Reader email

Andrew,

First, let me say, that we are a married couple from upstate NY, are and still working. We have 4 children, all of which have left the nest and are doing well. We stumbled upon The Villages around 5 years ago, in the month of February, when visiting long time friends that had moved there the previous year. Previously we disliked Florida; too much traffic, too hot; nobody was from here and many other things. After spending 4 day’s in The Villages with our fiends, we bought a Villa before we left Florida.

We ordered furniture, had it received and placed by our friends and came back in April for a couple of weeks to get it settled. The first night spot we hit after tending to the villa for a couple of days was Katie Bells. We sat down and ordered 2 Absolutes and sodas. The bar maid said $6.50, I said each, she said for both. An older gent sitting next to us said “if you bought those 3 weeks ago they would have been $1.50 cheaper. I said they seem pretty reasonable to me. We looked around to see much older couples dancing. I said to my wife, it’s just like the old days when us guy’s were out on weekends trying to pick up girls. This is really something I told her. The more I watched, I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry.

Well, its 5 years later and we have moved up to a designer home. We still are working in NY so only get here for about 4 weeks at a time in the winter. We call ourselves snow flakes as opposed to snow birds because we aren’t here enough.

I caught the article about your book in the NY Post a couple of months ago and finally bought and read your book. Let me first say, I took some heat from some people here, they were not happy about your book. I read the book and found it to “not to be” what they professed it to be. It is very thought provoking from my point of view. I did report my findings to all those doubters. When I explained it to them, they seemed to be enlightened; “you mean it’s not just about Mr. Midnight”? I found your contacts here to be informative and, yes, some very entertaining. One disappointment to me, you never finished your investigation of the wine club.

I now find myself kind of agreeing with you to a point. Is it really impossible for us not to still fulfill all those responsibilities you claim we have to the next generations and still enjoy our final years here? I think we can do both but I applaud you for making the point that it is sort of our duty.

However, I must disagree with your long term thoughts on The Villages. You state age-segregated communities will in the future start to thin out from lack of population, but as with any species, the strong will prevail and so will The Villages. Its shear size and the number of amenities, will keep it the place to go. I am afraid you are right on the other’s, being so small, they will have to change there qualifications to survive in the future.

In closing, let me say, I think Leisureville is a great book and I am recommending it to all that will listen to me.

John C.