Why Sun City, Arizona gives me the hee-bee-gee-bees


I rode over to Sun City yesterday. I live in Glendale, and it's really not so far, just a few miles. It was a beautiful day and I wanted to ride the Greenway Channel. And it was wonderful. Sun City is nice, and clean, and safe, but it has given me the hee-bee-gee-bees for over thirty years now. And I'm trying to puzzle out why?

Now calm down here if you think that I'm criticizing Sun City, I'm not. In fact, if I told you would wonderful it is you'd think that the Sun City Chamber of Commerce was paying me to write this post. And since this isn't an infomercial, I'll let it go at that. If you've been there, or live there, you know.

Sun City in 1971. It still looks the same today.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Sun City, Arizona, it's a retirement community created by Del Webb, beginning in 1960. At the time you needed to be 50 to live there, and now you need to be 55. And since I'll never see 55 again, I kinda figured at some point I wouldn't get the hee-bee-gee-bees. Like I say, I'm still puzzling out the way that I felt.

Back in my thirties, I always felt very self-conscious in Sun City because I just seemed to stick out like a sore thumb. No one ever said anything, but I had the feeling that all eyes were on me to see if I was gonna start something. My dark hair and athletic youthful body were things that I couldn't help, but it did make me look a bit suspicious, at least out of place. But yesterday I brought a grey head of hair and a body that has lived over sixty years there, and I still was uncomfortable.

Yes, I know it's me. No one was rude to me, no one gave me a suspicious glance. In fact, people waved at me as I pedaled by, especially the guy in the cool little Smart Car. There were people walking, biking, riding golf carts, driving by, and it was very pleasant.

The only young person I saw, who was probably in his twenties, was the cashier at the Dollar Store. The rest of the people I saw seemed to fit into the population perfectly, from 55 on up. There were no children, no babies. I saw no teenagers, no one walked by with purple hair, I saw no persons of color, skin or hair.

But for some reason I got the hee-bee-gee-bees, and was anxious to get out of there. The next morning (this morning) I looked around at the people at the Dollar Store in Peoria, and somehow I felt more comfortable. And maybe I'll never know why I feel that way, but I do, and I defend everyone's right to be in the place that makes them happy.
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Comments

  1. CelesteFebruary 27, 2020 at 4:29 PM

    I was 18 when I moved in with my grandparents to go to college (starting off at Glendale Community College). Talk about feeling out of place! Of course, I visited there in the summer (there was always grandkids there in the summer), and my grandfather would take us around the Phoenix area, but when I moved there it was different. I had a car, so I was always going out of Sun City to be around people my own age, and I would get strange looks and/or comments when I said I lived in Sun City!

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