HOOOO_WAAAA!!!! Give this fellow a round of applause!
Last week police were called to investigate an attempted armed robbery: The 71-year-old retired Marine who opened fire on two robbers at a Plantation, FL, Sub shop late Wednesday, killing one and critically wounding the other, is described as John Lovell, a former helicopter pilot for two presidents. He doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he works out everyday. Mr. Lovell was a man of action Wednesday night.
According to Plantation police, two masked gunmen came into the Subway at 1949 N. Pine Rd., just after 11 p. m. There was a lone diner, Mr. Lovell, who was finishing his meal. After robbing the cashier, the two men attempted to shove Mr. Lovell into a bathroom and rob him as well. They got his money, but then Mr. Lovell pulled his handgun, opened fire. He shot one of the thieves in the head and chest and the other in the head.
When police arrived, they found one of the men in the shop. K-9 units found the other in the bushes of a nearby business. They also found cash strewn around the front of the sandwich shop according to Detective Robert Rettig of the Plantation Police Department. Both men were taken to Broward General Medical Center, where one, Donicio Arrindell, 22, of North Lauderdale died. The other, 21-year-old Frederick Gadson of Fort Lauderdale is in critical but stable condition. A longtime friend of Lovell, was not surprised to hear what happened. The friend said, ''He'd give you the shirt off his back, but he'd be mad as hell if someone tried to take the shirt off your back''.
Mr. Lovell was a pilot in the Marine Corps, flying former Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He later worked as a pilot for Pan Am and Delta. He is not expected to be charged, authorities said. ''He was in fear for his life; '' Detective Rettig said, 'These criminals ought to realize that most men in their 70's have military backgrounds and aren't intimidated by idiots'. Something tells me this old Marine wasn't 'in fear for his life', even though his life was definitely at risk. The only thing he could be charged with is participating in an unfair fight. One 71 - year young Marine against two punks. Two head shots and one center - body- mass shot - outstanding shooting! That'll teach them not to get between a Marine and his meal.
Don't you just love a story with a happy ending? ( Florida law allows law abiding citizens to carry a concealed weapon.) SMART STATE!!!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Retirees, Followed By Boomers, Will Redefine Retirement
Some of us will likely never retire, or never get to retire!! As a business person, a marketer, and a market researcher, I found this data to be very interesting. As they state, consumption habits of aging Americans are likely to be very different from earlier generations.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Retirees, Followed By Boomers, Will Redefine Retirement
According to a report from The Media Audit, adults who are nearing retirement are now one of the fastest growing demographics in the country. 17.9% of all U.S. adults are now retired , a figure that has increased by 6% in the last five years and will rapidly increase as Boomers exit the workforce over the next few decades.
Consumption habits of aging Americans are likely very different from those of their predecessors because they are living longer, achieving higher levels of education, are wealthier, and redefining what it means to be retired.
83% of the retired adults in the U.S now own their own home
Thirty percent of retired adults have cash, stocks and CD’s valued at more than $100,000, the highest figure ever reported
13.1% of new automobile purchasers are retired, compared to 11.1% five years ago. 8.3% of adults who have a car loan are retired, compared to 6.4% five years ago, an increase of nearly 30%
16% of adults who frequently stay in hotels are retired, compared to 14.7% five years ago, a jump of almost 10%
Among frequent beer consumers, 13% are retired, compared to 11.3% five years ago
Adults who are retired are 6% more likely than the average U.S. adult to frequently dine out at a full service restaurant and retirees now make up nearly 20% of all adults who frequently dine out.
14.3% adults who plan to take an ocean cruise in the next year are retired.
Nearly one in five adults who plan to have lasik eye surgery are retired, and are 5% more likely than the average adult to be planning a lasik eye surgery procedure.
The report further reveals that adults who are retired today compared to the average U.S. adult:
Spend nearly 30% more time watching broadcast TV, 14% more time watching cable TV, 25% more time reading a daily newspaper
Retired adults today spend only 89 minutes per day online, a figure that is 26% less than the average U.S. adult who spends 123 minutes per day online. The next generation of retirees, though, is expected to be more computer and internet friendly, since Baby Boomers between the ages of 45 and 64 spend a considerably higher amount of time online - 123 minutes per day.
The most affluent retirees can be found in larger markets such as Washington, D.C., where the average retired adult earns $64,000 in household income.
San Jose, California, Fort Myers- Naples, Florida, San Francisco, California and Long Island, New York, follow behind with household incomes of more than $50,000.
