Joining a Florida Retirement Community at 33 | Balls Deep Episode 1

summer time and the living is easy fish are [Music] is [Music] don't you [Music] cry me too [Laughter] me too [Music] long as i remember i wanted to be old not just older like a teenager cool college student but old like a proper old person they drove around in long slow cars carelessly they were harrington jackets and pastel colors i didn't even know they made walked around with an era of terminal institutions like they were a gang of out-of-shape mods they're my idols however as i've grown closer and closer to death myself and felt the effects of aging on the body a dream of being old has turned into sort of an inevitable nightmare unfortunately thanks to advancements in medical science and the retirement of the baby boom generation america is now older than it's ever been so i've come to the capital of age in america florida for memorial day weekend which is something that older people tend to do a lot although not always with tremendous facility remember thanks i mean robert thanks [Music] hey there bob i won't be able to carry that just give my stuff there's our lobby join us we're going to go this way the apartment on your right wow very nice all right this is your place for how long you're going to stay i appreciate it this is quite a pad yeah let me show you the uh shoot to throw your garbage down okay okay and we do have recycling here ah okay and by doing all the recycling we're doing we're number one in recycling yeah bob canatori is the president of lake point tower lake point tower is a condominium in sort of the classic south florida retirement casual tradition it's got a cream and harvest gold exterior a security gates that far back from the main drag to keep residents safe from the hoi polloi of hollandale you know that hollanddale is listed the highest of aids in the united states aids in the united states what's that nurse's age okay bob takes a really hands-on approach to his presidency wilbur you know by the water taxi i got to get those uh trees out of there overseeing all the maintenance and daily chores that go into running a condo like this in his pre-tirement bob ran construction outfits in new york that worked on projects like the bicentennial cleanup at the statue of liberty and the mid 70s renovation at yankee stadium the legacy is sort of carrying on into his dotage with a myriad capital improvements he's bestowed upon lake point tower so you're doing a lot of work for someone who's basically ought to be retired yeah i'll never retire i retire i'll be in a coffin you can't retire you got to go on wave to tom everybody oh hi hi that's sandy ben and bella good to meet you bob's been nice about introducing me to everybody this is norm swipe jam i'm good thank you sweetheart maybe it's the role of the president in a condo he seems also like a kind of a social coordinator of sorts this is dr noah dr noah this is gene hey this is my channel i can't stop cooking she's number one hello ladies what's happening hello hi my baby gotta kiss me too i'm gonna kiss all these how can i let you just go what happens now do we have to take that clothes off no that's later lovely right there you go man hi i'm pleasure to meet you we were babies when we got married babies this is your relaxation station oh wow okay oh my gosh ah look at you yeah a little darker my hair was right yeah there's two yeah my wife since we met and that's 13 years old we've been together you met at 13 i was 12 you were 13. we met boom that was it never again high school nobody in between my wife is 76 years old that is part of that shock to me thank you is it weird at all having friends who are like 30 years older and like and when i came here they said to me manny don't you feel funny hanging with us old ladies and i at that time i was in my 50s and i didn't think of it that way they were just so sweet to people you get smart by talking to older people yeah you know you go back in time that you can't do now test pickle is how old 98. okay turn right turn right okay come in come in coming in cassie this is thomas i'm talking about pleasure handsome looking boy thank you what do you want to do kiss you like i usually do oh you don't you he's my only boyfriend can you imagine oh my own i used to have 19 boyfriends and i only have one 19 at the same time 19 at the same time yeah how did that even work give me those pictures i want to show them okay this is my wonderful husband i want you to meet my husband he formed the second world war this is me when i got my real estate license on my birthday 1958 do you mind me asking you a question no no why are you taking pictures of me because you're the prettiest one here oh my god please i should have combed my hair your hair looks beautiful now as you went to my place i don't know if you notice there are letters from roseville on the wall oh they're framed okay grateful memory and second lieutenant melvin finkel fdr everybody knows approaching 100 right now it's almost like listening to finnegan's wake just all the different confluence streams what is your name thomas tom thomas thomas that's a very famous name t-h-o-m-a yes dear love over here thomas no you said you were still working when you moved here up until three years ago when i had this uh tragedy i'm in very very very bad shape i don't know if i can go on much longer because i can't take this life i'm