Only In The Villages

Posted on by Mike 2 Comments

One of yesterday’s headlines from The Villages Daily Sun read, “Senior Games Kick-Off With Pickle-ball 1A tennis like game played with a whiffle ball and oversized ping-pong paddles and Line Dancing.”

I find this amusing that this “olympic” event would have competition in two such events. We enjoy many amusing things here in The Villages. One of them is the Senior Games. There are real sporting events like track and field, swimming, cycling, and basketball, but there are some events like line dancing that doesn’t seem to fit. 

Another amusing aspect of The Games is how medals are accounted for. In The Olympics coverage, each country is listed with the number of gold, silver, and bronze medals won. In the Senior Games, just the total number of gold, silver, and bronze medals are announced in the newspaper. Presumably this is because we don’t have localities competing against each other. They may as well just list all the medals they’re going to give out and be done with it. 

We will have several weeks of Senior Games coverage in the Sun. 

We love it here.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 A tennis like game played with a whiffle ball and oversized ping-pong paddles

Green Done Up Brown

Posted on by Mike 5 Comments

Green

When somebody did something very well, my mom said, “They did it up brown.” At the time I didn’t know where the phrase came from, but I now suspect it had cooking roots.

Anyway, The Villages, announced a trash recycling program that they’ve been working on for three years. Three years, you say? This required careful coordination with several trash companies and two of the three affected local county governments. They have also coordinated with local merchants like Publix, Wal-Mart, Lowes, Ace Hardware, and Home Depot, to make sure there will be enough supply of the required trash bags. 1That they’ve all sold out is not The Villages fault

Here’s the plan:Homeowners collect recyclables into 13 gallon clear drawstring trash bags. Pretty much everything that is recyclable is eligible: plastic, newspaper, magazines, phone books, aluminum and steel cans, glass, etc. (See the reprint on the left) Then they leave the recycling bags at curbside on one of the two “trash pickup days” each week. Simple as that. No sorting. On top of that it’s only $1.47 per month added to the trash bill and the first month, March, is free.

Some folks are complaining about the $1.47 and that the system’s too complex. I guess there’s no pleasing some folks. For me, it’s a painless way to be a little bit green…and do it up brown.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 That they’ve all sold out is not The Villages fault

STDs Running Rampant In Retirement Community

Posted on by Mike 1 Comment

Golf Cart Community

Local 6 News in Orlando, FL, reports that STDs are running rampant in my retirement community, The Villages. As my brother, Dan, says, “There must be a joke in here somewhere.”

As a youth leader in our church, we find that the biggest fear of teenagers in relation to sex is pregnancy. Their fear is mis-focused. Their greatest physical fear should be STDs. Pregnancy is not permanent and it’s fixable. Birth usually cures pregnancy, and I’ve know several teens who have made the pregnancy mistake and are now doing nicely, thank you.

Some STDs, however, are more permanent. In the 50’s there were three known STDs, today there are 30 and 30% of those are incurable. Some forms of STDs can make the STD sufferer sterile.

People who have multiple sexual partners (or those who have sex with someone who’s had multiple sex partners) are four times more likely to contract an STD than get pregnant. 1They’re 10 times more likely if they’re on birth control

Obviously, retired folk have the same mis-conception (pun intended) that teens do.

Footnotes

Footnotes
↑1 They’re 10 times more likely if they’re on birth control