And, currently the top ranking retiree markets are:
Ocala, Florida with the highest percentage of retired adults (36%)
Fort Myers- Naples, Florida (34%)
Daytona Beach, Florida (33%)
West Palm Beach, Florida (31%)
Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa, Florida (29%)
For more information from the MediaAudit, please visit them here.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Retirees, Followed By Boomers, Will Redefine Retirement
According to a report from The Media Audit, adults who are nearing retirement are now one of the fastest growing demographics in the country. 17.9% of all U.S. adults are now retired , a figure that has increased by 6% in the last five years and will rapidly increase as Boomers exit the workforce over the next few decades.
Consumption habits of aging Americans are likely very different from those of their predecessors because they are living longer, achieving higher levels of education, are wealthier, and redefining what it means to be retired.
83% of the retired adults in the U.S now own their own home
Thirty percent of retired adults have cash, stocks and CD’s valued at more than $100,000, the highest figure ever reported
13.1% of new automobile purchasers are retired, compared to 11.1% five years ago. 8.3% of adults who have a car loan are retired, compared to 6.4% five years ago, an increase of nearly 30%
16% of adults who frequently stay in hotels are retired, compared to 14.7% five years ago, a jump of almost 10%
Among frequent beer consumers, 13% are retired, compared to 11.3% five years ago
Adults who are retired are 6% more likely than the average U.S. adult to frequently dine out at a full service restaurant and retirees now make up nearly 20% of all adults who frequently dine out.
14.3% adults who plan to take an ocean cruise in the next year are retired.
Nearly one in five adults who plan to have lasik eye surgery are retired, and are 5% more likely than the average adult to be planning a lasik eye surgery procedure.
The report further reveals that adults who are retired today compared to the average U.S. adult:
Spend nearly 30% more time watching broadcast TV, 14% more time watching cable TV, 25% more time reading a daily newspaper
Retired adults today spend only 89 minutes per day online, a figure that is 26% less than the average U.S. adult who spends 123 minutes per day online. The next generation of retirees, though, is expected to be more computer and internet friendly, since Baby Boomers between the ages of 45 and 64 spend a considerably higher amount of time online - 123 minutes per day.
The most affluent retirees can be found in larger markets such as Washington, D.C., where the average retired adult earns $64,000 in household income.
San Jose, California, Fort Myers- Naples, Florida, San Francisco, California and Long Island, New York, follow behind with household incomes of more than $50,000.
And, currently the top ranking retiree markets are:
Ocala, Florida with the highest percentage of retired adults (36%)
Fort Myers- Naples, Florida (34%)
Daytona Beach, Florida (33%)
West Palm Beach, Florida (31%)
Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa, Florida (29%)
For more information from the MediaAudit, please visit them here.
Monday, June 23, 2008
More Seniors Filing For Bankruptcy
KISSIMMEE -- Elderly Americans have been filing for bankruptcy more than any other age group in the U.S. Medical bills, credit card payments and mortgages have become simply too much for a lot of seniors.
The American Association of Retired Persons released a new study that showed the rate of personal bankruptcy filings among those ages 65 or older jumped by 150 percent from 1991 to 2007, and the rate of seniors ages 75 to 84 jumped an astounding 433 percent.
Melvin Berman, 78, a retired post office worker in Osceola County, said he did not know what to do. Almost seven years ago, he filed for bankruptcy, but his debt has continued climbing.
Berman told News 13 he was two months behind on his mortgage payments, and could barely afford to pay his electric and grocery bills. His pension just is not enough anymore.
"You work all your life, and you want to have a nice retirement, and what happens when you do retire? You're out of luck," Berman said.
More and more, seniors like Berman are walking through the doors of buildings like the Osceola Council on Aging, because they are in financial trouble, and do not know where to turn.
"Is bankruptcy the right choice? Should I refinance my house? Should I take a reverse mortgage? We've had a whole lot of interest in those topics by people looking to get out of a problem," said Debi Wood, with the the Osceola Council on Aging.
Wood says there are solutions, including what Berman did: He contacted his local senior resource center.
"There's no end to it," Berman said. "If I could see the end of the rainbow, where it could help me, it would be better."
If you need help, you can get more information on where to turn by calling 211. Just ask the operator for your local senior resources, or financial assistance, and they can direct you to the appropriate person.
