[TheReallyBest]

I very much appreciate the sense of community I get here, and I have to admit the couple other forums I follow, but yes, people/personal contact is a plus as well....within set limits.

My wife and I have always been "solitaries" as neither of us have ever felt we 'fit in' with most other "in person" groups. It's not that we're anti-social, we're anti-socializing. It seems we've found a good medium or center line balance point where we have rented and lived...in a gated "senior" community... for the past 5 years. Beginning in 2003, a construction company purchased the old base housing for Castle Air Force Base and remodeled the entire development. It's actually very nice and what joy having the Castle Air Museum just 2 blocks from our front door...betcha you don't have a SR-71 Blackbird, B-25, F-14 and B-50 parked across the street from your house!

Our neighbors keep to themselves, except when we're out to the mail box or walking pets. There's a group that does Bingo and cards games every Tues and Thurs at the "Hobby House" another that does "Swim-cercise" classes 3x's a week and every other month a group that does a bus trip to Reno...sign up sheets available at the office.

We joined the "Neighborhood Watch" Program and attend a meeting every other month and do a voluntary patrol once a week to 6-7 times per month as we feel able. Depending on the hours we go out we've met quite a few members of our community. As we're on the younger side (mid-50's) and live on the "Senior Side" we also keep and eye on our 3 elderly immediate neighbors.

"Miss Millie" is an exceptional gal having just celebrated her 88th birthday and is a retired Head Matron of an all girls College of Etiquette on the East Coast somewhere. She moved here to be closer to her son and daughter. She so gently tells stories of her being raised in a small So. Carolina town and recalls the days of segregation, without anger and with a degree of dignity found in few people today. She holds her head high when she speaks of her Evangelist preacher father and takes you by the hand to show you the pictures of her parents at the side of Dr. King just months before his assassination.

She is "aghast" that neighbors walk to the mailbox in their pajamas! Though blind since the age of 12, she can tell what you are wearing with a touch of a finger when shaking her hand. One would think Miss Millie would have every reason to distrust, even hate some people, as her own infirmary was caused by the callous, cowardly and disgusting actions of a group of boys from the "public school" on her way home from her 6th grade class at the "other (I can't and won't say what she said) school as it was known in those days." In the end though it was what gave her and her future husband the incentive to make sure both of their children not only went to college, but medical school and beyond. Her son is one of California's leading specialists in neuro-optical implants and various other corrective eye surgery today.

Kay and I find ourselves simply mesmerized by sitting and talking with her, she is one lady that has a lifetime of hardship in story, but tells of each victory like a true hero that is humble to the bone. Miss Millie also keeps track of the time, keeping socializing visits to just under an hour, which is "proper" in her way of thinking. Never rude, always polite, always smiling and upbeat....goodness...if more people were like this rock of community, maybe we wouldn't dislike socializing so much!!

So that's a bit about our community and one of the people that live here, a tidbit on others.

Socializing is a delicate flower that can't have too much water or too little sunlight...if it does, it simply wilts!

Blessings of Peace,