Bird regulates his retirement plan to the chagrin of the neighbors

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN
Bird wanted to retire on a farm or small acreage. His wife, Kate, dreamed of retiring to a gated community, a totally secured environment where you kept your own lawn on a street of lawns carefully regulated to look alike.

Retirement was a few years off, but Kate and Bird wanted to move to their retirement home early. They wanted to ease into it, slide into it with great comfort, anticipating blissful years of doing nothing except what they wanted to do.

They would cut back, reduce the workload, ease back in the nirvana of having their desires at their fingertips.

Bird read stories of small gardening techniques and keeping a calf or a goat-stories of what tractor was best for the little guy.

Kate read stories of communities where the tulips bloomed in unison-where you could progress as you aged from your own suburban-type home to the independent-living center to the assisted-living center to the rest home to the dementia center-all without leaving your familiar surroundings.

The day they drove through the gate with their real estate agent, Kate felt a wave of ecstasy as the guard waved them on. Bird was getting nauseous. But during their retirement discussions, when Kate had told him they couldn’t expect to be healthy forever, Bird had yielded in a moment of love for her. “We will try it your way,” he said.

It was a nice, new three-bedroom home with a large front lawn and a large backyard, all outlined with flower beds inside brick planter walls. Down the row, as far as the eye could see before the street curved out of sight, were dozens of very similar homes in pastel shades of yellow, beige or white.

The floors of the home were all on one level for the benefits of the residents as they aged. The selections for carpets, tiles and other floor coverings were posted for new buyers to see.

“Isn’t this adorable,” said Kate.

“It is very sweet,” said the salesman.

“Tasty, very tasty,” said Bird.

Yes-adorable, sweet, tasty, as cute as could be. In a very short time, they sold their old home and moved into Kate’s dream.

Bird motivated himself to overcome his reluctance to try to love this wonderful, gated experience. When he drove home from work, he stopped to visit with the guard. In fact, he nearly became friends with all of the guards-Max, the bear of a man by day, and Fred, the friendly and elderly by night, with red-haired nervous Vernon filling in on weekends.

Once, Bird gave them each a slice of rhubarb pie after he brought home a sack-full of rhubarb from a chicken farm. They liked it.

The fall they moved in, Bird even checked once with the housing authority to find where in the flower beds to plant the tulip bulbs.

All winter, Bird and Kate learned to know the neighbors by getting together to play cards. They chit-chatted and traded photos of children and grandchildren.

Where were everybody’s grandchildren?

Bird sometimes answered in front of everybody while Kate smiled uncomfortably: “The grandchildren are sent off into the world to play, with us securely pastured away from them.”

Nevertheless, he eventually got to know dark-dyed-hair Marrianne, the resident housing authority chairperson, and Ray, who favored yellow cotton slacks, the authority’s resident assistant on landscaping, along with about 20 other couples.

“They’re all such nice people, aren’t they?” Kate asked happily.

“Yes,” said Bird, “just adorable, sweet and tasty.”

“What do you mean by that, Bird? You are going to be happy here like we agreed, aren’t you?” asked Kate. “You know the authority does allow you to have a small garden patch in the backyard, just outside the swimming pool area. You know we are supposed to put our swimming pool in next summer. Think of it-our own swimming pool, right next to your garden.”

“Yes, and I will be happy because it will be such a cute little garden patch,” said Bird, rolling his eyes until Kate punched him-adorably, of course.

So, Bird was fine. That is, he was fine until, after months of cabin fever reading his garden catalogues, he emerged into his gated community as Bird the spring-fever man, completely freed of his efforts at suppression. Natural, long-day hormones had taken over. Bird drove past the guards with shovels and hoes hanging out the car windows. He himself hadn’t even realized the extent to which his noggin was swelling with the ripening season.

Bird had thumbed through the tree section of garden catalogues until he found the variety of tree he wanted for his new front lawn. It was a London Plane Tree, a hybrid crossbred of American and Asian sycamores that would have a white trunk as it grew, and large, attractive leaves.

The London Plane Tree would be immune to the anthracnose leaf drop common to American Sycamore. And, best of all, it would be unique among the trees on his block.

Bird had noticed that all the neighbors seemed to plant one little old tree up front in the front lawn, right up in a corner. His beautiful lawn, landscaped to catch the eye-especially his own eye-would feature this magnificent gigantic tree at the highest elevation in the middle of his relatively flat lawn, which was carefully planted to a blend of nitrogen-loving grasses.

Since the areas he could plant were limited, he didn’t go cheap, either. When he went to the nursery in April, he had them bring the balled and burlapped $200 giant to his house on the nursery truck, it was so big. Bird had dug the hole himself, even though it took the kid from the nursery helping to slide the tree ball into it.

