February 9, 2011--Snowbirding: "Retired"
Whenever anyone asks if I am retired, I hem and haw.
If I say yes, I put air-quotation marks around it. And then I quickly add, “I’m ‘retired’ from 9-5 office work.” An awkward locution. If my interlocutor persists or looks puzzled at my verbal contortions, I say that I’m a writer. (Sometime also with quotes; other times if I’m feeling good about my work, without.)
They usually notice that I swallow my words and avoid eye contact when I manage to stammer that out, which puzzles me as much as them since in fact I do have my daily blog—I’ve kept it going now for five and a half years—and I do carry on other fiction and non-fiction writing projects and even a proposed TV sitcom. All respectable pursuits, which could reasonably qualify as evidence that I am not, sans quotes, retired.
Then how to explain that even now I can’t make myself not put “retired” in italics?
I clearly need some retirement therapy.
Though, after this morning waiting to get my few hairs cut, eavesdropping on the conversation among other retired persons (“seniors” is the preferred term here in South Florida), I came away more determined than ever to try not to be associated with them, with retired folks. To not think about myself as retired. Yet, there I go again—this time in bold type.
Listen in, then, with me as I record some of what I overheard. Arranged by theme, because due to their advanced condition not only do they not hear that well but they also have neurological difficulty maintaining any semblance of a coherent conversational thread.
I, on the other hand . . .
Shoveling
“Last year by now,” one of two friends from Barnegat, New Jersey said to no one in particular, “in 42 hours we had 36 inches of snow.”
“That’s more than an inch of snow a minute,” his Barnegat and Delray Beach neighbor said.
“Not that much,” someone unfamiliar to them joined in, “But where I’m from in Pennsylvania, we have real snow. And,” he mumbled as an aside, “can do arithmetic.”
Not picking up on that, the more assertive of the two friends pugnaciously asked, “What do you mean by ‘not that much’ and ‘real snow?’ Are you saying we don’t have that in Jersey?” I was concerned for a moment that things might get heated.
But the seemingly calmer of the friends jumped in and said, “Like we said, more than an inch and hour. And we’re right by the ocean where it’s not supposed . . . “
“ . . . to snow,” his friend, now with a big smile, completed the sentence for him.
“Like I said, you don’t have snow if you’re not from where I’m from.”
“Tell that to my snowplow,” the first New Jersey native snickered. His name is George.
“He’s telling you like it is,” his friend Rudy added. “What he says, you can put money on.”
“This I would be reluctant to do,” Sam from Pennsylvania said. “I’d be too busy shoveling because like I said . . .”
Rudy completed his sentence, “ . . . you haven’t seen snow . . .”
“ . . . until you’ve seen it in, where did you say you’re from?”
“From Pennsylvania. Thirty miles west of Scranton. Where it really snows.”
“You mentioned that already.”
“How much did you say it snows an hour in New Jersey?” Sam said, returning to arithmetic.
“More than here,” George said, I was happy to notice, with a broad wink to Rudy.
Florida
“Which is why we’re here, isn’t it, George?”
“Just like you said.”
“Are you snowbirds?” Sam asked.
“For four months a year. But not a minute more.”
“Because?”
“Because . . .”
“ . . . that’s what we do.”
“Do?”
“Come here for not a minute more than four months. There’s nothing to do but lie by the pool and drive around looking for early-bird dinners. Back in Jersey I can go to Atlantic City for the day. So at the end of four months I call me nephew back in Barnegat. You know, that’s in New Jersey.” Sam nodded. As did I. “And if he tells me there’s snow on the ground to shovel when we’re getting ready to head north, maybe we’ll stay for another week. But not more than . . .“
“ . . . that. That goes for me too. I’ve had it with the shoveling.”
“And the mowing. That too. Where we are in Kings Point . . .”
“What’s that?” Sam asked.
“I thought you said you’re from here.”
“I said, from Pennsylvania. We’re staying for a month in a friend’s place. Looking maybe to buy something. Everything’s so cheap.”
“You can’t do better than Kings Point. It’s the . . .”
“ . . . largest development here,” George this time completed Rudy’s sentence. “Gated, of course.”
