Is Anybody Out There?

Believe it or not I have actually been pondering the notion of sitting down everyday and putting my thoughts down. Yah, I know I’ve said that before. I think it’s been about 8 months since my last effort and a lot has happened since then.

What, you ask, we’ll let me list the things: figuring out the new place we live; getting used to not being where we were for almost 30 years; stepping up activity in the church we joined; doctor appointments, lots of doctor appointments; interesting issues related to our growing family; never ending political squabbling with an up coming election; oh, and don’t let me forget the Coronavirus outbreak. Where do I begin? How about figuring out our new place?

Sun City West, Arizona. Wow, when you drive around and see it for the first time it appears to be like it’s a big resort. You know, the kind you pay big money to visit for a week or two in the winter. There’s golf courses, tennis and pickle ball courts, workout areas, swimming pools, fancy dog parks, bocce ball courts, miniature golf courses, wood shops, metal shops, auto restoration clubs, and the list goes on and on and on. The only difference between the winter resort you pay big money to visit and here is people live here, they don’t cycle in and out every week or two. After you’ve been here for a while you begin to notice that in addition to appearing to be like a big resort you also become keenly aware of the fact that the average age of the residence is up there pretty far. Duhhh, it’s a 55 and over community. There are walkers and canes galore, gray hair if there is hair, continuous discussion of health issues, and dying neighbors – yes dying neighbors. Before we moved, a few people mentioned in passing that they would never want to live in a place like this because there are too many old people, it’s not diverse enough. I always thought that was kind of disrespectful and uppity thing to say but I never really understood what awareness of our senior adult population was all about until I moved here. When you compare this community to typical communities it takes very little time to become aware of the fact that in our general population when you reach this age you are basically become dismissed and/or irrelevant. You are not on the radar screen any longer except for advertisements aimed at erectile dysfunction or incontanence products. That was a surprise.