View Video
The American Association of Retired Persons released a new study that showed the rate of personal bankruptcy filings among those ages 65 or older jumped by 150 percent from 1991 to 2007, and the rate of seniors ages 75 to 84 jumped an astounding 433 percent.
Melvin Berman, 78, a retired post office worker in Osceola County, said he did not know what to do. Almost seven years ago, he filed for bankruptcy, but his debt has continued climbing.
Berman told News 13 he was two months behind on his mortgage payments, and could barely afford to pay his electric and grocery bills. His pension just is not enough anymore.
"You work all your life, and you want to have a nice retirement, and what happens when you do retire? You're out of luck," Berman said.
More and more, seniors like Berman are walking through the doors of buildings like the Osceola Council on Aging, because they are in financial trouble, and do not know where to turn.
"Is bankruptcy the right choice? Should I refinance my house? Should I take a reverse mortgage? We've had a whole lot of interest in those topics by people looking to get out of a problem," said Debi Wood, with the the Osceola Council on Aging.
Wood says there are solutions, including what Berman did: He contacted his local senior resource center.
"There's no end to it," Berman said. "If I could see the end of the rainbow, where it could help me, it would be better."
If you need help, you can get more information on where to turn by calling 211. Just ask the operator for your local senior resources, or financial assistance, and they can direct you to the appropriate person.
View Video
Thursday, June 19, 2008
How Not To Retire - Central Florida Community College
Central Florida Community College will offer “How Not to Retire" for seniors 50 and older from 9 a.m. to noon June 26 at the Ewers Century Center at CFCC, 3001 S.W. College Road.
The seminar is the third in the Living Well Series sponsored by CFCC’s Pathways Life Services, a program for adults in or nearing retirement.
Seating is limited.
The $15 fee includes refreshments.
To register, call 291-4444.
The seminar is the third in the Living Well Series sponsored by CFCC’s Pathways Life Services, a program for adults in or nearing retirement.
Seating is limited.
The $15 fee includes refreshments.
To register, call 291-4444.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
VA outpatient clinic coming to Villages in 2010
VA outpatient clinic coming to Villages in 2010
Christine Show Sentinel Staff Writer
June 16, 2008
THE VILLAGES - It's become a long trip for Harold Sievers to drive fellow veterans to Gainesville's Veterans Affairs' medical center.Now Sievers, 75, a volunteer transport driver, looks forward to shorter rides to a new regional VA outpatient clinic in The Villages that is expected to open in spring 2010.Groundbreaking on the 90,000-square-foot facility is set for 10 a.m. today at a ceremony on Mulberry Lane. U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, will be the keynote speaker. Stearns is deputy Republican leader on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.Sievers, president of the All Military Veterans Unit in The Villages, is excited.
"It's been a long time in the coming for us to be getting a clinic, which has been so desperately needed," Sievers said.The facility will be an expansion to the temporary VA clinic in the retirement community on Laurel Manor Drive, said Mary Kay Hollingsworth, public-affairs officer for the VA's North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System.Residents in east Lake County have recently been able to receive services from a VA hospital that opened in Orange City in Volusia County in early May.
WHO'S ELIGIBLE? The clinic will serve veterans in Lake, Sumter and Marion counties, who are among 125,000 Central Florida veterans. The Villages, and the surrounding Central Florida area, is deemed to be a prime location for veterans in need of medical treatment.
WHAT SERVICES WILL BE OFFERED? A 90,000-square-foot outpatient clinic is being built to support a number of services to veterans. Patients can receive treatment in areas such as audiology, dental, orthopedics, women's health, cardiology, eye care and podiatry. A diagnostics lab, a pharmacy and mental-health services will also be available.
WHERE IS THE CLINIC? The facility will be on Mulberry Lane in Marion County just off SE Highway 42. WHAT'S THE TIMETABLE FOR OPENING? After the groundbreaking today, The Hamstra Group Inc. is to begin building the facility in late June or early July. Construction is expected to be completed in early 2010, and the facility is to open in spring 2010.
Christine Show can be reached at cshow@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5917.
Christine Show Sentinel Staff Writer
June 16, 2008
THE VILLAGES - It's become a long trip for Harold Sievers to drive fellow veterans to Gainesville's Veterans Affairs' medical center.Now Sievers, 75, a volunteer transport driver, looks forward to shorter rides to a new regional VA outpatient clinic in The Villages that is expected to open in spring 2010.Groundbreaking on the 90,000-square-foot facility is set for 10 a.m. today at a ceremony on Mulberry Lane. U.S. Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala, will be the keynote speaker. Stearns is deputy Republican leader on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.Sievers, president of the All Military Veterans Unit in The Villages, is excited.