“And you don’t have to shovel—that’s a joke, we’re in Florida thank God—or do any mowing. For your $400 a month maintenance they do everything for you,” Rudy said with community pride. “They even arrange to have you taken to the hospital.”
“Which I do every time I’m here,” George interjected with what seemed like a feeling of perverse accomplishment. “Eight years in a row. Am I right Rudy?” Not waiting for confirmation, he added, “Back and forth to the ER. They know me by my first name by now. ‘Nice to see you again, George,’ they say when they bring me in. ‘What can we do for you this time? Heart? Lungs? Maybe something broken?’ They’re all such cards there.”
“I think by next year they’re going to name the emergency room for him. The George Tucci ER. But thank God everything always turns out well.”
“If you’re looking to buy a place, make sure it’s not more than ten minutes from an emergency room. That’s more important than being close to a Publix and a Chinese restaurant.”
“As I said,” Sam said, “we’re looking but maybe it’s better to rent.”
“You don’t have to worry about hurricanes.”
“And I hate the idea of paying for something all year when you use it only four months. What do you do about your telephone, for example? I don’t want to have to pay for it while I’m not here, and if I switch it off they tell me I won’t be able to keep my number.”
“For $11.00 a month, they let you keep it.”
“Though like you I don’t like paying for something I’m not getting.”
“So that’s why we use our cell phone,” George said. “Verizon gives you rollover minutes. So she can talk all day if she wants to.”
Sam said, “Though how that works, I don’t know. The rolling over.”
“But she has her minutes,” George said with a touch of annoyance, “and that’s all I know or care.”
“She”
“Make sure when you buy a place that you interview them when they interview you.”
“I’m not following this,” Sam from Pennsylvania said.
“The condo board. When they interview you.”
“I wouldn’t know what to ask them.”
“Be sure to write down your questions. Five or six.”
“Of what?”
“Anything you want to know.” Rudy shrugged his shoulders.
“She’ll for sure have questions,” George said. “Like where do you put our garbage? What happens if the refrigerator stops working? Where do guests park their cars?”
“Yes, those kinds of things,” Rudy agreed.
“Then she’ll want to know if the grandchildren are allowed in the pool if there’s no lifeguard,” Sam joined in.
“No one here has a lifeguard. If you want a lifeguard, come to Barnegat in the summer. I told you, didn’t I, that we live there? It’s by the ocean.” Sam nodded. “If you want a lifeguard here you have to go to the public beach or get a condo on the water with a private beach.”
“But be prepared to spend three-times as much for the same thing.”
“Location, location . . .”
“ . . . location.”
“She doesn’t want the beach. She has problems with her feet and the sand gets in her toes.”
“Mine does too. Sand is for grandchildren.”
“Not for us.” They were all nodding now.
“And be sure that before everything is signed, sealed, and delivered she agrees to spend the whole winter here. Mine would go home after two months. She misses her bridge game in New Jersey. But of course she never once lifted a shovel.”
Haircut
“They raised the price.”
“For?”
“The haircut. Last year it was $7.00. Now it’s eight.”
“In Pennsylvania they charge me twenty-five. But that includes a shampoo and blow-drying. I see here they don’t do either of these.”
“That’s why it’s $8.00. If you want a shampoo I advise you to do it yourself before you come here. Though there are other places, salons they call them, where they shampoo your hair, but it costs at least $5.00 more for that.”
“Not a separate charge but . . .”
“ . . . it’s built into what they charge. With the tip it could set you back $20.00.”
“That’s still cheaper than in Pennsylvania.”
“Or even more. Which is why we come here.”
“They look like they know what they’re doing,” Sam observed.
“They specialize in people like us,” Rudy ran his hand across the shiny top of his head, “People without that much hair. Though I see you have one of those comb-overs, which is a little more complicated.” Sam, not insulted, smiled.
“But not to worry, there’s no extra charge for them.”
My Turn
By then I was glad when Juanita called number 22. My number.
"That's you," George announced. "Juanita's the best."
I muttered an acknowledgement.
"You a snowbird too?" Rudy asked.
I muttered again without looking up.
"You look like one," Sam joined in.
"Retired for sure," Rudy observed.
To this I didn't even mutter, but slipped into the chair and slid down as far as I could in the hope that no one I knew would spot me there among these seniors.
