Best Halloween Costumes of the Year! (Thanks to Lee Murphy!)
I’ve never aspired to live in a retirement community no matter how affordable or upscale or welcoming. I think ‘the home’ may be just right for many people, but not for me. Fortunately, Nyel feels the same way, so we are content to dodder along here in this house in Oysterville. I hope we are able to continue living here until the knackers come for us.
But last evening as we sat watching television and eating our Halloween candy, I thought, “Wait! Oysterville IS a retirement community. And here we are.” The Halloween candy was what we had purchased ‘just in case’ of trick-treaters. But there were none. Though we are ever hopeful, there haven’t been any for ten or more years. That there are no kids in Oysterville, of course, goes without saying. Not since Shannon Rose lived here.
But it goes beyond that. Oysterville is ‘at the end of the line’ geography-wise on the Peninsula. Not an easy place to get to. Plus, even if little ghosts and goblins arrived by the carload, there are only a few occupied houses at this time of year. Slim pickin’s for hopeful doorbell ringers. Consequently, they don’t come.
Stylin’!
The lack of age diversity is one of the main deterrents in my mind to Retirement Communities. So, the realization that I am living in one comes as a shock, though not exactly a surprise. After all, the numbers of children here had diminished sufficiently by 1957 to close the Oysterville School. Permanently. And it’s been downhill from there. Kids, like most everyone else in the world, come here to visit but not to stay. Just like to ‘the home.’
I’d like to say, “Oh well, more trick-or-treat candy for us.” But the candy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either. Bah Humbug! Or whatever the Halloween equivalent might be.
We have the same oldsters-only problem on our street, too, Sydney. Since 10 year old Joel and his two young siblings left for Mexico with their parents, despite the efforts of many of us to keep them here, it has been way too quiet in our neighborhood. I miss the diversity of age and nationality.