"It's been a long time in the coming for us to be getting a clinic, which has been so desperately needed," Sievers said.The facility will be an expansion to the temporary VA clinic in the retirement community on Laurel Manor Drive, said Mary Kay Hollingsworth, public-affairs officer for the VA's North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System.Residents in east Lake County have recently been able to receive services from a VA hospital that opened in Orange City in Volusia County in early May.
WHO'S ELIGIBLE? The clinic will serve veterans in Lake, Sumter and Marion counties, who are among 125,000 Central Florida veterans. The Villages, and the surrounding Central Florida area, is deemed to be a prime location for veterans in need of medical treatment.
WHAT SERVICES WILL BE OFFERED? A 90,000-square-foot outpatient clinic is being built to support a number of services to veterans. Patients can receive treatment in areas such as audiology, dental, orthopedics, women's health, cardiology, eye care and podiatry. A diagnostics lab, a pharmacy and mental-health services will also be available.
WHERE IS THE CLINIC? The facility will be on Mulberry Lane in Marion County just off SE Highway 42. WHAT'S THE TIMETABLE FOR OPENING? After the groundbreaking today, The Hamstra Group Inc. is to begin building the facility in late June or early July. Construction is expected to be completed in early 2010, and the facility is to open in spring 2010.
Christine Show can be reached at cshow@orlandosentinel.com or 352-742-5917.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Freeway of the future?
Freeway of the future?
Why are retirees locking themselves away in leisureville?
William Hanley, Financial Post Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008
Had Walt Disney envisioned the housing development of 2008, he might easily have conjured up The Villages north of Orlando in central Florida. Had George Orwell envisioned the housing development of 2008, it also might have been The Villages, a sprawling age-segregated and gated retirement community that could have the motto: In Golf We Trust.
Indeed, after reading Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias, I'm inclined to believe The Villages is Disney's Magic Kingdom for the over-55s with an undertone of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a place where utopia meets dystopia, where endless leisure coexists quite comfortably with numbing, autocratic conformity.
Author Andrew D. Blechman, a young New Englander, at first can't believe the descriptions of The Villages provided by a retired older neighbour who is moving there with his wife. They seem so over the top and kind of creepy. After all, the largest gated community in the world has 75,000 residents (with another 35,000 on the way), spans three counties, two zip codes and 8,000 hectares, sports three dozen golf courses and has 160 kilometres of trails for golf carts, which are the primary mode of transportation for the Villagers.
In this totalitarian gerontopia for retirees, residents can drive their golf carts to movies, supermarkets, churches, recreation centres, clinics, dozens of pools or two crime-free "village" centres. Just about everything can be found in this peculiar paradise except for one thing: children.
The Villages, like thousands of gated retirement (and non-retirement) communities across North America, offers residents not necessarily a world without children, but a world with children on demand. A person must be at least 55 to buy a home in The Villages and no one under 19 may live there. Children can visit, but their stays are limited to 30 days a year.
The rules of The Villages are strictly enforced:Weeds must be removed, lawns -- at least 51% sod -- edged and hedges over four-feet high are prohibited. So, too, are clotheslines and individual mailboxes. Pets are limited to two per house, window air conditioners are forbidden, Halloween trick-or-treaters are not allowed.
And big neighbour, like Orwell's Big Brother, is always watching. Golf-cart passersby are sure to complain if these and other covenants are broken. Further, the local newspaper, The Daily Sun, is a junior league Ministry of Truth of the corporation that runs The Villages, so bad news is no news.
Though Blechman was both dismayed and amused by descriptions of The Villages, he decided to visit with his older friends and find out for himself what the attraction is behind retirement community gates. Leisureville is not exactly an expose of age-segregated retirement living, but a lively and thoughtful account of a lifestyle that can be at once entertaining and appalling. The book is full of warm, appealing characters. It also has tinges of the sadness and wistfulness that often accompany the later years.
Blechman goes beyond The Villages -- "a retirement community on steroids" -- to Arizona and to the oddly named Youngtown, the first elders-only community, and to Sun City, which once bloomed in the desert but is now a half-century old and showing it. The many problems and issues that have caught up with Sun City, the butt of many an ageist joke in my youth, will likely one day visit The Villages and its smaller kin, he says. They include, most notably, a lack of tax-base support for local schools as retirees say they've paid their education support dues over their lifetimes. Blechman talked to many Villagers who said they'd also paid their share and were tired of giving back.
