WRITING PROMPT

The Village is a Hidden Gem

Retirement to a 70s utopia of back roads and forest glens

It began when I realized I had to get the heck out of Arizona. It was bad for my skin and according to science, drying up faster than a post-menopausal… well, you get the idea. So I convinced my semi-retired husband to move east into a retirement community called The Village.

No, I’m not talking about the place Florida populated with right-wing fanatics — that’s The Villages.

Our place was conceived in 1970, a time when Boomers had grand visions of utopia, and were often high on granola and nudity.

And those facts explain a lot about how easy it is to get lost on these roads.

Here in The Village, all the streets have Spanish names because the developer was inspired by DeSoto’s visit in 1541 to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Naming streets in Spanish is all well and good, but this developer, Mr. Cooper, chose completely random words.

One subdivision means, in English, “hair.”

“I live in the hair neighborhood, what about you?”

“Dandy — we have a place over on Butthole Lane!”

The Village was developed following the logic that every American wants an affordable lot or home, especially a second one. Because Arkansas is and always has been deep in the heart of flyover country, even your Average Joe or Jane could afford a place on a lake, with a view, or overlooking one of the nine golf courses.

So when we moved here we bought a 3-bedroom, 2.5 bath townhome on a golf course for $55,000. No, that was not in the 1980s — it was two and a half years ago! Then we moved into a slightly larger house and turned the townhome into a rental.

It’s not that cheap today, but if you are from a large city or California, Hawaii, and other pricey areas — the home prices here will knock your socks off. You will need to put them back on because we have chiggers.

If You Build It, They Will Come

Back to the singular character of this place. People moved from Wisconsin and Chicago to get out of the winters and bought lots and houses on the lakes or on golf courses or with grand vistas. And a few bought interior lots, which were much cheaper, then never built on them.

Today, those hundreds of interior lots are for sale, dirt cheap.

Arkansas is the Natural State, which means the forest can be foreboding. We have 14,000 people, at least two mountain lions, the occasional lost bear, foxes, raccoons, many coyotes, probable wolves, and two wolf creatures no one can identify, but there is plenty of speculation on NextDoor.

Deer lounge in overgrown cul-de-sacs, finding shade from the midsummer heat. In autumn, the hunters come with bows and arrows to thin the herds.

People are desperate to sell these interior lots because no one wants to live in a dark forest, even if you have electricity and water to your door, but this place is awesome if you are a nature lover.

Hundreds of miles of paved and dirt roads beg for exploration and our screened-in back porch has the feel of a treehouse.

Come and buy a lot and build a home! It’s perfect for retirement or working remotely.

I ride my bike on the back roads, pick edible mushrooms, scare herds of deer, and get scared in turn by lone guys in pickup trucks parked in cul-de-sacs.

I take pepper spray, not because of the wolf-like creatures of the pickup dudes, but because of occasional stray dogs.

The Church of the Undecided

I am aggressively unreligious and don’t claim to be spiritual, but here in the South, if you don’t join a church you will get recruited. As a defense against being invited to sing hymns with the Baptists or join a friend at the Sacred Heart of the Blessed Cup of Wine, I took refuge with the Unitarians.

It was my only choice, despite there being 25 churches in The Village. The Unitarian Universalists (UU) are Christian-lite, but I attend the events for social engagement and it’s a warm and welcoming community.

How else are you going to meet anyone? I tell people I’m a Frisbeetyrian, which gets a laugh or two. (We believe the soul is shaped like a giant frisbee, and death is when it goes up on the roof and you can’t get it down.)

Sometimes we go to church services, in which I feel fidgety and spiritually bored. I wasn’t too surprised to learn that UU church members are an adventurous lot, with past lives as world travelers, former gigs as camp hosts in parks, or ex-executives.

I know for a fact I’m not the only atheist.

Just One Minor Problem

The Village is 70 percent Republican. People who love golf also tend to have money, and people with money tend to vote GOP because they want to keep their money.

All that is slowly changing as liberals begin to flee American cities. Dallas-Ft. Worth and Chicago and San Diego are experiencing a major exodus. City retirees are often liberal, and they want to be able to afford to retire. Ever tried living on a school psychologist’s pension in San Diego?

Since I’m in the political and religious minority, I practice tolerance and reaching across the aisle. Mostly, I practice, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Because of the right-leaning, some of the ceremonies are mighty strange, and I’m not talking about church.

At the townhome association, where I volunteer, we have regular meetings. At the start of every meeting, we say the Pledge of Allegiance and then pray. It’s weird and oddly comforting.

I’ve also made a rule not to ask about dietary preferences because the last thing I want is a fight with a retired vegan Baptist libertarian.

If You Don’t Play Golf

People who are retired love staying active, on account of still breathing. If you don’t like golf or it’s too expensive or you are hopelessly uncoordinated, there is always pickleball, table tennis, regular tennis, lawn bowling, croquet, bocce ball, and archery.

Or you can be like me and keep it simple with Mah Jong and fashioning recycled sleeping mats for the homeless.

One thing you should know about retirement is that no matter where you go, you are bringing yourself along. So the problems you had before won’t magically vanish. Oh, they’ll seem to fade for a while but then they will come crashing back.

It’s all an inside job and no amount of moving will fix core issues.

As Dorothy discovered in the Emerald City, if you can’t find what you need in your own backyard, you won’t find it anywhere else.

Final Sales Pitch

In the town of Hot Springs, a 25–minute drive, you’ll find all the free spring water you can lug home. The town has a long, rich history and a bustling tourist trade.

Or you can drive an hour to Little Rock, an hour away, or up to Bentonville, the fastest growing city in the US.

As a retired person, you can choose whether you want to visit all 52 state parks or use Arkansas as a home base to visit the southern and eastern states. It’s your show, but I was surprised to learn that this next chapter of life is just as challenging as the ones I already finished.

I guess a small part of me expected I would arrive on Easy Street (“Calle de Facil”) but I should know by now, life doesn’t work that way.

Please remember, we are Hot Springs Village, not that deep Red enclave in Florida called The Villages. We love retirees and I am not being paid by the Property Owners Association to write this.

I’m only writing it because there was a prompt, and I’m tired of people being prejudiced against The Natural State.

Want an email heads-up for new articles? Click Me.

Want to join Medium? Click Me.

Jean Campbell recently started her first Substack newsletter to laser focus on getting her book, City of Lies: A Street Hustler’s Omaha Journey published.