If I say yes, I put air-quotation marks around it. And then I quickly add, “I’m ‘retired’ from 9-5 office work.” An awkward locution. If my interlocutor persists or looks puzzled at my verbal contortions, I say that I’m a writer. (Sometime also with quotes; other times if I’m feeling good about my work, without.)
They usually notice that I swallow my words and avoid eye contact when I manage to stammer that out, which puzzles me as much as them since in fact I do have my daily blog—I’ve kept it going now for five and a half years—and I do carry on other fiction and non-fiction writing projects and even a proposed TV sitcom. All respectable pursuits, which could reasonably qualify as evidence that I am not, sans quotes, retired.
Then how to explain that even now I can’t make myself not put “retired” in italics?
I clearly need some retirement therapy.
Though, after this morning waiting to get my few hairs cut, eavesdropping on the conversation among other retired persons (“seniors” is the preferred term here in South Florida), I came away more determined than ever to try not to be associated with them, with retired folks. To not think about myself as retired. Yet, there I go again—this time in bold type.
Listen in, then, with me as I record some of what I overheard. Arranged by theme, because due to their advanced condition not only do they not hear that well but they also have neurological difficulty maintaining any semblance of a coherent conversational thread.
I, on the other hand . . .
Shoveling
“Last year by now,” one of two friends from Barnegat, New Jersey said to no one in particular, “in 42 hours we had 36 inches of snow.”
“That’s more than an inch of snow a minute,” his Barnegat and Delray Beach neighbor said.
“Not that much,” someone unfamiliar to them joined in, “But where I’m from in Pennsylvania, we have real snow. And,” he mumbled as an aside, “can do arithmetic.”
Not picking up on that, the more assertive of the two friends pugnaciously asked, “What do you mean by ‘not that much’ and ‘real snow?’ Are you saying we don’t have that in Jersey?” I was concerned for a moment that things might get heated.
But the seemingly calmer of the friends jumped in and said, “Like we said, more than an inch and hour. And we’re right by the ocean where it’s not supposed . . . “
“ . . . to snow,” his friend, now with a big smile, completed the sentence for him.
“Like I said, you don’t have snow if you’re not from where I’m from.”
“Tell that to my snowplow,” the first New Jersey native snickered. His name is George.
“He’s telling you like it is,” his friend Rudy added. “What he says, you can put money on.”
“This I would be reluctant to do,” Sam from Pennsylvania said. “I’d be too busy shoveling because like I said . . .”
Rudy completed his sentence, “ . . . you haven’t seen snow . . .”
“ . . . until you’ve seen it in, where did you say you’re from?”
“From Pennsylvania. Thirty miles west of Scranton. Where it really snows.”
“You mentioned that already.”
“How much did you say it snows an hour in New Jersey?” Sam said, returning to arithmetic.
“More than here,” George said, I was happy to notice, with a broad wink to Rudy.
Florida
“Which is why we’re here, isn’t it, George?”
“Just like you said.”
“Are you snowbirds?” Sam asked.
“For four months a year. But not a minute more.”
“Because?”
“Because . . .”
“ . . . that’s what we do.”
“Do?”
“Come here for not a minute more than four months. There’s nothing to do but lie by the pool and drive around looking for early-bird dinners. Back in Jersey I can go to Atlantic City for the day. So at the end of four months I call me nephew back in Barnegat. You know, that’s in New Jersey.” Sam nodded. As did I. “And if he tells me there’s snow on the ground to shovel when we’re getting ready to head north, maybe we’ll stay for another week. But not more than . . .“
“ . . . that. That goes for me too. I’ve had it with the shoveling.”
“And the mowing. That too. Where we are in Kings Point . . .”
“What’s that?” Sam asked.
“I thought you said you’re from here.”
“I said, from Pennsylvania. We’re staying for a month in a friend’s place. Looking maybe to buy something. Everything’s so cheap.”
“You can’t do better than Kings Point. It’s the . . .”
“ . . . largest development here,” George this time completed Rudy’s sentence. “Gated, of course.”
“And you don’t have to shovel—that’s a joke, we’re in Florida thank God—or do any mowing. For your $400 a month maintenance they do everything for you,” Rudy said with community pride. “They even arrange to have you taken to the hospital.”