Blechman wonders what, exactly, they've given. "Blessed to be born into one of the richest generations in the history of the world, they've led a life that most people can only dream of. Such good fortune wasn't a matter of luck: it was given to them by previous generations who made untold sacrifices through two world wars and a devastating depression. ? Surely today's retirees have something more to pass on than a love of golf and perceived entitlement to lock themselves away
in leisurevilles. That's no citizenship; that's secession. It's a form of surrender, an acknowledgement of societal failure."
Hold on, Andrew. This is not the end of the world.
While there is something to worry about in the trend to leisurevilles, only a small percentage of retirees and Boomers will opt to lock themselves away. Indeed, well over half of Boomers say they're not going to retire. They and most others will stick around and work and coexist like the rest of society, possibly escaping for some R&R during the winter months.
In the meantime, many of those in The Villages and elsewhere will tire of the lifestyle, forgo the weather and head back home -- even if it is just for the summer or to visit family occasionally.
And those who stay the course will find their communities necessarily morphing over time into places resembling towns with the usual needs and problems.
The prospect of retiring to The Villages or any other gated retirement community doesn't interest me.
I've never even been in one, but I have this strong feeling that they're ghettos for the elderly --grey-ttos, if you will.
Yet, while I can't quite understand the desire some folks have to retire to such white-bread conformity, I respect the right of those who do. Even Andrew D. Blechman acknowledges that leisurevilles are "a powerful vision that has proved to be very appealing to a sizable segment of aging Americans."
whanley@nationalpost.com
Why are retirees locking themselves away in leisureville?
William Hanley, Financial Post Published: Saturday, May 17, 2008
Had Walt Disney envisioned the housing development of 2008, he might easily have conjured up The Villages north of Orlando in central Florida. Had George Orwell envisioned the housing development of 2008, it also might have been The Villages, a sprawling age-segregated and gated retirement community that could have the motto: In Golf We Trust.
Indeed, after reading Leisureville: Adventures in America's Retirement Utopias, I'm inclined to believe The Villages is Disney's Magic Kingdom for the over-55s with an undertone of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a place where utopia meets dystopia, where endless leisure coexists quite comfortably with numbing, autocratic conformity.
Author Andrew D. Blechman, a young New Englander, at first can't believe the descriptions of The Villages provided by a retired older neighbour who is moving there with his wife. They seem so over the top and kind of creepy. After all, the largest gated community in the world has 75,000 residents (with another 35,000 on the way), spans three counties, two zip codes and 8,000 hectares, sports three dozen golf courses and has 160 kilometres of trails for golf carts, which are the primary mode of transportation for the Villagers.
In this totalitarian gerontopia for retirees, residents can drive their golf carts to movies, supermarkets, churches, recreation centres, clinics, dozens of pools or two crime-free "village" centres. Just about everything can be found in this peculiar paradise except for one thing: children.
The Villages, like thousands of gated retirement (and non-retirement) communities across North America, offers residents not necessarily a world without children, but a world with children on demand. A person must be at least 55 to buy a home in The Villages and no one under 19 may live there. Children can visit, but their stays are limited to 30 days a year.
The rules of The Villages are strictly enforced:Weeds must be removed, lawns -- at least 51% sod -- edged and hedges over four-feet high are prohibited. So, too, are clotheslines and individual mailboxes. Pets are limited to two per house, window air conditioners are forbidden, Halloween trick-or-treaters are not allowed.
And big neighbour, like Orwell's Big Brother, is always watching. Golf-cart passersby are sure to complain if these and other covenants are broken. Further, the local newspaper, The Daily Sun, is a junior league Ministry of Truth of the corporation that runs The Villages, so bad news is no news.
Though Blechman was both dismayed and amused by descriptions of The Villages, he decided to visit with his older friends and find out for himself what the attraction is behind retirement community gates. Leisureville is not exactly an expose of age-segregated retirement living, but a lively and thoughtful account of a lifestyle that can be at once entertaining and appalling. The book is full of warm, appealing characters. It also has tinges of the sadness and wistfulness that often accompany the later years.
