The Four Seasons

Gentle readers, I know it is actually Armistice Day, though the story is of a summer past.

This momentous anniversary is now celebrated as Veteran's Day here in the United States, though remembered for what it was in Europe still.

I was awake early enough to note the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, and went out of the balcony to observe the moment.

My unit faces away from Arlington Cemetery, which is unfortunate. There were Americans who died the morning of the Last Day, in the war to end wars. I don't think they minded if my salute was to the West, to the great land still sleeping this still morning.

The sound of their bugles is faint, but lives in the heart of all who served.

Vic

Summer, 2003: Big Pink Pool Party


It did not rain that weekend, I was still new to Big Pink, and I had the sunburn to prove it. Melanoma be damned.

There was a new administration here at the building, drawn from a broad-based coalition of owners. Renters have to go along with whatever comes up, so I was alert for change.

I had been in the building for over a year, and I was starting to feel like the place was home.

There is a new Community Manager, too, the Mayor of Big Pink.

He is drawn from the retired Marine Community, replacing Frank, the retired cop. Privately, I applauded the Board for its commitment to a muscular approach to shared living. In order to commemorate the establishment of the new regime, an old tradition was renewed.

The conversion of this great old pile of pink brick from apartment to individual ownership is about as old as the Baathist government in Iraq. They used to have pool parties in the elegant facility tucked under the northwest flank of the eight-story edifice, and the newly installed entertainment committee decided to try to renew the tradition.

I had run out of chores to do, or rather got to that part of the list that required more energy than I had remaining on Saturday. The sun was out and I surrendered to its enticement.   

I went down to the pool deck around 3:30PM with my towel, cigarettes, lighter, transistor radio and earphones. I made sure I had the earphones; I had been lectured sternly about that requirement the year before, my first poolside season. As a renter, Mrs. Hitler was deeply suspicious of me.

The party was to start at 4:00, so there was a lot of set-up activity in progress. There was a one-man band and a buffet contracted from the Red Hot & Blue barbecue. There were still places available and I took station under the umbrella furthest from the entrance.

I was minding my own business, listening to some old disco on the PA system the band-man had set up and tapping my foot to some Hall & Oates when I was attacked by the Finns.

Or by one Finn, anyway. Marianne is a vivacious woman with a heroic bosom and I was apprised that this was her table. She was far too polite to actually ask me to leave, and instead simply included me as a part of her entourage.

Promptly at four they opened the buffet and a crowd of the older residents showed up for an exceptionally early Early Bird dining opportunity.

I was soon surrounded by residents who outranked me by a quarter century. Included in the party by virtue of my position, I closed the book and made conversation. Marianne is of the life-of-the-party school. Her husband is Ari, a more taciturn version of the breed.

Angular cheekbones and sky-blue eyes. types, a sauna-type Finn.

The band was joined by a stout resident with a Stratocaster guitar and an attractive older woman who had a bit of a lounge routine.

The music was popular and loud and there was free wine and I surrendered to it, singing along with Marianne. The crowd surged, attracted by the free food and drink.

I was interested by the composition of building. This is a place of transition. There is the geriatric component, some on walkers. Big Pink is clearly the last stop before assisted living for some, the answer to the struggle to maintain a single family home.

There are many women in this category, and a few angular men whose trousers are gathered at the waist. And Jack, of course. He is the King of the pool, a dapper old man who is a dead ringer for the Millionaire on the "Chance" cards in the Monopoly Board game.

All the women love him, and he knows everything that happens here. Just ask.

There is the legion of the divorced. Middle-aged men and women who are starting over after something else. The men have a certain rakish charm and the women have an air of uncertain optimism for which they certainly should know better.

I am one of that cohort, of course, so I feel a kinship.

Then there are the political or lobbying groups, people that are here because of the town and the access to the levers of power. A low-maintenance pied a terre in the imperial city is useful.

Marianne nudged me, saying one handsome one square-jawed individual was the president of the Industrial Brotherhood of Concrete Workers International. I whistled. That union was known in the past to determine succession to its Presidency just like ancient Rome.

And there was something else going on. A recent cover of Newsweek a had featured a picture two very attractive women named Lauren and Liz who were described as “life partners.” The interior story talked about the prospect of Gay Marriage, and there was a discussion of why the magazine chose to picture Lauren and Liz, rather than Tom and Ed.

From what I could see at the pool, the institution is already here and we ought to just get over it. There was a cute couple, hosting two daughters from the blonde's marriage. He had a small diamond stud and looked like the Arnie character from LA Law.

They were clearly a family, the four of them, and I realized a significant component of my building is gay and committed and wrapped in mortgages. Maybe society ought to just get over it.

And of course there were the twenty-somethings, the young professionals just starting out. The girls in their small suits and the boys who still get a kick out of doing cannon-balls off the diving board. They are more diverse than the older residents, who are almost exclusively white.

Asian and Indian and African-American. But they all seemed to get along. The young ones were funny, mocking some of the more saccharine pop tunes, as though they were not hurtling down the same parabola toward assisted living themselves.

Some Hispanic kids drifted up the fence, looking in. They are from the projects of whatever those low brick buildings are over across the parking lot. I asked, and someone told me it was part of the Buckingham neighborhood, which is real old.

No one chased them off, and they couldn't climb the fence, anyway. People were having so much fun that one of the residents hired the band to keep playing an extra hour and the languid American life-guard didn't even get mad when there were still residents in the pool at nine, when he should have been done and locking up.

I left I got into a discussion with Ari, about how he and his wife had fetched up here at Big Pink. He smiled a thin smile as his wife did The Peppermint Twist with another lady of a certain age. He told me the journey went through the loss of the Karelian District of Finland to the Soviets after fierce fighting that startled the Kremlin. The treaty of 1944 that ended that part of the war slammed down a fence of iron over the village where he lived.

It preserved the independence of his homeland, even if it meant the loss of his home.

I raised my eyebrows. He said it was a good thing that we beat the Russians, finally. He expects someday he would be able to go back. In the meantime, he said, lips thin, Big Pink is a fine place to live.

The kids were getting a good buzz on, dancing like crazy.

Youth is wonderful. Marianne got me to dance a few times, and presently I found myself doing the Elmer Fudd version of the Pointer Sister's hit "Fire" with the lounge singer before one of the intermissions:

"I'm dwivin' in my caaar, turn on the wadio….."

Life of the party, that's me. When you are starting over, you may as well have a good time.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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