Rock of ages.

You know, you don't have to hit Social Security age to realize you just don't bounce back the way you used to. A couple of weeks ago I was putting down some nice store-bought rocks around the front-yard bushes to make the place look nicer, hoping to entire a buyer for the house. I had already distributed mulch and dug up weeds, and so far all was well. 

Then the irony. 

Because while it's called egg rock, it was I that broke.

Well, not broken eggactly (har!). I lifted properly, showed good form, but then I turned in a funny way, and my body took a funny turn. It was one of those muscle pulls that you feel as it happens, and it happens that I felt it. 

It didn't seem that bad at first, but it was pretty painful. When I was a strapping young lad (well, not that strapping) I could bounce back in a couple of days from this kind of thing. But it took me most of a week to stop groaning every time I bent over or stood up. Worse, my ability to twist to the right was severely impacted -- there, the pain was so bad it was almost impossible to force myself to do it. You never know how often you make a particular motion until it hurts every time you do it. 

I'm glad to have recovered now, and the place does look a bit better with the new rocks. 

All this got me thinking about getting older, and thus about an elderly friend of mine who retired to The Villages in Florida. If you are not familiar with that particular patch of real estate, it is a community for people 55 and up about 20 miles south of Ocala, Florida. In the year 2000 it had about eight thousand people, but now almost EIGHTY THOUSAND people live there. 

My friend tells me that on Friday nights the widow women still doll themselves up and go to the bars (people get around by trolley and golf cart, I hear). A couple of years ago the place was labeled "The STD Capital of America," although that turned out to be a myth. However, I'm willing to bet there's a lot of shenanigans afoot all the same. It may be a foot that needs podiatric care, but afoot all the same. 

My question is: Why is there no reality show about The Villages? It's a natural! And it would appeal to the people who still use cable for most of their TV watching -- that is, the 55+ folks. 

I think it would be huge. People would get caught up in the drama. Who's sleeping with whom? Whose kids are visiting and likely to cause trouble? Which guys are doing drunk wheelchair races in the middle of the night? Which black widow is looking to land a rich dude with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel? 

It'd be a regular Polident Place. The Old and the Restless. Medicare Hospital. All My Great Grandchildren. Dwindling Days of Our Lives. Insert your own jokes in the comments. 

I can only assume that the governing body of the tri-county Villages frowns on such coverage. Well, more's the pity. Not that I'd watch the show -- at least, not until I'm riding a wheelchair myself. Which, if I keep fooling around with these sacks of rocks, could happen sooner than I think. 

State of insanity.

Florida has got an unfair reputation as a state of insanity for two main reasons -- the 2000 presidential election and the so-called "sunshine laws" that grant "free public access to Florida's government documents and proceedings, minus some exemptions. Among the allowed documents are police arrest records," as Linda Barry in the Pensacola News Journal wrote. So Al Gore's legal challenge and one county's "butterfly ballot" caused problem one, and open books on arrest records caused problem two. All 49 other states probably have people who get drunk and try to get away from the cops on Walmart scooters, or take so much meth that they strip down and prance through the street claiming to be an unbaked potato--but we just never hear about it.

It's unfair! 

I say Florida is the crazy state for completely different and totally fair reasons. 

1) It's different everywhere you go.

From Cuban/LGBTQLSMFT Miami to gator-hunting Everglades to redneck panhandle to Theme Park City to God's Waiting Room to college towns and NASCAR (four hours from Tallahassee) to spring-break hootchie mamas, every place you go in the state is totally different from the last place you were. It has a whole town just dedicated to people fifty-five and older, the Villages, which like many other Floridian spots is full of New Yorkers. 

An acquaintance of mine who retired to the Villages told me about the singles nights at the bar, and it scared me silly. I am determined to become a hermit if my wife goes before I do. 

2) It probably has more invasive species than any other state.

Just ask the Seminoles! And there are the nonhuman invaders, such as kudzu and Burmese pythons and cane toads and monitor lizards and alligator weed and Chinese tallow and blue tilapia and on and on, including everyone's favorite, frozen falling iguanas. 

3) It's Southern, but it's not. 

It's full of northerners, some of the most irritating we can send, but they bring their retirement funds with them. It was a Confederate state and a segregated state. It's an agricultural state that is also a major tourist destination, like California, but unlike California it has basically only one climate. It's on the mainland of the United States, but just sort of hangs on by the top, like a teenager trying to get out of the house. It's the only Gulf state that's also an ocean state. It has plenty of hunting (including a bounty on those Burmese pythons) and other rural pursuits, but also its own string of Caribbean islands. Historically, culturally, and geographically, it's its own little world. 

So you see, Florida Man is not what makes Florida strange. Florida is strange already. I invite anyone who lives there to tell me different, but I have a feeling they will mostly tell me that things are even stranger than I think they are. Be my guest!