Greetings from Sun City, California
David Moe
Sun City, Calif.
It is really great here. The temperature has been over 100 degrees for the past two weeks. It is so exciting; we have to stay in the house because it is too hot to go outdoors. I love it here, because there are ten women for every man, but my wife likes it not so much. Sometimes we go out for lunch with a group after church, with ten women and me, so I get a sense of what King Solomon must have felt with all those wives and concubines.
For exercise during the week, I go swimming. We have two pools: one large outdoor pool, where I can get sunburned and skin cancer, or the other pool with a cover over it for sissies. I enjoy watching the women at the pool, where more is outside the suit than inside. But at their age, many don’t care; they let it all hang out.
We have a male friend at church who is 95 years old. To give you an idea how old that is, he was discharged from the Navy two months prior to Pearl Harbor. He got married prior to Pearl Harbor, then entered the Merchant Marines after that tragic event. He has a pacemaker for his heart and he told me, “Whenever I go outside to work in the yard and a pretty girl passes by, the garage door goes up.” Can you believe that?
I sing with a group in Hemet called “The Happy Harmoneers.” We are an elderly group and the director, who is about 50 years old, calls us “kids.” I’m proud to say that I am one of the younger members of the group at 76. The man I stand next to in the bass section is 86 and the woman I ride with to rehearsals is 93. The nice thing about singing is that you can do it at any age, as opposed to playing football, for example. When I went to college and sang in the choir, there were a few men who were there on football scholarships, but decided to sing in the choir. I asked one of them why he chose to sing in the choir rather than play football, and he said, “There are no women on the football team.” Smart man.
I just want you to know how wonderful it is to be retired and live in such a “heavenly” environment. To those of you still working for a living, eat your heart out. I hope you get promoted to CEO, so you can make ten million dollars a year and keep paying into social security. Life is wonderful.
David Moe was born in Minnesota, graduated from the University of Minnesota, Morris in 1964 and received his M.A. degree from San Francisco State University in 1975. He spent four years in the Navy and 32 in the insurance business. He is married to his wife, Thordis, and they have two daughters and four grandchildren. They now live in Sun City, California.
This article originally appeared in the Oct. 3, 2014 issue of the Norwegian American Weekly.
