Robert Fowler – Page 51 – Retirement Media: Active Adult Living

Slippery When Wet, the Bon Jovi Tribute Band performed at our clubhouse last Friday. Tribute bands are very popular at 55+ communities. In the past year, we have seen tribute bands for Journey, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis and others.

Most of these tribute bands have been very good and we enjoyed the shows. But these concerts are too loud for many.

My friend Leon, who worked as stage manager on Broadway, told me to get some acoustic ear plugs to solve this noise problem, so I went shopping for a pair on Amazon. I was amazed to learn about these and see the selections. Live and learn still applies.

I got to use my new Acoustic Ear Plugs for the Bon Jovi Tribute concert and they saved the day for me. They are good for concerts and loud restaurants. Acoustic Ear Plugs replicates the natural response of the ear, so sound quality is the same as the original, only quieter. Music and speech are clear, not muffled. So you still get to hear, just at a softer level.

Etymotic Research ER20 ETYPlug Hearing Protection Earplugs, Standard Clear Stem with Blue Tip (Clear) Costs $13.00 on Amazon

Background noise at busy restaurants, especially the ones with cement floors and walls, really is irritating to me. I can’t wait to try my new acoustic ear plugs at Rico’s World Kitchen at high noon with an energetic lunch crowd.

If you have a problem like I do with loud concert noise or irritating background noise when in a crowd of people, you may want to look into Acoustic Ear Plugs.

Thanks for the tip, Leon.

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Progression of a Retirement Dream

Retirement dreams change throughout life and what you end up doing in retirement is most often entirely different than your earlier retirement dreams.

For example, we remember these retirement dreams from our earlier days:

Retirement Dreams

Beach Retirement Dream: In our 30’s Mary Ann and I loved going to the beach and thought that moving to Florida and living near the beach would be just great. Not having to go to work and just going to the beach when we wanted and of course eating plenty of seafood, would be the life!

Our Farm Dream: In our 40’s we bought a 2 acre lot near the lake. We started thinking that in retirement, wouldn’t it be wonderful to get some land, maybe 20 to 50 acres with a farm house. A garden or small fishing lake would be nice. I could split firewood and work the land to stay in shape.

RV Travel Dream: In our 50’s we were enjoying traveling and thought wouldn’t it be nice to buy a RV and just travel the country. Going where we wanted, when we wanted. We wouldn’t need much space, we would be going and doing and seeing the country.

Retirement Dream Come True

So now in our 60’s when the time came for us to really retire, we evaluated our retirement dreams.

The Beach Retirement Dream was no longer something we wanted to do. We don’t like being out in the sun that much, the beach is sandy and hot. Well that’s doesn’t sound great to us after all.

The Farm Dream was no longer appealing to us anymore either. All the chores and things that would need to do done to keep up a farm was going in the wrong direction for us; we wanted to simplify. The isolated life on a farm was not appealing to us.

We were not up to the the RV Travel Dream after all. Think of all the things that could go wrong on the road. Would safety be a concern? You really need to have a lot of energy to drive one of those big RVs, find places to set up, set up and taking it down, etc. Nope, not for us.

Our Retirement Life

After trying the weekend stays at several Del Webb Communities, we decided this is where we would start our retirement life.

We loved taking cruises and it was said that the large Del Webb Communities are like a cruise ships and we have found that to be true. There is always something to do and entertain us and you can socialize with friends on your street, the club house or at any of the numerous activities.

We can still vacation at the beach or travel wherever we want but it is nice having so much available right in our community.

Now that we have living here for one year, we still like our new community. Things we like are: new friends and neighbors, our house, the clubhouse, bocce league play, pickleball with friends, card games, having friends over for dinner and going to their homes for dinner, plenty of places to walk, trying new restaurants in the area, less traffic and our community’s website and newsletter, forums and special interest clubs and taking our cardio class. I could keep going but you get the idea. I think we like that it gives us a variety of things to do.

A great retirement is having things you like to do, with people you like to do them with. We found that at a Del Webb Community. -Robert and Mary Ann

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