Growing Up in a Retirement Community
Steve and Jan ordered, got their food, and talked while they ate. “I'm curious, Steve,” Jan said suddenly. “How’d a Boston boy like you end up here?”
“I'm not a complete stranger to Florida. My mother was born and raised here,” he explained.
“Southern Belle and Yankee Boy linking up? Oh, that must have been a fiery mix,” Jan said laughing.
“Oh yeah. Dad told me it was six years before she stopped saying "damned" whenever she'd say Yankee. When my Dad retired, my Mom convinced him to move here. Said she couldn't take another New England winter. I was still in school, but my siblings were grown, so it wasn't a big deal to move us down here.”
“Wait, your dad retired, but you were still in school?”
“I was a late baby; he was fifty when I was born.”
“Oh, man! I can see it now; I bet he was strutting around like a peacock when you arrived.”
Unsettled and nervous, Steve continued. “Yeah, quite the affirmation of his virility. The family always said he'd take me for walks in my stroller and people would ask if I was his grandchild. He was so proud to announce that I was his! Anyway, we moved to Sarasota. Dad insisted on being near the water. That's where I graduated from high school.”
“Is it nice down there?”
“It's okay, but back then it was quite the retirement community. That made growing up there a rather interesting lifestyle,” Steve said.
“In what way?” Jan asked quietly.
“Well, when I went to college, my friends said I talked like an old person. I guess it was like those stories you hear about kids raised in the wild by wolves. I didn't play basketball, I played shuffleboard. How many sixteen-year-old boys do that?”
Laughing, Jan said, “That is priceless! You should write a book about that. It would be hilarious.”
“Yeah, that would be funny. But me? A book? I don’t...” Steve stumbled for words before pausing and saying with a reflective look, “Huh. You know something. That might not be such a bad idea.” He rubbed his chin as he gazed off and became lost in silent thought.