DuPont Landing: A Retirement Story

By Bernard Mansheim

Gabe and Jenny Steele are looking forward to years, perhaps decades, as retirees.

They ask themselves all the right questions: Where should we spend our retirement? Can we afford to move? How will we fill our time in the final chapter of our life? They choose a place, DuPont Landing, a small member-owned community on an island with no bridge which is only accessed by ferry. All motorized transportation on the small island is limited to golf carts. They revel in the natural beauty and solitude, participate in social activities, and watch sunsets on a private beach far from the hustle and bustle of their former urban world. But life often holds many surprises as we journey toward the future. Gabe and Jenny find themselves facing obstacles they never anticipated.

This book targets anyone who stands at the threshold of retirement after a long career. If you are relatively healthy, you must account for years, even decades, of future life experiences. As the fictional tale follows the odyssey of the protagonist and his wife as they face challenges and learn new lessons, the story offers the reader food for thought.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Jun 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781662938450

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Abitter cold day in early February felt as good a time as any to drop the bombshell on Tim. I did find myself stalling as I dawdled excessively over the salad bar, given that it contained the same array of vegetables every day for the five years we had eaten lunch there. I smiled to myself as I tossed the Styrofoam container onto the scale. Paying for food by weight. The Eritrean cashier offered her all-suffering smile and said Thank you in her charming accent as she handed me change.

Tim waited for me at our usual table, located in a corner of the cavernous cafeteria, where we could observe the goings-on and comment to each other like play-by-play sportscasters about the apparent lack of energy that characterized most of the diners. Tim and I were unlike the rest of them. We worked in the corporate office of a large insurance company on the top floor. The other eleven floors were populated by various federal agencies, overflow from the overcrowded buildings of downtown Washington, DC.

The bureaucrats in our building were visible to us only when they exited from the countless warrens and converged on the dining area. They otherwise disappeared behind semi-opaque glass doors, marked by plaques whose initials meant nothing to us, but which identified the various agencies supported by our tax dollars. Had they cared to look over at us, they would have noticed the private sector ennui we wore on our faces, disdainful of a bloated bureaucracy. Our disdain was not malicious—it simply gave us a few moments every day to share jokes at their expense, a way to distract us from the increasing boredom of our uninteresting professional lives.

The day was gray, but the weather never really correlated with the mood of the place, which was always depressing. Across the room from us, the same guy slouched in his chair, snoring loudly as he enjoyed a brief nap before returning to his cubicle to kill a few more hours until quitting time. Near him a highly charged game of Hearts was being played by a foursome between bites of sandwich, amid the crinkle of potato chip bags and the slurping of giant sodas.

The lunchtime activity became frantic as the clock ticked toward one. The deck of cards was boxed, and the detritus removed hastily from the table, leaving the daily dose of crumbs, small puddles, and the odd napkin dropped on the floor. Tim and I were in no hurry. The dwindling crowd left us to agree that the federal budget was bloated beyond recognition. Our smug faces showed our false pride that we, highly paid insurance executives, were part of the private enterprise juggernaut that drove the economy. We had no need to repair to a cubicle and while away the hours playing computer games at our desks. Instead, we could sit comfortably in our spacious offices and look out far below at the snow-covered woods that lined the highway with its endless stream of traffic. Though unspoken, we both knew our righteousness was phony.

Tim reprised our many conversations. Gabe, I’m not sure how long I can take this. It’s the same old crap, year after year. Almost a year ago, you and I agreed to hang on a little longer because we figured if we could put lipstick on this pig, the old man would find a buyer for the company, and we could cash out. I still don’t see it happening, so here we sit eating this swill every day, wishing there was more to life.

I can’t say I disagree, Tim. I hear you loud and clear. We’ve been whining about our situation for long enough. Neither of us spoke for a moment, then I said, It’s time.

His face was blank. I continued. Remember the deal we made right here at this table, almost exactly one year ago?

Yeah, I do. We agreed that if one of us actually did decide to walk away, the remaining sap would spring for dinner and a bottle of Silver Oak.

