How do I get in on the Active Adult Community scene?

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition's insert on "Mature Lifestyles" 3/16/12

I’m wondering how and when I can get in on the “Active Adult” scene.  I’m curious about what goes on behind those fenced, manicured communities.  Are they keeping something in, or keeping the rest of us out? 

Haven’t you seen those billboards that advertise “Communities for the Active Adult?”  These little enclaves are restricted to those who are 55 and older.  Why, I wonder?  What do these communities do that is so special?  Are their backyard barbeques superior to the ones in neighborhoods populated by younger, less experienced chefs?  Are they saucier, more mellow, or do they use aged beef?  Is the loudest noise these residents want to hear going to be that of themselves snoring? 

Or is it just the opposite?  Are these people being wild and they don’t want anyone else to know it?  Now I’m thinking of “adult” in the context of those sickening, pasty yellow billboards that are plastered all up and down I-95.  They serve as much to pollute the mind as they do to promote their products.  Or maybe it is a tamer kind of wildness, where the residents are biking and skating around their neighborhoods without protective gear so as not to be poor role models?  (You know how impressionable those silly 54-year-olds can be.) 

And what happens when one spouse is significantly younger than the other?  Is the couple’s qualifying age determined by averaging, or by the younger partner?  Some of the more severe cases of May-December couples may wind up being disqualified.  

I guess the assumption here is that couples of the 55+ age group are not going to be bringing along a bunch of ragtag, crusty-nosed, children.  Because that can take the active right out of the adult.  I suppose these communities are for empty-nesters.  Disqualified, again. 

Mostly, these communities are meant for Baby Boomers.   “Baby Boomer” refers to the generation of people born between 1946 and 1964.  Technically, I have missed being a Boomer by two years.  Two years too late - as in I was born in 1966, not 1944, Smart Aleck. 

I have almost a decade before entering this esteemed phase of mature adulthood, but even in 2021, I doubt I will qualify.  It’s not the “adult” part that I will have a problem with.  I can sit through a war documentary as well as any other adult counterpart, and only doze off once or twice.  It’s the active part that will be problematic, of course. 

What does it mean to be an active adult?  You can clip coupons faster than your arthritic counterparts?  Does it mean you can zip into a handicapped parking spot before your neighbor, with her faulty eyesight and even faultier driving, sees it?

Of course, these are exaggerations.  If you look at a modern “mature” adult, you will probably see someone who is more fit than you, and more engaged in intellectual and community events than you were even aware of.  They just don’t make grandmas and grandpas with all those telltale signs of knitting needles and graying hairs the way they used to. 

Besides, at 55, you aren’t exactly a senior, unless there’s a discount involved.  If there’s a discount, we all want to be seniors.  We don’t even mind being entry-level seniors then - sort of a junior-senior.   Unfortunately, these discounts seem to be applied only to products with a senior stigma.  These would be medical products that are so embarrassing that you don’t want to confess to using them.  These are only advertised on channels being watched by aging adult males, well past bedtime: namely, The History Channel at 8 p.m. onwards.  Every ailment and dysfunction known to man, and mostly to man, gets good air time here.

That’s the tragic thing about aging: It’s so hard on you, physically and mentally.  Right when you have the experience and wisdom to handle it all, your equipment chooses not to cooperate.  It begins to deteriorate in an indiscriminate and merciless manner.  Sure, we all know there’s really only one alternative to the advancement of our years and the wear and tear on our systems, unless that secret, anti-aging product, for which you just received a coupon in the mail, really works.

I am still curious about the goings-on in these active adult communities.  I am planning to check one of these out some day.  Until then, I guess, I will have to be satisfied to live in a non-active, immature community.  It’s called “my house.”  Here’s one place where I am doubly qualified to be.