Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
Income taxes don't affect me, I don't work and have no major investments.
I hate the weather, I hate the politics, I hate the overly-obnoxious "where woke goes to die" rhetoric of hatred, mistrust, misinformation, and ignorance. Yes, that ignorance exists in every state. But it isn't celebrated quite so brazenly as it is here in this state.
In Central Florida specifically, I hate that I can't find a decent pizza. I hate that fried whole belly clams are $35 and up, IF you can find a place that has them on the menu. I hate the lack of ethnic diversity. I hate that everyone gets cremated, and when you type "cemetery near me" or "graveyard near me" you get crematoriums and memorial gardens for results with the Baldwin Brothers at the top of the list. Where I come from, graveyards are chock full of American history, and are very peaceful places to just sit and reflect on life.
I hate that there aren't any town greens, which is arguably over specific, but I come from the home of the first Town Green in the country so I'm biased.
I hate that people think a 20-year-old home is "old." I hate the mentality behind that. Again - where I come from - an "old" home was built prior to 1925, and there are thousands of them in the New England area that function just fine, are well-insulated, have withstood dozens of nor'easters, and are beautiful. I hate the overdevelopment of what was once beautiful swampland. Development, I'm all for. Overdevelopment, see traffic jam #99972, Turnpike Exit Detour #49297, and sinkhole #2721.
I hate that homes sit on cement slabs, with no basements. One thing in particular, which to me is just really WEIRD: I hate that all these developments - not just The Villages - feature their garages as the most prominent visual when you are looking at houses. The garages are all out in front of the house, not behind or beside it. That is just - really really weird to me.
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I agree with some points, disagree with others. I won't argue or agree on politics as we don't do that in this forum. But we definitely do have "Florida Man" stories where no other state seems to have the equivalent.
I don't know what a "Town Green" is or how it campares with out squares, so I can't comment on that. Just the name sounds nice though.
Everybody from out of state has a pizza they miss. I miss Jets Pizza, a Michigan-based company that I didn't discover until I'd moved to North Carolina. I can get them here, but I wish they were closer to The Villages than Altamonte.
I'm not big into whole-belly clams, but the best clam strips I've ever had are at either of two restaurants up in Cedar Key, a couple of hours from The Villages. I believe the do have whole-belly as well as one having clam chowder that is pretty famous. It's a pleasant little town to visit and may be what you're looking for for clams.
I grew up in a tiny town where the ethnic diversity amounted to one family where the father was Latino and the mother was African-American. We thought we had a "twofer" in regards diversity. I then moved to the Detroit area and started living near and working with a huge variety of people of various races, ethnicities, religions and more. Moving to North Carolina exposed me to folks from around the world. I really like talking with folks whose background is vastly different than my own. When I moved to The Villages, I looked around and saw that it looks like a Ku Klux Klan Konclave most of the time. I've learned that there are small numbers of every kind of minority you can think of here, but they are too invisible and I'm not about to run up to people and ask, "Will you be my [insert group here] friend?" But I've talked to a lot of my old friends and realized two things. First, it was easier when I grew up for white folks, especially guys, to get into college and get decent jobs and so it was easier to have careers that allowed us to save up enough to be able to afford a retirement like this. Is that proper? Of course not. But it's the way it was and at least it's slowly getting better. Second, the whole concept of moving away from your family and friends to an active retirement community seems to be kind of a white thing. It's catching on with other folks, but most of my non-white friends (and the majority of my white friends as well) seem to view the idea as kind of crazy. When I need my fix of different world views, I just go back to Detroit or North Carolina and visit my old work friends. In a pinch, I can run down to the IHOP on 44 the other side of I-75 and listen to the Indian accents (which I find delightful) of the workers there.
My mother came from a huge family, most older than her, so I grew up going to funerals and burials in cemetaries that rarely got visited. I swore I'd never have either. I long thought I'd be buried in a cardboard box and have an apple tree planted on me so I could fee what for so many years fed me. Now I believe that the tree would probably get bulldozed down to make room for more of us retirees, so that is out. After having a few friends here die and get cremated by Baldwin Brothers and have "celebration of life" services in the rec centers, my wife and I have decided that that is the route for us.
I don't miss basements as I've had too many of them flood. I lost a very nice record album collection to a flood and still am not over it. I grew up in Michigan, where everyone had a basement or at least a crawlspace. I moved to North Carolina, where the leche clay soil is so hard you can't begin to dig a basement. Then I moved here where you can't dig a basement because the water table is so close to the surface that you'll hit it if you dig deep enough in your pockets. So I've gotten used to "no basements".
As far as 20-year-old houses being "old", I hear you. But given that nobody builds great houses like they did 100 years ago (at least, for those that could afford it), even expensive houses of today age far more quickly than they should. We are in a throw-away world, sadly. And the garages-out-front look is definitely weird. I would certainly never put a picture of the houses here (or any any other planned community) on a Christmas card. But houses are packed so closely together that side garages can't be made. My mother-in-law had a rear garage accessed from an alley in her house in Sun City West. That made her house look nicer though much smaller. And it was kind of awkward to go down to the end of the block and back to get at the garage when coming back from town. Everything has an advantage and a disadvantage.
Is this place perfect? Of course not. No place is. Is it horrible? Not by a long stretch. We've been here 7 years and I'm still tickled pink to wake up here every day. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary.