Meet a “keep government out of my Medicare” and “give me a bigger Social Security check” set. The Villages. It is a weird place. It’s also the fastest growing small town in America.
The Villages is the largest gated over-55 community in the world. It holds more than 100,000 residents in an area bigger than Manhattan.
Business is good at the STD clinic, and there are reports of a black market in Viagra. Have to wonder if it’s not also ground zero for Medicare paid penis pumps. And it’s unusual for the cops not to turn a blind eye to public sex, and probably wish they’d done so in this case considering the publicity this has generated.
And everyone gets around via golf cart. … There were golf-cart tracks going everywhere. There are golf-cart tunnels and even a golf-cart bridge to cross the major highways. Why golf carts? Because nobody there really needs a car. Everything they could ever want is inside the gates.
Some of the golf carts “cost upwards of $25,000 and were souped up to look like Hummers, Mercedes sedans, and hot rods,” Andrew D. Blechman noted in his book Leisureville: Adventures in America’s Retirement Utopias.
No cookie baking Grannies here. So many better things to do; so little time.
But GOTV isn’t needed here. No, sirree.
Residents of The Villages have a high 80% turnout rate in elections. Republicans outnumber Democrats two-to-one.
And meet their GOP-Tea Party US House Representative: Rich Nugent. (Does he preach the family values and fidelity rot to his constituents? Maybe with a wink and a nod? Ha ha. As if any Republican gives a crap about his/her hypocrisy.)
I’d rather be dead than live in one of these places.
The Me Decade arrives at retirement age.
It’s always bugged me that the “me decade” was associated with hippies and boomers in the public imagination. The reality was that it was driven mostly by those born in the decade or so before the boomers. The ones that missed out on youthful protests/drugs/sex/rock-n-roll. That by 1970 had enough money to buy the hot tubs, etc. While I didn’t much care for the movie, The Ice Storm got the age of the participants of the “me decade” correct.
Recently stumble across my 6th grade class picture. Always had fond memories of the teacher and my classmates. What shocked me was that there were 37 of us in that class and 23 were boys. A bit difficult to internalize “it’s all about me” with such large classes and all the neighborhood moms popping out a baby every couple of years.