Seems like Venice, Florida, 1992. Winter. At the time I was only visiting. Guess there was a lot I didn’t know yet. – JDW
YOUR ATTIRE SUBJECT TO OUR APPROVAL
The sign posted at the front door of Phineas Phogg’s seems to say it all.
Your attire subject to our approval.
Not everybody would feel at home in this part of the Sunshine State. The retired white government workers from The North part. Too many old people with too many rules. It would be easier to list the ones they don’t have.
My parents love this place. Dad’s been here a dozen years and they will have to carry him out feet first before he’ll leave on his own. [Dad did move, because Mom made him move. He liked the new place even better. – ed. note]
“They’ll have to carry me out feet first” is just what he said.
“Old age is very demanding somehow,” author Kay Boyle once wrote a much younger friend. “One knows what one wants to do, and then that unpleasant enemy who has made its way into one’s flesh and bones intervenes between one’s wish and one’s ability to make that wish come true.”
Everybody acts like your parent or your enemy. Sometimes both. For example, a little-known Florida statute requires pedestrians to wear clean underwear in the event of an accident, in case they are rushed to the emergency ward.
Gang The Dog can’t really tour with us much, because he’s prohibited everywhere. Blue-haired biddies carry their canine-like creatures in lacquered straw purses.
Basically, every group seems to hate every other group not because they’re different, but because they’re not exactly the same. There’s a lot of reverse ageism in action.
Mostly slow motion.
If you’re not yet eligible for Social Security, you’re not worth diddley. Some good to be said, however, for being twice the size – and half the age – of most folks. There’s a sense of safety in Venice, I’ll give it that. In Rosaria, members of the city council carry concealed weapons.
I am quick to tell total strangers I’m visiting my parents who live nearby. I mumble something about non-existent grandchildren.
The philosophy seems to be WE WORKED HARD ALL OUR LIVES FOR EVERYTHING WE EVER GOT AND NOBODY EVER GAVE US ANYTHING, SO LEAVE US ALONE.
Then they threaten to vote.
I never mention politics or religion. Two-thirds of all registered voters are Republicans in these parts. The hopeful news is, they aren’t satisfied either. These old folks don’t want to pay higher taxes, they do want better medical coverage and cost of living adjustments in their retirement income. They want HIGHER interest rates. No inflation. More cops and lower taxes. The elderly plan to be gone before the federal deficit consumes everything.
Of course, you can’t tell an old person anything. They know it all. Or, they can’t remember. They can’t remember what it is they know, but they are absolutely positive once they remember, it’ll be the only right answer. They’ll still vote for Bush.
And many of them are smokers. You can’t drink a diet cola by the pool, but you’re allowed to smoke a pack of Camels. My dog can’t walk on the grass; what makes them think it’s okay to smoke in the men’s room?
There’s a sense of self-deprecation in the resort wear favored by golden girls and gilded boys. Plaid pants in religious drapery fabric. Wall-to-wall muumuus. Glow-in-the-dark jumpsuits. Florida is a foreign country. Here, I dress funny.
The elderly, the couple of generations preceding the baby boomers, seem to feel they can do whatever they want. Just like their children have always felt.
Just like us. Just like their kids, who always felt they could do whatever they wanted to do. Because they were young.
It seemed always enough. We were young.
The elderly, our parents, they’re old. And it’s not easy being old. And they made this country what it is today. They just want to take it easy now. Enjoy life.
They are old. That’s why. It is reason enough. We will be old ourselves someday.
Or we will wish we were.
