Most of our friends had hyped SILVER COMMUNITY in fact I'm sure that 97.998% of affluent Americans could not find one single bad thing to say about it. I guess I was in that 2.002% of the population that didn't want anything to do with retirement homes. When asked what I found objectionable I always said "Whats wrong with just dying at home?"
However, once I became affluent and yes old, my dear wife Ann presented me with incontrovertible evidence that proved that moving there was the right choice. That evidence was the case of my good friend James Preston. He died unexpectedly at home and left his wife to manage and liquidate property in Chicago, Sarasota and northern Michigan. All were furnished and crammed to the rafters with all the shit they had accumulated in a long marriage. His wife asked Ann and I to help and a year later I wasn't surprised to find our own liquidation project at the head of the "honey do" list.
Ours wasn't quite as bad as theirs but like them we had property in three states and lifetime collections of crap in two of them. Some of our problems were solved by gifting stuff to our kids and then forcing them to accept all their childhood toys, pictures and other memorabilia from our garages, attics and basements. The next big beneficiary was the Salvation Army and finally two dumpsters from a trash removal company.
At the end of a long process our possessions were boiled down to what would fit into Ann's Camry and my pickup. I had a car tow mount on my truck so we could ride together in the Tundra. Distributed between the two were four seasons of clothes, our computers with chairs, three paintings, a dozen bankers boxes of indispensable paper records, six boxes of small electronics, three personal boxes each, two containers packed tight with mystery electronic debris and one fat bankbook. The only real bone of contention we had had in the whole process were the hundreds of framed photos and the cartons of paper prints. We solved that problem by sending everything to a service that scaned it all. We ended up with six framed pics and a display screen that played digital slideshows of all the rest off one of our computers.
Ann and I sat in the driveway of our last big house after the closing and took a collective deep breath. I broke the ice with.
"Are you sure we made the right decision doing all this.?"
Ann looked over at me with her gorgeous brown eyes and said.
"Absolutely Sweetheart. I can't wait to get up to SILVER. The cottage there has been furnished to our specifications, we know at least twenty couples who live in the Community and I have already been asked to join nine different really fun sounding committees."
With that encouragement I met her gaze and threw her an air kiss. She caught it in mid air and threw it right back to me just like she had done that night so many years ago as we left our wedding reception and began our honeymoon drive.
As she did then she quickly slid over and nestled into her spot next to me. My only thought was how lucky I was to have this beautiful vision as a wife. When I told her that she did the usual dismissal of the compliment but I detected just the hint of a smile as she tightened the tuck of her polo shirt over her lovely breasts and checked her makeup in the rear view mirror. Her nipples were showing and unable to resist I dipped my head and kissed that special spot on her neck. As I closed in on her lips my left hand snuck up and lightly caressed her right nipple that was hard under my fingers. With practiced ease she fended off the boob grab and concentrated on the kiss. As our lips parted she said.
"Animal. You are just going to have to keep your hands to yourself and you know what in your pants until we get there. Now I'm going to ignore your hard on and you are going to start the engine now."
"Spoilsport. You're sure you don't want to have a farewell fuck in the driveway as our goodby present for the new owners?"
"I think you chasing me all over the house last night and having your way with me in every room on the first floor would be enough."
"As I recall you insisted on finishing off in the butlers pantry on the cutting board."
"Oh yeh. Did you remember to check it this morning in case it was broken."
"Don't worry that crack you heard was just a molding strip pulling off. I tacked it back on and it passed the house inspection just fine."
"Well OK, lets go Stud."
The drive north east only took an hour or so up to the hill country. The guard at the gate waved us through as the license plate scanner checked our vehicle into the database. The orientation brochure I read the other day said that visual scanning of our faces had also occurred but the cameras must have been hidden because I saw no trace of them.
The entrance gate was in a heavily wooded area and after several hundred yards the trees thinned out to reveal one of the three golf courses on the property. Scattered around the first course were of course some of the villas and town houses of SILVER COMMUNITY EAST. Our immediate destination was in a cluster of single family cottages removed from the hustle and bustle of the golf, tennis, pickleball, etc, etc courts. We were in C9 which was one of a dozen cottages built in roughly a circular pattern around a free form pool.
No doubt alerted by the entry guard a nice looking young lady greeted us at our door with several sets of keys, todays SILVER newspaper, a quick orientation walk through of our unit and a picnic basket with a complimentary cold supper and breakfast. We turned down the unpacking service, thanked the lady profusely and said goodby.
I unhooked the sedan and backed my truck up to the front door and in ten minutes had everything unloaded and in a neat pile in the living room. The Camry up took another ten and was mostly directed towards the second bedroom (computer room) and the Master. After a quick Diet Coke shared with the boss I headed out to get some booze at the nearest grocery.
I returned a half hour later and moved Ann's car into the single car garage and parked the truck in front of the garage door. Now going back into the house I dropped the liquor case on a convenient counter and went looking for Ann.
I found her sitting on our new king sized bed amid boxes of clothes and bedding drying her eyes with a Kleenex. I immediately knew what she was thinking and sat down beside her taking her into my arms. We just sat in silence for a moment before I said.
"September 3rd 1970. Parkland apartment #107, 6:30 PM."
"More like 7:30 and I couldn't find the fucking box with the sheets or anything to wear the next day. There was no food in the damn apartment, it was hot and humid and you had just gotten back from disposing of the trailer."
"And what did I do?"
"You put your arms around me and gave me a big messy kiss while fondling my tits and said. "So Mrs. Wilson, wanna fuck?"
"And then what happened after you smiled and swatted me?"