Well, Tim, it looks like you owe me a dinner. I beat you to the draw. I’ve had enough of this cafeteria and the daily beltway traffic jams. Jenny and I have gone over this time and again, and she’s on board. My parents both died in their eighties, so I guess I have good genes. But I’ll be damned if I want to wake up the day after I retire with a diagnosis of terminal cancer. All the dreams of leisure, travel, and freedom would evaporate overnight. Not that I expect it, but who the hell knows?

Tim’s jaw dropped. You’re going to walk out the door? I know it’s boring here, but you are only in your early sixties. I can’t believe it. What the hell are you going to do?

To tell you the truth, I would rather wake up one day with a clean slate and make my plan for the next twenty years. You may think I’m nuts, but it’s better than filling up my days at this job. We’ve made enough money, so what the hell, I’m ready to try something else.

There’s no way you are going to tell the boss you’re done.

Oh, yes, there is. You owe me a dinner because I told the old man I am leaving in six weeks.

I can’t believe it. What’d he say?

He was pretty stone-faced, as usual. First, he asked me what he could do to keep me, which was flattering. I told him I had given it a lot of thought and was not looking for another job. I said I just wanted to turn the page to another chapter in my life, and that Jenny was fully supportive. He’s been around awhile, and I could see in his face that he was resigned to the fact that no one is irreplaceable. We agreed that I would stay until the end of next month and help find a replacement.

Tim’s eyes were locked on me with disbelief. Unbelievable. I’ve gotta say that despite all the complaining, there’s no way I could pack up my briefcase and walk out the door. He shrugged, as though unsure what to say next. Well, okay. I guess I owe you a dinner. Then he added, with a half-smile, And I get the booby prize. Endless lunches with our brethren from the federal government in this god-awful cafeteria. He shook his head. Are you going to stay around here?

I’m afraid not. I don’t need another winter and more traffic. We’ve lived in the DC area for over ten years. The beltway traffic just gets worse. And as you know, it is hard to make friends when we’re on the run all the time and commute all over the place. You and I are friends, but even so we live twenty miles apart. So, there’s not much holding us here.

Yeah, you’re right about that. After kids are grown, there’s no more PTA and youth soccer. And it’s hard to make new friends.

We got up from the table and dropped our trays on the conveyor belt. The place had cleared out except for the stink of steaming dishes and garbage, and the sounds of kitchen workers. I said, I’ve got one more bombshell for you. He listened as though he would not be surprised at what came out of my mouth. We decided to move to Wakulla Island.

He said, Wakulla Island? Are you kidding? It’s in the middle of nowhere.

I said, Precisely.

CHAPTER 2

The commuter traffic flowed more slowly by the hour as I watched from my window late Friday afternoon after I had told Tim my plan. He sat in his office down the hall with his ancient briefcase open before him, no doubt wondering about his own future. I am sure our conversation stirred some deep feelings within him. I felt a twinge of pity thinking about him as he waited for the clock to strike six. Then he would pack up his briefcase, only to return on Monday, probably year after year—a latter-day Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down, again and again. It could have been me, had I not made my decision.

For months, I had sat at my desk daydreaming about freedom. I watched the sun set in a slightly different place each evening as the days became shorter. Was west changing its direction? I knew the earth rotated on its axis but sat and pondered whether the direction west on a compass was always the same, and, if so, the sun did not set in the immediate west as the months ebbed and flowed. I became ­mesmerized by such a minor astronomical observation. At that point I knew it was time to leave.

* * *

My favorite easy chair was available when I arrived at the bookstore early Saturday morning, a day after my earth-shattering revelation to Tim. I plopped down and settled in for the last time with another retirement book, one of a long list I had perused over months of study. My thoughts drifted back to Tim, aware that he considered my decision to be impulsive and addlebrained. For him, like millions of others who have spent their careers filling most of their adult years locked into the work-week rhythm, the very thought of stepping off the merry-go-round no doubt caused him great anxiety. So, he would continue in his well-worn rut, trying to figure out how I had the nerve to break out.

What he did not know was how many long hours I had spent before I was comfortable with my decision. The bookstore had been my research library, its shelves replete with the latest up-to-date advice on retirement. No one seemed to mind me hunkered down in my comfortable chair, browsing through book after book. After many Saturday mornings of research, armed with a mountain of advice—much of it redundant or simplistic—Jenny and I had formulated our plan.