Bird was patting down the last shovelful of soil around the new tree when Ray walked up.

“You know you can’t do that?” asked Ray.

“I know it was tough, but I did it,” answered Bird. “We’re getting a little older, but I can at least dig a hole for a tree.”

“No, Bird. I mean you can’t do that because it’s against the housing authority regulations. The only place you are allowed to plant a front-lawn tree in this neighborhood is at the front left corner of your property, 15 feet from the curb, and 15 feet from your neighbor’s boundary-a very precise location.

“And I see by the tag on this tree that it is a London Plane Tree- rather large leaves for raking, don’t you think? The only tree variety allowed in this neighborhood is the Pin Oak because of its fall color and because it retains many of its leaves through the winter. You are required to rake up the leaves within seven days after they fall. The Pin Oak spreads out the workload for you through the seasons, and the leaves are smaller than on your Plane Tree. The authority is very careful with its selections for the security and benefit of the residents.

“You’ll need to take out that tree because you are in violation of Regulation 8, Subsection C of the housing authority code.”

“I have to take out my tree?” Bird gasped. “Don’t you know that neighborhoods should plant many varieties of trees for the health of all of them-so that a disease or pest doesn’t wipe them all out? And my location, it really sets off the house to have the tree standing where it is. Otherwise it looks like every other house here.”

“Bingo, Bird-that’s the plan. Your house must look like every other house. The tree goes.”

Grudgingly, Bird donated the London Plane Tree to the city park system, telling the kid from the nursery to “just dump it in a park somewhere if they say they don’t want it.”

“Hear you didn’t read your regulations, Bird,” said Marrianne. “We expect our residents to keep up on things themselves.”

“Oh, Bird,” said Kate. “I’m embarrassed. Please be more careful.”

“Give me those regs,” said Bird.

He spent two nights reading the regulations and mumbling to himself until Kate said, “Bird, you are going to do exactly what they want you to do, aren’t you?”

“I certainly am. Exactly.”

By the end of May, Bird’s garden was planted. As he watched them build the swimming pool, he munched thoughtfully on an onion, making sure the workers stayed out of the small patch.

The day after the workers left, Kate got home to find Bird disking up the front lawn with a 9N Ford tractor.

“Oh, no, my, my, my. What are you doing, Bird?”

“Regulation 8, Subsection F,” said Bird. “A resident is allowed to cultivate an annual grass one season to establish a better lawn. I’m getting ready to plant sweet corn, Kate.”

“You can’t do this,” said Ray.

“You can’t do this,” said Marianne. “Read your regulations.”

“I did,” said Bird. “Corn is an annual grass in this climate.”

As the corn grew to knee-high in July, Bird was directing the dumping of two truckloads of composted soil around the swimming pool.

“Regulation 8, Subsection H,” said Bird when Kate questioned him. “A resident is allowed to plant perennials around the perimeter of the swimming pool area as long as they grow no taller than 3 feet. Ray prefers pachysandra. I prefer rhubarb-green, sour, bitterly biting rhubarb,” Bird said with a bared-tooth smile.

He continued. “The regulations also allow acceptable husbandry practices for the rhubarb. You might notice in Regulation 11, Subsection L-after the rule that allows dogs of no more than 30 pounds in weight-that residents are required to carry a pooper scooper when walking a dog to carry the waste home, where they are allowed to compost it if they prefer on their own property, or dispose of it in the trash.

“Pig manure is good for rhubarb, and adding it to the soil is a normal husbandry practice. I have purchased a pig under 30 pounds in weight from Clayton Furlaug’s hog farm, and I will leave it there. However, periodically I will be removing its waste with my pooper scooper for composting purposes.”

“Bird, we need to talk. You can’t be doing this,” said Kate. “First the sweet corn and then the rhubarb-do you realize the housing authority is calling a special meeting of residents?”

“We’re calling a special meeting,” said Marrianne when she came to the front door, kicking out at a hip-high corn plant that grew in green profusion next to the sidewalk.

“Yes, a special meeting,” said Ray. “And, Bird, we require that you attend, and of course we want you there too, Kate.”

“Does this have anything to do with whether I will be selling sweet corn?” Bird asked with a smile. “It’s looking so good, I’m sure I’ll have more than enough.”

If Bird had only known, the sentiment among residents in the complex was almost 100 percent in favor of telling him to leave while asking Kate to stay.

Independent living, assisted living and nursing-home residents didn’t get to vote in the housing authority meetings, although sentiment there was running toward putting him in the dementia center, where one resident said they ought to take him if he could grow rhubarb. That would be one vote for Bird in the dementia center.

