Leisureville

by Andrew D. Blechman

  Surely today’s retirees have something more to pass on to us than a love of golf and a perceived entitlement to lock themselves away in leisurevilles. That’s not citizenship; that’s secession. It’s a form of surrender, an acknowledgement of societal failure.

  America is a country that celebrates liberty and individual autonomy, anyone with enough resources is free to secede. But imagine the opposite of disengagement—millions of retirees reengaging and actively working to leave behind an admirable legacy. Today’s retirees are among the best-educated people in the world. Never before have so many people had so much knowledge and so much time to impart it. They undoubtedly have wisdom to share with us. It’s no secret that strong ties between the generations lead to stronger communities and greater hope for the future.

  It’s equally important that we as a nation once again recognize the importance our elders, whom we often treat less than admirably. Another way of saying that a society is youth-centered is that it ignores its elders. A recent survey found that fewer than half of all American communities have begun to address the needs of our rapidly increasing elder population. It’s time we began discussing things as basic as senior-friendly crosswalks, adult day care, and job retraining so that a skilled generation of workers has more options than being a greeter at Wal-Mart.

  Worse yet, elder abuse remains a sad reality: an estimated 5 million seniors suffer from mistreatment by younger generations. Even the millionaire philanthropist and fabled socialite Brooke Astor was allegedly among their number. The stereotype of senior citizens forced by poverty and neglect to eat cat food or live in decrepit nursing homes is at times not far from the truth.

  In a society that places less and less emphasis on cultural and institutional traditions, it’s worth remembering that seniors are our link with the past. They are our institutional memory, our repository of experience, and perhaps our greatest natural resource. A program in Massachusetts understands this and pairs seniors with foster children, an arrangement that facilitates both interaction and volunteerism, which is of benefit to both generations. And a promising multistate initiative, called the Experience Corps, encourages people over fifty-five to remain involved in their communities by tutoring and mentoring elementary school children.

  The days when a “hoary head” was considered a “crown of gold” may be long gone—we are far more likely to dye our hair at the slightest sign of natural maturity than don a powered wig as a symbol of wisdom and authority—but that doesn’t mean our elders have any less to teach us.

  It’s to be hoped we will take an interest in them, and they will take an interest in us. This should be of concern to all of us, because one day—if we’re lucky—we’ll all be old.

  I took some time to readjust to my less convenient life back home. Although it was already spring, I still found myself occasionally trudging through wet snow to shovel my driveway and brush off my car. As the days grew longer, I spent countless hours prepping the lawn against crabgrass, pruning the hedges, and nurturing new plantings. Somewhere along the way, the lessons of Sun City took root; I gave up the fight to preserve my lawn’s artificial monoculture, and opted to scatter clover and wild thyme.

  To me, the gardening was hard work, but I took great pleasure in sitting on my patio and surveying my modest accomplishments. I missed seeing Dave mowing his lawn at picture-perfect angles, or strapping on his leaf blower (and outsize safety goggles and headphones) for spring cleanup. And I missed Betsy applauding as I skateboarded shakily past their old house.

  But I’ve become friendly with our new neighbors: a single mom and her charming teenage daughter. What they lack in gardening know-how they make up for with tasty impromptu dinners. Another neighbor, one of my close friends, impresses me with his desire to hang out with younger folks like myself. In his sixties and retired, he regularly invites me over for home-brewed beer and slow-cooked barbecue ribs. He loves to entertain my toddler daughter with his comedic antics, and my daughter adores him in return. Despite his age, he keeps current with the hip-hop music scene so that he can continue being a disc jockey for middle school dances—a favorite pastime.

  Our town, thankfully, remains happily age-integrated for the most part, with strong bonds continuing to keep the generations close. Elected town officials range in age from the mid-thirties to the mid-seventies; and people of all ages routinely mingle on the sidewalks or at our new community center. When the operator of a local cinema butted heads with a sometimes less than endearing crew of teenagers loitering in his downtown parking lot, and attempted to repel them with a device that produces a painfully high-pitched noise heard only by younger ears, most people agreed that he had crossed the line. Neighboring merchants unanimously condemned the action and petitioned the town to outlaw the device. “We feel that young people are welcome members of our community and we enjoy the vitality that they bring to our town,” they wrote. Similarly, many of my peers and I enjoy hanging out with older residents. They are entertaining, and there’s a lot to learn from them.

  I can’t help thinking that the Andersons left something wonderful behind: an authentic community with a rich history. Since moving, they’ve missed seeing our previously fractured neighborhood pull together mightily to fight the proposed firehouse—and win. Our fellow citizens finally concluded that saving an extra three dollars a month in property taxes wasn’t worth giving up our children’s green space. A better site was chosen—one that the fire chief actually preferred—and construction has already begun. The senior center remains as is. The town’s older citizens are generally a thrifty bunch, and few of them have voiced a desire for a bigger, fancier building. But we do have a newly renovated and enlarged library that is finally wheelchair accessible. Funding for the project was a contemptuous issue. It was rejected at first, but enough residents—both young and old—banded together and approved it the second time around.