Each time I returned home from my bookstore perch, I shared my newfound knowledge with Jenny. The first chapter of every book I leafed through talked about finances. Each author began with a version of a simple question. One book posed it succinctly: What is your number? Nice marketing hook, I thought. The entire book stressed the need to ­consider the fact that one must plan financially for a retirement that may last for decades.

All the authors ultimately concurred with the advice offered by Andrew Carnegie, once the wealthiest man in the world: spend all you have—in his case donated to charity—but make sure you have just enough left at the end to pay for your funeral. Jenny agreed, but pointed out that the advice was easier said than done. My thoughts on the subject were clouded by my desire to quit work. Fortunately, she was more systematic.

Well, let’s make our best guess at how long we will be alive, excluding the possibility of an early death from cancer or a car accident. Both of us have genetics working in our favor, so I think we need to plan for another thirty years.

I said, That’s true, but the experts offered a caveat. Namely, if one of us got seriously ill, medical bills could be huge. And I won’t even qualify for Medicare for another four years.

Jenny added, And don’t discount the possibility of another economic recession. They seem to arise with no warning, as best I can tell.

We batted the financial conversation back and forth for several weeks and continued to dive deeper into the subject. I brought home my reading on another critical topic, one that was guaranteed to affect every potential retiree: cost of living requirements. So, we continued our discussion and tried to answer a series of important questions. Would we need a big house with the burden of a mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance? How about a new car purchase or a wardrobe upgrade? Jenny said, Don’t forget travel and entertainment expenses. What could be worse than to be stuck somewhere without enough money to leave home on an occasional holiday?

Considerations of these issues appeared obvious to us. Nevertheless, the financial advisors uniformly agreed that many retirees were starry-eyed and typically underestimated the importance of the details. I read the statistic that retirement expenses could predictably consume up to seventy percent of pre-retirement expenses. Jenny brought our financial conversations to a close. Life’s unpredictable. We’ve checked all the financial boxes. As far as I’m concerned, we are ready to take our chances.

I agreed. I’m with you. So, here’s the next topic I have been reading about that’s somewhat more fun to talk about—quality of life.

My thoughts on this subject boiled down to one word: freedom. I had spent countless hours behind my desk at work, fantasizing about releasing the shackles of a nine-to-five career. My focus was less on what I would do with this newfound freedom than what I would not do. How could I think about all the things I wanted to do when my calendar one day would become a blank page? I could not afford the luxury of daydreaming about an unknown future when my reverie was constantly interrupted by the demands of work. I would no longer be chained to a desk, an alarm clock, a schedule, or even a suit and tie.

As the reality of our decision set in, I found myself able to begin to put form on thoughts of what lay ahead. I had become almost giddy, amusing myself with such foolish bumper-sticker adages like A Bad Day at Golf Is Better than a Good Day at Work. When I got past the silliness, I forced myself to think about how I would fill up a day, every day, without a schedule.

Jenny was less introspective. She had spent the early years of our marriage raising our son, Jesse. When he died tragically after being struck by a car at age six while riding his little bike, our lives were shattered. We stayed together, helping each other cope with our loss. Neither of us ever recovered enough to consider having another child. I focused like a laser on my career. Jenny became immersed in volunteer work and eventually had become comfortable with the steady rhythm of her life. I knew her calendar would remain full whether I retired or not.

I looked to my retirement books for guidance. Countless anecdotes filled the pages with examples. Some retirees had fulfilled a lifetime dream of turning a hobby into a full-time pursuit. A suspiciously common example was the guy who had amassed a complete woodworking operation in his basement over many years of his working career. He had looked forward to channeling his inner Chippendale, blissfully churning out designer-quality pieces of furniture during his retirement. Another example was the frustrated entrepreneur who, having slipped the bonds of his career, purchased a fast-food franchise and lived his dream of flipping burgers for fun and profit. More than once I read about couples who started bed-and-breakfast businesses in such exotic locations as the Bahamas or Napa Valley.