It took them until August 1 to gather for meeting.

Marrianne opened the meeting with new business, saying, “I think it’s obvious to everybody here that our regulations need some fine tuning. They haven’t been specific enough in their meanings, and some persons have taken advantage.

“For instance, the regulations need to say that the perennials under 3 feet around swimming pools need to be generally accepted, non-edible ornamentals, and the annual grasses planted in front lawns, even on a temporary basis, need to be cool-season, generally accepted lawn grasses that will be kept mowed.

“Now, Kate,” she said, looking around the room of 70 or more residents,” we are all here for you. We want to be your friends, and counsel you if we can. How are you feeling, and would you please tell us your reasons for feeling this way?”

“Well, it is true,” said Kate, “that Bird and I grew up in very different families, and came from perspectives that weren’t the same.”

“Look here,” said Bird. “Is it really necessary for us to have marriage counseling here in front of everybody?”

“You don’t understand, Bird,” said Marrianne. “I think the main purpose of the meeting, besides changing the regulations, is to decide whether Kate stays and you go, or whether we vote you both out of the housing complex.”

“But we bought a house here,” said Kate. “It represents a big part of our retirement money.”

“Regulation 2, Subsection D, Kate, darling,” said Marrianne, “I hope you read it. It says if anybody is voted out of the community, the community agrees to buy their home at 80 percent of its value to be determined by the average purchase price in the community. But, of course, if only Bird leaves, you retain the home.”

“But I don’t want to live here without Bird,” said Kate.

“And I don’t want to live out there in the free world without you either, Kate,” said Bird. “Let them vote. If they let me stay, I’ll do whatever it takes, for your sake.”

“No, Bird, let’s both go, no matter how they vote. The place was giving me a false sense of security. Losing your freedom to live, work and play as you please is the worst sort of security of all. I don’t want to be taken care of. I want us to take care of ourselves.”

“Ah, ain’t love touching?” said the guard, Big Max, standing in the middle of the room.

“Max, what are you doing here?” asked Bird. “You aren’t a resident. You’re a gate guard.”

“The guards here vote like they’re residents, Bird,” said Max. “If a democracy doesn’t give its guardians a vote, before long it doesn’t have any guardians. You have to give the troops a vote.

“And I’m going to make a motion, Madam Chairman Marrianne,” said Max. “I move that if the Birds want to leave the community, we give them 100 percent of what they paid for their home, plus the improvements they have made instead of an average of anything. I’ll even contribute the cost of whatever Bird has in that corn in return for the crop before we cut it down.”

“That’s a nice gesture, Max,” said Marrianne. “I doubt that you can even get a second on that motion, and I have to wonder how much longer you’ll even be working here as a guard.”

“Wait a minute,” called a voice from the back of the room. It was the second guard, Friendly Fred. “I want some of that corn, too. I’ll second the motion.”

Marrianne asked for a show of hands for all those in favor of the motion, and then for a show of hands for all those opposed. The vote was counted twice to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, but it wasn’t. It was a tie.

“I think, by Regulation 38, Subsection F, if there’s a tie, the officers vote among themselves to decide,” said Marrianne.

Then the door opened, and in walked nervous Vernon. “Wait a minute,” said Max. “Regulation 38, Subsection G: If a legal voter walks in within five minutes of the vote, he or she gets a vote, too.”

“That’s right,” said Ray. “Vernon is going to have to decide with us or with Bird. Working here part-time is good retirement pay-eh Vernon? This is a good moment to show where your loyalties lie.”

Marrianne explained the motion in question and the tie, with Max interjecting for clarity whenever he thought she hadn’t explained well.

Vernon rolled his eyes. He stuck a finger on one hand through his curls of red hair and a finger of the other hand in his belt as he tapped a toe. “I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin’ about all the pros and cons here. But doggone it, doggone it, I’m makin’ up my mind.

“You know, there’s enough rules in the world. I vote for Bird. I vote they get all their money back if Kate and Bird want to leave.”

Kate found 40 acres for sale in the classifieds. She and Bird bought 10 acres of it to build their retirement home on beside what became Bird’s rhubarb patch, eventually the biggest rhubarb patch in 10 counties.

Max, Fred and Vernon went together to buy the other 30 acres for a sweet corn and hog farm.

They keep Bird’s rhubarb patch supplied with manure.

Regulation 42, Subsection A: If a person’s mate becomes deceased and that person doesn’t remarry to have a legal spouse in the home, then that person must move into the independent-living facility.

Marrianne and Ray eventually married each other, safely, securely, and quite regulatedly, of course.

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