain a regular at Panera Bread on Paradise Road.

As Swampscott (and DiMento) enter their next chapters, DiMento says he plans to keep doing what he has done for most of his adult life: paying attention.

“I’m encouraged about Swampscott,” he said. “That’s the one thing I want to make clear.”