None of these stories resonated with me, though I surely felt a surge of inadequacy as I continued to read further. Jenny listened thoughtfully and helped formulate a plan that met our mutual needs. We agreed that the excitement of painting our futures together on a blank canvas was enough. The future looked replete with limitless possibilities, and we would allow ourselves to travel down whichever path we chose.

My research was done; now it was time for action.

CHAPTER 3

Through the increasingly frigid autumn and into the long dark winter, Jenny and I continued to form our plan. We had begun to feed off each other’s excitement. For me, it was the nervous anticipation I had felt throughout my life as I prepared to embark on a vacation to a place where I had never been. The thought of walking away from my final job created a wave of anxiety that was quickly allayed by the thought of leaving a position that had become drudgery.

Jenny shared my restlessness. She had become tired of the anonymity experienced with volunteer work. Countless evenings at cocktail parties, a stranger would turn to her and say, So, Jenny. What do you do? When she responded that she did volunteer work, the conversation would end as quickly as it had begun. Though the work had been personally fulfilling, it had become thankless over the decades.

Our growing distaste for the congestion and crowding of a large metropolitan area was at a breaking point, and our thoughts of living someplace warm and quiet led us like moths to a flame to look south. My months of Saturday morning research once again offered some guidance. We had been loosely discussing retirement communities, so I did some investigating.

I discovered that the concept dated back as far as 1954 with the birth of Youngtown, an ironically named small community west of Phoenix, Arizona. It had been developed exclusively for retirees. The community had been built from the ground up, and the developer was uniquely focused on an aging, affluent demographic, playing on their egos, starting with the chosen name. No one under age fifty-five was welcome.

I brought my new knowledge home and shared it with Jenny. She said, I’m not getting a warm feeling about this concept. I feel like we are being pigeonholed into a certain demographic stereotype.

I laughed. Wait until I tell you what else I learned. Let’s just try to keep our minds open for now. Youngtown started a tidal wave. I went on to describe the next iteration with the understated name of Sun City. This brainchild of Del Webb was developed six years after Youngtown, and a few miles west. Webb enhanced the concept by cleverly adding a number of amenities to entertain the old folks. The weekend it opened, one hundred thousand people reportedly stampeded through the gates of the new community. Over a decade, the new community grew to forty thousand inhabitants, ninety-nine percent Caucasian. It sported nine golf courses, thirty churches, and over one hundred twenty social clubs.

The model became known as a sanitized, economically segregated enclave for middle-class retirees who sought modest home sizes, low taxes, sunshine, and recreation. Its formula led to a building frenzy. Sun City West was added. Then Del Webb set his sights on the southeast, where he built multiple clones. Other developers caught on, and over the next five decades over fifteen hundred similar communities popped up.

Jenny remarked, The concept has some merit, but the whole thing seems rather sterile. Who exactly are these people who have populated these communities?

I don’t know any details except what I’ve told you, and I share your skepticism, but we may want to visit a couple places to check them out. I learned that one of two current shining stars is near Hilton Head Island, where we used to go for our company boondoggles. It’s called Sun City and is one of Del Webb’s many progenies. The second possibility is called The Villages. Just northeast of Orlando. It is said to be the largest unincorporated colony of retirees in America. We could take a drive south and visit both places.

Jenny agreed, so I took a few days off and we drove south on I-95. Seven hours later, we exited east, just a few miles north of the South Carolina-Georgia border. The bright sun, warm weather, and seductive signage along the highway foretold a haven of resorts and escape from the mid-Atlantic cold. The entrance to Sun City was a large portal flanked by luxuriant flowering plants and palm trees.

We drove slowly through the planned community of thirteen thousand inhabitants. The streets were a maze, crammed with small, pastel-colored, concrete block houses on postage-stamp lots. The landscaping was resort-chic with a standard array of palm trees, palmetto bushes, and giant stands of ornamental grasses dotted throughout the neighborhoods. Golf carts whizzed by us, commandeered by gray-haired denizens, driving every which way to get to the next activity. From the looks of the frenetic pace, Sun City was living up to its motto, emblazoned across a marketing brochure, A Retirement Community for Active Adults.

Everyone appeared to be in a great hurry, though smiling faces were the norm. Jenny laughed. "These people remind me of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. You know, ‘I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say Hello, goodbye! I’m