not used to this life you're not in that better shape i see you on the screen you're going with the sharpened cut you walk upstairs always wait higher you have on high heels right there's no nothing i'm beginning to like him i don't want to fall in love with you i want to show you something come on kid you see this here take the chair away look yes i want to tell you what it is ted what all right listen to me you're listening yeah they have to they come in and they kick the carpet they have to spread it it came off the tactless do you want to live with us here no you're not gonna live are you gonna get a carpet for me not a carpet and we're gonna kick it in you're gonna kick it in she outcomes me every time well i mean this woman is unbelievable you off this you if you don't take care of this here i will i love you i love you i'm going to kick you okay i'm leaving i'm living i'm going to be living this way i'm not used to living this way all right i'm not going to live much longer so you better eat good i'm going to kiss you too you never kiss me now you kiss me and you promise to take care of me until i die right in the end now be honest don't be honest are you telling me that everything i said to you is going to be on television so no not at all [Music] you know i was a little worried come down here that you know retirement would be boring there wouldn't be anything going on days are surprisingly full there's tons of activities today there's a zumba in the morning some sort of dance class in the middle of the day um bingo at night i guess it's important to keep your energy up because otherwise you just kind of sit and wilt and you don't have anything to do [Music] feel the music we're going to play round robin look so you don't forget i 24. do you know how to play three no you're not gonna enjoy watching i'm starting to realize that this retirement community is a lot like high school hi bob people from all these disparate kind of social and economic classes and different parts of the country are all hanging out with each other simply because they're in the same building b4 [Music] all right tommy did everybody thank bomb and irene even the types like you've got like adrian and irene are sort of like the artsy kids try to lead culturally edifying activities did you have a good time girls yes bob running the place of this is like student president norman chan classic freshman sweethearts and belle and her husband are like jock is sort of health nuts there's even a pink haired girl everyone seems to kind of thinly tolerate i'm going to take you to the racetrack just take your tour and i want to show you the horse i can't believe i've been to a horse track before i'm gonna put you in my car yeah you'd say hyundai ah hyundai i got number eight hey i got stubborn okay all right one of us i think a lot of people describe old age as kind of a return to childhood but this seems more like uh kind of like a second adolescence but instead of being all self-conscious about everyone else you don't give a when anybody thinks because they're all younger than you come on come on eat bad food loaf around a lot go gambling go to the race tracks hit on women that'll never sleep with them [Music] good work with those ladies that was smooth do you feel like you kind of like can get away with more when you get a little older yeah i think so they look at me what the you're going to do it's the perfect end i've been playing that angle from the young side my whole life harmless [Music] here we have this monitor here this says everything that goes on in the building yeah so that's where the tonight's the board meeting for the recertification and the champagne toast yeah [Music] well i'm going to start it right out of the morning all righty call 9-1-1 there's this guy he's here with the ponytail yeah he's a troublemaker and he did a lot of damage bob just told the security guard to call 9-1-1 so his board meetings i think about to get a lot more exciting than i would have guessed i don't have to threat you you're breaking up a meeting so it's taking me a little while to wrap my head around this but uh apparently uh this guy shows up to every board meeting kind of disrupted so the cops were called they're apparently trying to consult like the condos bylaws to see what the proper form of action is which is funny because bylaws by their nature should be superseded by law enforcement what i'm gonna do is return to me i can't give into that pop football yeah i remember when i told you when we first came here right look yeah hey listen while this is going on we're going to have some champagne how's that hey [Music] i realized that uh the exception of a couple of old widows most of whom have live-in nurses everybody else is still married in some sort of relationship which probably held the antidote boredom norm and jan who are sort of uh younger additions to the lake point community invited me over for drinks hi good morning oh is this a okay time oh thanks okay men two drinks a day is actually very safe and good yeah minimum yes okay women not so for women women two drinks a day is considered alcoholic oh yeah not good salute you guys are young you're spring chickens compared to furtively fair to most of them i'm asking everybody kind of how they feel about the effect of aging and body and mind and stuff coming from the medical profession how do you guys look at that how does it feel