“Which I do every time I’m here,” George interjected with what seemed like a feeling of perverse accomplishment. “Eight years in a row. Am I right Rudy?” Not waiting for confirmation, he added, “Back and forth to the ER. They know me by my first name by now. ‘Nice to see you again, George,’ they say when they bring me in. ‘What can we do for you this time? Heart? Lungs? Maybe something broken?’ They’re all such cards there.”
“I think by next year they’re going to name the emergency room for him. The George Tucci ER. But thank God everything always turns out well.”
“If you’re looking to buy a place, make sure it’s not more than ten minutes from an emergency room. That’s more important than being close to a Publix and a Chinese restaurant.”
“As I said,” Sam said, “we’re looking but maybe it’s better to rent.”
“You don’t have to worry about hurricanes.”
“And I hate the idea of paying for something all year when you use it only four months. What do you do about your telephone, for example? I don’t want to have to pay for it while I’m not here, and if I switch it off they tell me I won’t be able to keep my number.”
“For $11.00 a month, they let you keep it.”
“Though like you I don’t like paying for something I’m not getting.”
“So that’s why we use our cell phone,” George said. “Verizon gives you rollover minutes. So she can talk all day if she wants to.”
Sam said, “Though how that works, I don’t know. The rolling over.”
“But she has her minutes,” George said with a touch of annoyance, “and that’s all I know or care.”
“She”
“Make sure when you buy a place that you interview them when they interview you.”
“I’m not following this,” Sam from Pennsylvania said.
“The condo board. When they interview you.”
“I wouldn’t know what to ask them.”
“Be sure to write down your questions. Five or six.”
“Of what?”
“Anything you want to know.” Rudy shrugged his shoulders.
“She’ll for sure have questions,” George said. “Like where do you put our garbage? What happens if the refrigerator stops working? Where do guests park their cars?”
“Yes, those kinds of things,” Rudy agreed.
“Then she’ll want to know if the grandchildren are allowed in the pool if there’s no lifeguard,” Sam joined in.
“No one here has a lifeguard. If you want a lifeguard, come to Barnegat in the summer. I told you, didn’t I, that we live there? It’s by the ocean.” Sam nodded. “If you want a lifeguard here you have to go to the public beach or get a condo on the water with a private beach.”
“But be prepared to spend three-times as much for the same thing.”
“Location, location . . .”
“ . . . location.”
“She doesn’t want the beach. She has problems with her feet and the sand gets in her toes.”
“Mine does too. Sand is for grandchildren.”
“Not for us.” They were all nodding now.
“And be sure that before everything is signed, sealed, and delivered she agrees to spend the whole winter here. Mine would go home after two months. She misses her bridge game in New Jersey. But of course she never once lifted a shovel.”
Haircut
“They raised the price.”
“For?”
“The haircut. Last year it was $7.00. Now it’s eight.”
“In Pennsylvania they charge me twenty-five. But that includes a shampoo and blow-drying. I see here they don’t do either of these.”
“That’s why it’s $8.00. If you want a shampoo I advise you to do it yourself before you come here. Though there are other places, salons they call them, where they shampoo your hair, but it costs at least $5.00 more for that.”
“Not a separate charge but . . .”
“ . . . it’s built into what they charge. With the tip it could set you back $20.00.”
“That’s still cheaper than in Pennsylvania.”
“Or even more. Which is why we come here.”
“They look like they know what they’re doing,” Sam observed.
“They specialize in people like us,” Rudy ran his hand across the shiny top of his head, “People without that much hair. Though I see you have one of those comb-overs, which is a little more complicated.” Sam, not insulted, smiled.
“But not to worry, there’s no extra charge for them.”
My Turn
By then I was glad when Juanita called number 22. My number.
"That's you," George announced. "Juanita's the best."
I muttered an acknowledgement.
"You a snowbird too?" Rudy asked.
I muttered again without looking up.
"You look like one," Sam joined in.
"Retired for sure," Rudy observed.
To this I didn't even mutter, but slipped into the chair and slid down as far as I could in the hope that no one I knew would spot me there among these seniors.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home