  The glow of victory in our neighborhood may be fading, but the park remains and our cohesion persists. Now, I can’t walk ten yards without bumping into a neighbor that I know. And we all help keep an eye on the aging seniors in our neighborhood (especially when it snows) and on one another’s children, doing our best to keep them all out of harm’s way.

  My wife and I live on a corner lot, and in the warm weather it’s not unusual for half a dozen neighbors to stroll by my backyard and stay for a glass of wine or a bowl of ice cream. To me, the whimsical happenstances in a traditional community—the accidental crossings—give life its vibrancy. My patio’s often filled with three generations of neighbors at a time: the adults yapping away while the children run around the yard and swing on the hammock. If it sounds idyllic, that’s because it is. Community is precious, and I plan on soaking up as much of it as I can. It fills me with hope.

  That said, in some ways Gary Lester was right. I sometimes wish our neighborhood and town had better planning. If they did, I wouldn’t have had to dedicate so much time and anxiety to campaigning for our community green. And like any parent, I worry about the safety of our daughter, occasionally allowing myself to dream of the reduced traffic and the sense of security that a gated community provides.

  But when push comes to shove, I’m not interested in the Faustian bargain that living in a controlled community demands. I love my town, warts and all, and take comfort in the knowledge that no entertainment specialist designed our downtown; nor can it be bought, sold, or traded like a stock certificate.

  As any parent knows, kids can be trying, and it’s true that generational peers tend to gravitate toward one another, but I still can’t bear the thought of living in community without children. I find such a fate, improbable though it may be, heartbreaking. As it is, I can hardly stand it when my wife and daughter leave town to visit relatives and the house echoes with loneliness instead of our daughter’s youthful wonderment and laughter. One day she will necessarily leave the nest, but if we’re fortunate, she’ll chose to live nearby and our garden will once again be filled with a ne
w generation of lively youngsters.

  Epilogue

  “[They] longed to stay forever, browsing on that native bloom, forgetful of their homeland.”

  —The Odyssey

  DEVELOPERS SELLING AGE SEGREGATION CONTINUE TO BULLDOZE their way across the country, catering to an aging public eager to have the easy life. To my chagrin, several of my friends’ parents are moving into age-segregated communities. My friends aren’t sure what to make of their parents’ decision, but most of them confess a sense of unease and bewilderment, as well as some relief. My own parents are now living in an age-targeted housing development, not because they dread young families but because, much like their new neighbors, they enjoy the amenities, which include easy access to New York City, and the speedy sense of community that living with one’s peers provides.

  There are already 150 age-segregated communities in my state alone, with proposals for nearly 200 more. Many municipalities have incorporated “vasectomy zoning” ordinances with provisions (such as higher density limits but restrictions on the number of bedrooms) that encourage the creation of retirement communities and accord them preferential treatment, even though there is a critical need for affordable family housing. Some even mandate that a certain percentage of new construction be in the form of “adult” housing, particularly if local school buildings are already at capacity.

  Every week I read news accounts from surrounding areas about these and other proposed developments, helplessly monitoring the trend as it inches closer to our bucolic hamlet. The developments are perceived as a form of tax relief, and most communities can’t embrace them quickly enough. There’s never any discussion about the larger societal costs of building childproof leisurevilles. Nor is there any attempt to distinguish between adult playgrounds and much-needed care facilities and affordable senior housing. The utter lack of public debate at the local or national level about age-segregated housing continues to surprise me. Press reports of Donald Trump’s entry into the market with an age-segregated community north of New York City made much of the fact that he is a baby boomer, but never questioned the premise behind such real estate developments.

  As was predicted by the Mexican developer I met in Phoenix, the movement has now spilled south of the border, where an age-segregated community for American expatriates is expected to be up and running in Baja before the end of the decade. Now you can spend the rest of your life at an all-inclusive beachfront resort. Similar communities are establishing beachheads in additional warm weather locales, such as Spain and Panama.

  In a twist on modern planned communities, quasi-governments, and America’s long history of religious utopias, the founder of Dominos Pizza is now financing a new for-profit Catholic-themed community in Florida named Ave Maria. It will feature both age-integrated and age-segregated neighborhoods, thus giving dedicated pro-lifers the choice of living with children or keeping them at bay. One wonders how the “pizza pope” will govern his private theocracy, and how residents will respond to his occasional edicts. He says he is following God’s will. Before construction had even begun, he expressed his opposition to the sale of condoms and other contraceptives at future on-site pharmacies, and to the offering of X-rated premium channels by cable television providers.

  The lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender communities will soon be coming online as well, with Billie Jean King workout rooms and drag cabarets, much to my gay brother’s delight. He says these marginalized populations are seceding for their own safety—and sanity. “We’re terrified, understandably, of ending up in an ordinary retirement place, where a heterosexual lifestyle and sensibility could be ‘imposed’ upon us,” he tells me. “Many of us would be misfits, and a lot of us would die of boredom.”

