Last week, in recognition of the 10th anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death, I spoke to the True Crime Club at a Florida retirement community called “The Villages.”
Although it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, more than a hundred people showed up. At the beginning of my talk I asked the crowd what it was that people inevitably tell me when I say I am going to The Villages.
“We know,” they sighed, almost in unison. They hear it all the time. What they hear is that The Villages has the highest STD rate in Florida. Personally, I think management began that rumor as a marketing ploy. They didn’t disbelieve me.
Someone knows how to market. In the early 1990s, The Villages had 8,000 residents. Today, it has 130,000. Last decade, it was the fastest-growing metro in the nation.
Given that the median age is 67, marketers have to do a lot of replenishing to make up for those who move on to that ultimate retirement community in the sky, which, boosters think, will represent only a slight improvement on the one in Florida.
When I spoke about the George Zimmerman case at the True Crime Club, every questioner took mine and George’s side. That same evening I spoke at the Purdue Club – university, not Pharma. I tried to keep the talk apolitical, but the audience egged me to the right.
After dinner, I went for a walk. What I particularly like about the community, at least from what I could see, is that each of the individual villages is laid out like an idyllic small town with a village square at the center. Yes, there is a touch of “Twilight Zone” about the place, but it works.
When I stopped by the town’s Barnes & Noble, I knew the place was special. In the center display, elsewhere reserved for Michelle Obama propaganda, was Peter Schweitzer’s book, “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win.”
I cannot imagine there is another Barnes & Noble anywhere in America where a Biden family exposé gets such prominent exposure. If more proof were needed of the community’s righteousness, the right-leaning books on the shelves just about all faced out.
This included “Loomered” by the irrepressible Laura Loomer. Through her fearlessness and tenacity, Laura has earned the book’s subtitle, “How I Became the Most Banned Woman in the World.”
Beyond The Villages B&N, however, boldness is a liability. So canceled has Laura been, even on the right, that I was unaware she wrote a book. I bought it, read it and highly recommend it.
That Sunday night I had time to kill. Purdue was playing Texas in the NCAA basketball tournament, and I preserved my sanity by not watching the second half.
With nothing open besides a bar – and they had the game on – I hung out on the benches and read. The Villages radio station played oldies – natch – over the loudspeaker system. When the music broke for news, the news was, of course, Fox.
All Republicans stop here now on the campaign trail. They have to. With 130,000 voters, and at least 70% of them voting right, it is the single most fruitful stop they will ever make.
The left takes over institutions even when in the minority, but the right, historically, hangs back. The Villages, however, is beginning to attract conservatives by openly wooing them.
The strategy seems to be working. I am not sure how the conservative surge will affect the STD rate, but each year, I am told, The Villages has fewer and fewer obvious crabs. Here’s hoping that more of them head back to New York so they can finally say “gay.”
For more information, see Cashill.com.
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