Blechman goes beyond The Villages -- "a retirement community on steroids" -- to Arizona and to the oddly named Youngtown, the first elders-only community, and to Sun City, which once bloomed in the desert but is now a half-century old and showing it. The many problems and issues that have caught up with Sun City, the butt of many an ageist joke in my youth, will likely one day visit The Villages and its smaller kin, he says. They include, most notably, a lack of tax-base support for local schools as retirees say they've paid their education support dues over their lifetimes. Blechman talked to many Villagers who said they'd also paid their share and were tired of giving back.
Blechman wonders what, exactly, they've given. "Blessed to be born into one of the richest generations in the history of the world, they've led a life that most people can only dream of. Such good fortune wasn't a matter of luck: it was given to them by previous generations who made untold sacrifices through two world wars and a devastating depression. ? Surely today's retirees have something more to pass on than a love of golf and perceived entitlement to lock themselves away
in leisurevilles. That's no citizenship; that's secession. It's a form of surrender, an acknowledgement of societal failure."
Hold on, Andrew. This is not the end of the world.
While there is something to worry about in the trend to leisurevilles, only a small percentage of retirees and Boomers will opt to lock themselves away. Indeed, well over half of Boomers say they're not going to retire. They and most others will stick around and work and coexist like the rest of society, possibly escaping for some R&R during the winter months.
In the meantime, many of those in The Villages and elsewhere will tire of the lifestyle, forgo the weather and head back home -- even if it is just for the summer or to visit family occasionally.
And those who stay the course will find their communities necessarily morphing over time into places resembling towns with the usual needs and problems.
The prospect of retiring to The Villages or any other gated retirement community doesn't interest me.
I've never even been in one, but I have this strong feeling that they're ghettos for the elderly --grey-ttos, if you will.
Yet, while I can't quite understand the desire some folks have to retire to such white-bread conformity, I respect the right of those who do. Even Andrew D. Blechman acknowledges that leisurevilles are "a powerful vision that has proved to be very appealing to a sizable segment of aging Americans."
whanley@nationalpost.com
Touring America’s Retirement Communities
Touring America’s Retirement Communities
By Daniel ElkindThu. May 15, 2008
HAVING A BALL: Seniors enjoy lawn bowling at an Arizona retirement community.
Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias By Andrew D. Blechman Atlantic Monthly Press, 256 pages, $25.
Del Webb’s Sun Cities in the Arizona desert; The Villages north of Orlando, Fla.; a new Catholic-themed town called Ave Maria: Home to nearly 12 million people, these are America’s largest and most popular gated retirement communities, or, as Andrew D. Blechman calls them in his new book, “Leisureville,” “America’s retirement utopias.” The Sir Thomas More reference is neither obligatory nor inapt; the guiding concern of Blechman’s inquiry is what this age-based phenomenon means for us as a society, and what its moral implications are for the future.
Historically, Jews have often been at the forefront of utopian movements — especially failed ones — and from Karl Marx to William Levitt, they have publicly staked their reputations in these places that, by definition, do not or cannot exist. Youngtown, the first retirement community in America, was built outside Phoenix in 1954 by Benjamin Schleifer, a Jewish immigrant from Minsk who, apparently, was inspired by Plato and the 71st Psalm: “Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort.” (After Youngtown, he went bankrupt trying to found a kibbutz for American retirees in the Arizona desert.)
The founder of The Villages in Florida, Harold S. Schwartz — whose ashes are permanently part of the statue erected to him in the “village” of Spanish Springs — was the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. But while many members of these communities are Jewish, too, and synagogues can be found amid their golf turf and sprawl, Blechman’s primary interest is not in the eerily false perfection of such places, but rather in the American psychology of segregation, radical individualism and the fears underlying the dreams of their residents: Who or what are these pleasant-villagers trying to keep out?
One obvious culprit is old age itself. Blechman is shocked by the total absence of Halloween at his uncle’s upscale community in central New Jersey, where children “aren’t forbidden so much as discouraged.” He remembers that the new hospital in The Villages will not include a maternity ward. And in a chapter on housing laws, he correlates class with race, showing how legislation against families with children is often intended as a barrier of entry for minorities and other low-income groups. It is clear that after religion and language, the multigenerational family has become the last casualty of immigrant life in America. With their children and grandchildren living scattered across all 50 states and various parts of the world, many of those wealthy enough to retire prefer the arrested development of age-segregated communities, with their health care facilities, private newspapers, elevator music stations and, in one case, the world’s longest golf cart parade of “nearly 3,500 low-speed vehicles” to the exigencies of a typical hometown. Yet in one sense their excesses and feelings of entitlement are only symptoms of our own.