  I suspect that as a dedicated New Yorker, he’d be less than thrilled by the canned environment in such a community, gay or straight. But many in the industry expect so-called “affinity communities” to gain in popularity with retirees. New entrants might include artists, environmentalists, athletes, and “new age” devotees. Regardless of the infinite ways to self-segregate, all these groups have one basic commonality—a desire to live without children.

  The housing market, once rocket-propelled, is taking a plunge, so the industry is bracing for a cyclical slowdown. Some of the midsize players have already declared bankruptcy—often leaving behind thinly populated “communities” with only partially realized clubhouses, pools, and “neighborhoods.” Many of the bigger developers have begun to reduce their staffs and cancel some planned projects. This is a possible preview of what could happen when all such communities outlive the boomers.

  For now, developers are working hard to sell the product, but regardless of how beautiful the weather is in North Carolina or some such place, it’s hard to persuade people to buy a new home if they can’t sell their present one. I’ve been offered reduced financing, unsolicited advice on how to sell my existing home (plants help), and three years of free heat and electricity if I buy a new home. And in keeping with the perceived fascination retirees have with the Guinness Book of World Records, I have also been invited to participate in a contest involving stacking golf balls.

  My favorite marketing ploy was a folksy letter from a senior sales executive named Mike, questioning the importance of a softening in the housing market. “It’s not a good time to buy real estate?” he asks. He then quotes a happy customer: “Mike, if we waited until someone else told us it was a good time to buy something, we could be waiting the rest of our lives!” Mike writes that this “prophetic” comment “floored” him.

  Meanwhile, the spotlight remains on the self-obsessed boomers, wrinkles and all. They helped manufacture the cult of youth in the first place, and owing to their sheer numbers they’re in no fear of age bias and marginalization as they grow older. The business world is already devising products and services to cater to them and the trillions of dollars they have to spend. This will soon change the way nearly all consumer products—such as cars and houses—are designed. And so, as books move to larger type, homes exclude stairs, and cosmetics models proudly display gravity’s inevitable toll, it’s possible that our current cultural obsession with youth might graduate to at least middle age.

  Given my own age, I can still only guess what it’s really like to be old, and I can’t say I look forward to old age. The daily newspaper feature “Fifty Years Ago Today” brings back no memories, and probably won’t bring any for another two decades or so. Indeed, I have difficulty imaging my own retirement, or how I will navigate it, and even thinking about it makes me rather eneasy. I’m still too busy climbing up the mountain to know what the other side looks like; such worries remain abstractions that I’d rather not dwell on yet.

  I miss my friends in The Villages and keep in contact with a number of them. Few of them are actually old—many of them are younger than my parents—and so they’re doing just fine. My wetblanket prognostications seem to have little effect on them; they’re too busy having fun.

  The Andersons are happy to report that they have a new golf routine. Instead of playing on an eighteen-hole championship golf course, they now play two nine-hole executive courses and bring along a picnic lunch to eat between tee times. “It’s a great way to split up the game,” Betsy informs me. “It’s even more relaxing.”

  A year and a half after moving to The Villages, Dave writes to tell me that they have finally ventured out for a cruise around the Caribbean. “While most folks were frantically searching for sun and relaxation—actually wearing themselves out in their quest—we knew ours was just an extension of our life in the Villages, minus the golf,” he explains. “In some ways we felt like Peter Pan and Wendy. I guess the decadence of the experience was wonderful (didn’t Adam eat the apple?), but when superimposed on the dire poverty of the islands it makes me wonder, and a little sad.”

  Mr. Midnight continues to write to me about what he describes as his life of Riley, and always lets me know that there’s a room available for me. F
or a short while, it appeared as if his Teflon facade was cracking. He met an airline stewardess in her mid-forties whose job necessitated accommodating Mr. Midnight’s “three-day rule.” “She’s wonderful,” he writes. “I think I could actually fall for her. And her schedule’s perfect: I still need my space.”

  I remained dubious and he chided me for having so little faith in him. A few weeks later, my suspicions were confirmed. “She wants to get married,” he wrote tersely. “She is history. She knew the rules.”

  At age sixty-five, Wendy Marie is no longer half a man. She had the surgery in Thailand as planned. The recovery was daunting and weeks later landed her in the Villages Regional Medical Center. But she is happy to report that her Florida driver’s license now has “F” for female. She still contemplates leaving The Villages, but has no idea where she’ll feel comfortable; and after $100,000 worth of surgeries, finances remain a very real concern. “The older you get, the tougher it is to figure out what you want to do with the rest of your life,” she explains.

  I’m told that Kat continues to show her mouse tattoo to startled acquaintances at Katie Belle’s, and that the Prosecutor is still the captain of Holly’s ship. Ellen and her friends are as sharp as ever and continue to meet weekly for dinner and cards.

  I’ve kept in touch with Pete Wahl, who runs the central districts. Every now and then I contact him for basic information about the sprawling metropolis he runs. He’s fond of reminding me that by law he’s required to provide access to information and no more. When I ask him roughly how many golf courses The Villages intends to build, he replies: “I do not and have never worked for The Villages, which is a private corporation, to whose information I have no right of access.”