Category PLASTICVILLE-USA/OPINIONS AND STORIES ABOUT LIFE IN THE VILLAGES, FLORIDA

PLASTICVILLE-USA

TIZ THE SEASON TO BE BITCHING…

Villagers as a group are some of the most unthankful and ungrateful people in the world. They have attained a retirement dream that the vast majority of people on the planet today could not reach no matter how many hours, days and years that they worked. Villagers live in luxury and drive expensive cars. They are well off enough to be able to WASTE tens of thousands of dollars on silly tricked out golf carts. They are well off enough to be able to eat the majority of their meals in restaurants. Several years ago the general manager of Villages radio station WVLG told me that the median household income in TV was $99,800! That’s double-plus the median income for the state of Florida...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

BIG DON…BIG BAD DON.

Villagers are always worried that somehow..the great unwashed..otherwise referred to as “those people” will somehow invade their walled white haven and spoil everything. A few years ago it was a serious worry that “those people” from Wildwood would invade “their square” in Brownwood and actually spend some money to help out the economy. About a year ago after Wildwood mayor Ed Wolf told Morse Industries to stick it in their ear over their proposal to buy up a failed developer’s project there was all sorts of worry and whining about how some other developer would come in and allow “those people” to move in and somehow sully the perfect world of TV.

Recently there was a new twist to the standard worry about “those people”...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

MAXIMUM SILLINESS…

Back in the early 1990’s there was a radio station in Toronto, Canada which had the call letters CHOG. They billed themselves as AM 640-The Hog. They played what is often referred to as “Head Banger” music. I used to call it chainsaw music because it always sounded to me like somebody had just hooked up a Sears chainsaw to an amplifier and cranked it. There were billboards all over Toronto advertising the radio station.

The billboard was quite simple. It had a picture of what was easily the largest hog I had ever seen staring out of the billboard into the approaching traffic. I’m pretty sure this porker could have won every blue ribbon there was to be had at the Iowa and Nebraska state fairs. He was a champ indeed...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE BINGO BUS…

Many years ago in an effort to make extra money I used to drive those big Greyhound-sized charter/tour buses for a local bus company. Living in Upstate New York our trips often took us to New York City for baseball games, shopping, Broadway plays or school trips to the Bronx Zoo. We also went to lots of other places including moving our Army troops around from base to base.

Because the drivers were unionized the trips were essentially handed down on a seniority basis. Each week the dispatcher would put up a list of trips for the week for the drivers to see and then “bid” on whatever trip they might like to take...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE HISTORIC SIDE…

Greek philosopher Plato is credited for uttering the old saying “necessity is the mother of invention”. Plato’s words have often come true, and when you get right down to it, it is this phrase that explains the beginning of TV.

Back in the day old Harold Schwartz was making a living selling chunks of real estate by mail. While it was perfectly legal, and there’s no indication that Harold was doing anything “dodgy” as they would say in England, but lots of others were and the Feds decided to step in one day and save the terminally stupid from those unscrupulous sellers who were promising cut-rate prices on ocean front property in Nebraska.

When this happened it left Harold with lots of acres in Florida and no easy way to sell them...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

IT DOES NOT FIT..YOU MUST ADMIT!

I have never made any bones about my complete dislike for Villagers. As a group they are the most spoiled, self-centered and obnoxious people that God ever deposited in America. On the other hand, while I am not in favor of what Gary Morse created, I applaud his genius for his ability to lay out such an amazing site and to anticipate the needs of his created community.

People in TV look at Gary as either saint or the earthly creation of Beelzebub himself. Gary’s father on the other hand, Harold Schwartz, is only spoken about in hushed tones as though he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. If there is anything bad to be said about TV it is ALWAYS said about that filth-foul-foul-filth Gary Morse! By the way....

PLASTICVILLE-USA

ON THE HUNT FOR LOOFA SPONGES…

In his book “Leisureville” Andrew Blechman points out the rather interesting swinger scene that takes place in TV. For those less “in the know” Swinging is known more crudely as “Wife Swapping”.  Blechman opens the door on this subject to the annoyance of The Villagers.

Unless you are calling for Andrew Blechman’s demise in the most hideous of ways, even mentioning his name among TV true believers will make them begin to snarl and foam at the mouth like rabid beasts. The book Leisureville pulled back the curtain on what is little more than a modern and non-fictional Peyton Place and they hate him for telling the truth.

Blechman published his book back in 2008, when Lake Sumter Landing had barely been built and Brownwood wa...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

FELONIOUS ASSAULT!

A lot of the nonsense that goes on inside the borders of “America’s Friendliest Hometown” is nothing but a lot of arrogant spoiled brats showing their own selfishness and stupidity. However sometimes, the actions of America’s most spoiled adult children turns downright nasty and ugly.

Until she traded her stethoscope for a professor’s mortarboard my wife spent 20 years as an ER and ICU Nurse. When we first arrived in TV she spent a few months in the ER at The Villages Regional Hospital. TVRH is a place where the inmates run the asylum. Villagers are allowed to abuse doctors, nurses, aides and other hospital personnel with impunity...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

TIZ THE SEASON TO BE A JERK!

Stories about cold hearted jerks at Christmas are as old as Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”. Each year in our newspapers and on television there’s a story about some creep who tosses some widow out in the snow for not paying her rent and so on.

Now if you are a resident of The Villages, you practically have to sign a paper when you buy your home certifying that you are a jerk or they won’t let you buy in! Like drinking, being a jerk in TV is an Olympic sport.

To be a Villager is to take on the mind-set of a wealthy 7^th or 8^th grader. Only you have no parents or teachers to answer to and you have a full bank account to press your wishes.

One of the places where Villager jerkdom plays out its loudest is in the local restaurants...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SNOW BUSINESS!

I was born and raised in upstate New York so I am used to winter. In fact, I like winter. While I do not go skiing or snowshoeing or snowmobiling, I do like winter. I used to love to plow out my driveway and my neighbors driveways with my tractor and truck.

On the other hand, I do not like Florida. Unfortunately I now live there, and the chance of there being weather in the 30’s much less true winter weather is about as plausible as the thought that Obama will quit hating America one day. Essentially..no chance at all.

Sure a Florida beach can be a great place to spend a couple of weeks when it’s 5 degrees in Owego, NY and there’s 3 feet of snow on the ground, but outside of that, I find Florida to be pretty much useless.