The Villages, for example, is the largest gated retirement community in the world, spanning “three counties, two zip codes, and more than 20,000 acres […] subdivided into dozens of separate gated communities,” that share “two manufactured downtowns, a financial district, and several shopping centers, […] all of it connected by nearly 100 miles of golf cart trails.” Unlike Sun City, which has aged less gracefully than it promised to, The Villages is still relatively young and expanding. With 75,000 residents and room for 35,000 more, it comprises a kind of Disneyland for people who no longer want to pay taxes for schools they’ll never attend — though presumably their grandchildren will — and, just like Disney’s pet project in what once was Florida swampland and citrus, it is essentially a company state accountable only to Chapter 190, an umbrella law that gives developers jurisdiction over the land they’ve purchased at lucrative rates and over the homeowners who reside there in ignorance of how their villages are actually governed. Thus beloved by real estate developers, by the food and beverage industry and by such retailers as Wal-Mart, these retirement colonies are in many ways the reactionary offspring of late capitalism, utopias for tax-shy seniors who would rather turn their backs on a system that provided for them when they were “55-” and on its tradition of democratic representation in which the welfare of all citizens — not just the leisure class — is taken into account.
But not all retirees are deadbeats; some of them just want to live completely surrounded by people exactly like themselves. In their increasingly younger old age, more and more Americans prefer to be comforted by the predictability of a fabricated paradise where they can ultimately choose to ignore the world beyond. Living under a kind of voluntary siege, promiscuity and its consequences are the only things thriving in these “geritopias”: According to Blechman, seniors “are now one of the fastest-growing populations at risk of STDs,” because “more than sixty percent of sexually active older singles have unprotected sex.” As if on cue, he meets Mr. Midnight, a pot-smoking, Corvette-driving, 63-year-old former biology teacher from Illinois. Mr. Midnight tells Blechman that due to the favorable female-to-male ratio, a bachelor can have a memorable time in a retirement community, though he does have a couple of rules: not sleeping with anyone younger than his kids, and not falling in love.
Another resident bachelor, 73, tells him about the teenage waitresses, wife-swapping and a group of swingers allegedly posing as a wine club. Finally, a female retiree says, “The only problem with being a widow in The Villages is that you’re so busy you forget you are one,” and life, presumably, beats on at its electronically synchronized pace.
Part exurban exposé, part postmodern Roald Dahl parable, “Leisureville” reads more accurately like a dark Stanley Elkin novel — remember the mortuary ‘burbs of “The Rabbi of Lud” or Main Street, U.S.A. in “The Magic Kingdom”? — in which a satiric journalism of today’s lifestyle realities has replaced the journalistic satire of yesterday’s consumer fads. Only whereas Elkin’s novels ultimately reassured us by mocking the sincerity of human folly, the surreal humanity of characters like Mr. Midnight and Del Webb — the construction magnate whose experience in building planned communities before Sun City included internment camps for more than 25,000 Japanese — is often all too real, and close, for comfort.
Were the sun to have set on him in The Villages, even Ben Flesh — the Franchiser — might have run for the still-underdeveloped Florida hills.
Daniel Elkind is a writer and translator who lives in Brooklyn.
By Daniel ElkindThu. May 15, 2008
HAVING A BALL: Seniors enjoy lawn bowling at an Arizona retirement community.
Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias By Andrew D. Blechman Atlantic Monthly Press, 256 pages, $25.
Del Webb’s Sun Cities in the Arizona desert; The Villages north of Orlando, Fla.; a new Catholic-themed town called Ave Maria: Home to nearly 12 million people, these are America’s largest and most popular gated retirement communities, or, as Andrew D. Blechman calls them in his new book, “Leisureville,” “America’s retirement utopias.” The Sir Thomas More reference is neither obligatory nor inapt; the guiding concern of Blechman’s inquiry is what this age-based phenomenon means for us as a society, and what its moral implications are for the future.
Historically, Jews have often been at the forefront of utopian movements — especially failed ones — and from Karl Marx to William Levitt, they have publicly staked their reputations in these places that, by definition, do not or cannot exist. Youngtown, the first retirement community in America, was built outside Phoenix in 1954 by Benjamin Schleifer, a Jewish immigrant from Minsk who, apparently, was inspired by Plato and the 71st Psalm: “Be thou my strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort.” (After Youngtown, he went bankrupt trying to found a kibbutz for American retirees in the Arizona desert.)
The founder of The Villages in Florida, Harold S. Schwartz — whose ashes are permanently part of the statue erected to him in the “village” of Spanish Springs — was the grandson of Jewish immigrants from Hungary. But while many members of these communities are Jewish, too, and synagogues can be found amid their golf turf and sprawl, Blechman’s primary interest is not in the eerily false perfection of such places, but rather in the American psychology of segregation, radical individualism and the fears underlying the dreams of their residents: Who or what are these pleasant-villagers trying to keep out?
One obvious culprit is old age itself. Blechman is shocked by the total absence of Halloween at his uncle’s upscale community in central New Jersey, where children “aren’t forbidden so much as discouraged.” He remembers that the new hospital in The Villages will not include a maternity ward. And in a chapter on housing laws, he correlates class with race, showing how legislation against families with children is often intended as a barrier of entry for minorities and other low-income groups. It is clear that after religion and language, the multigenerational family has become the last casualty of immigrant life in America. With their children and grandchildren living scattered across all 50 states and various parts of the world, many of those wealthy enough to retire prefer the arrested development of age-segregated communities, with their health care facilities, private newspapers, elevator music stations and, in one case, the world’s longest golf cart parade of “nearly 3,500 low-speed vehicles” to the exigencies of a typical hometown. Yet in one sense their excesses and feelings of entitlement are only symptoms of our own.
The Villages, for example, is the largest gated retirement community in the world, spanning “three counties, two zip codes, and more than 20,000 acres […] subdivided into dozens of separate gated communities,” that share “two manufactured downtowns, a financial district, and several shopping centers, […] all of it connected by nearly 100 miles of golf cart trails.” Unlike Sun City, which has aged less gracefully than it promised to, The Villages is still relatively young and expanding. With 75,000 residents and room for 35,000 more, it comprises a kind of Disneyland for people who no longer want to pay taxes for schools they’ll never attend — though presumably their grandchildren will — and, just like Disney’s pet project in what once was Florida swampland and citrus, it is essentially a company state accountable only to Chapter 190, an umbrella law that gives developers jurisdiction over the land they’ve purchased at lucrative rates and over the homeowners who reside there in ignorance of how their villages are actually governed. Thus beloved by real estate developers, by the food and beverage industry and by such retailers as Wal-Mart, these retirement colonies are in many ways the reactionary offspring of late capitalism, utopias for tax-shy seniors who would rather turn their backs on a system that provided for them when they were “55-” and on its tradition of democratic representation in which the welfare of all citizens — not just the leisure class — is taken into account.
But not all retirees are deadbeats; some of them just want to live completely surrounded by people exactly like themselves. In their increasingly younger old age, more and more Americans prefer to be comforted by the predictability of a fabricated paradise where they can ultimately choose to ignore the world beyond. Living under a kind of voluntary siege, promiscuity and its consequences are the only things thriving in these “geritopias”: According to Blechman, seniors “are now one of the fastest-growing populations at risk of STDs,” because “more than sixty percent of sexually active older singles have unprotected sex.” As if on cue, he meets Mr. Midnight, a pot-smoking, Corvette-driving, 63-year-old former biology teacher from Illinois. Mr. Midnight tells Blechman that due to the favorable female-to-male ratio, a bachelor can have a memorable time in a retirement community, though he does have a couple of rules: not sleeping with anyone younger than his kids, and not falling in love.
Another resident bachelor, 73, tells him about the teenage waitresses, wife-swapping and a group of swingers allegedly posing as a wine club. Finally, a female retiree says, “The only problem with being a widow in The Villages is that you’re so busy you forget you are one,” and life, presumably, beats on at its electronically synchronized pace.
Part exurban exposé, part postmodern Roald Dahl parable, “Leisureville” reads more accurately like a dark Stanley Elkin novel — remember the mortuary ‘burbs of “The Rabbi of Lud” or Main Street, U.S.A. in “The Magic Kingdom”? — in which a satiric journalism of today’s lifestyle realities has replaced the journalistic satire of yesterday’s consumer fads. Only whereas Elkin’s novels ultimately reassured us by mocking the sincerity of human folly, the surreal humanity of characters like Mr. Midnight and Del Webb — the construction magnate whose experience in building planned communities before Sun City included internment camps for more than 25,000 Japanese — is often all too real, and close, for comfort.
Were the sun to have set on him in The Villages, even Ben Flesh — the Franchiser — might have run for the still-underdeveloped Florida hills.
Daniel Elkind is a writer and translator who lives in Brooklyn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