is it scary at all i always thought it means yes scary getting old i have two total knee replacements you know i get up in the morning and my joints are stiff and and you know you forget something and you're like oh my god i've got alzheimer's you know you feel yourself slowing down if you've ever been put under it's wonderful okay this gives me i know relaxes me okay i'm convinced that's what awaits me and death and dying i mean i'm gonna go under and it is just gone time void avoid you know nothing you know it'd be a good rest yeah you can do a good rest honey yeah good rest 77 and i'm trying to stay with a little bit and it's a difficult thing i had sleep apnea which is not bad but it's annoying is that your mask that uh yeah let me put her on foot nice i couldn't sleep i couldn't sleep so we went to the hospital and they gave you the test for the sleep apnea and so i slept with a chinese girl she put it on you know i had 35 episodes stopping breathing wow for 20 to 25 seconds that's when they say you die in your sleep that's it i'm pretty sure that's what they mean but what a saver we're blessed manny went through bladder cancer and both of us were going crazy because i i told her i said you go down i'm going with you because i ain't staying here you're not leaving me with all these kids i'm out of here wherever you're going i'm going right alongside you if you got a fear of dying there is no sense of living yeah forget it i always held by that you know there's a kind of fearlessness i think i always admired in the elderly and you don't see people living in kind of a shook state i used to be scared just to go to bed because somebody had you know like in death as going to sleep probably to try to like calm my nerves but i assume the reverse must be true and that going to sleep must be like death and i mean this is when i was five so i can only imagine when you're 70 or 80 and it could happen any night how difficult that must make it to kind of drift off but they go and they do it and i guess that's just either a lifetime's experience kind of piling up and cushioning you for each night or literally lose that fear over time would be nice good night good night sweet jeeps [Music] this memorial day party doubles as the 40th anniversary for the building or no it's the four-year certification i keep forgetting things i think some of the air down here maybe just living too relaxedly sleep okay yes i did slept into about nine luxurious i kept norman from snoring so i could sleep bob's look good too i like how much sleep talk there is it's like a good way to start the day everybody checking in on everybody's sleep those the decorations yeah you want me to spray honeycomb balls what are you saying [Music] holy is that nice i didn't mean to curse it oh man all coming together yeah actually it's coming together thank you you worry a little too much i i i just want to write i'm 77 and i cannot change my freaking song if i want to change myself am i too late 33 got plenty of time in your lifetime you'll change three more times is it always good changes it's good changes well i think see having seen my you know grandfather and stuff get older it's like i think you know you worry when you see it because you're not experiencing that you assume it must be scary and painful all the time and it's refreshing to see that it's not we're doing all right we can handle ourselves we can handle ourselves you know like tess and the other ones they can handle themselves they don't need their son or daughter there to tell them anything when they need your help they'll call you yeah leave them alone you know let them do what they got to do they're fine you're supposed to age right right this is something the body does to you it's not straight it's not some sickness right right i get you exactly you know well thank you you're welcome for everything um let's go have a party let's go have a i'm ready for that kid [Music] this is dr kelly she lives in our building and she's going to play a a piano piece and she's on youtube with this [Music] place [Music] wow [Music] [Applause] you just want to eat all right then listen you're going to have an auntie pasta that's here with everything and don't forget this is informal right it's a pool party so here's your dishes it's a relief to see even here in the heart of god's waiting room in florida aging isn't the grim death spiral i've always feared it is [Music] i know i'm starting to develop a tendency to repeat myself but this retirement community seems a lot less like the last year of people's lives and that was kind of the last week of high school responsibility is sort of offset to the younger generation everybody's just focused on hanging out with whoever's left being in the building or just alive i can't swim christ are they more fun than me [Music] even the body's natural deterioration seems a lot less terrifying than it is kind of a gradually increasing inconvenience towards having maximum fun let me still have a few more working years than me left before i adopt the lake point lifestyle but glad to be back to looking forward to it [Music] i hope you come back again kids

Channel: VICE

Views: 291,371

Rating: 4.9070301 out of 5

Keywords: Florida, sub.culture, retirement, senior citizens, golden years, golden girls, dotage, dotards, the old, the aged, the elderly, aarp discounts, flahridah, hallandale, vice, journalism, documentary, culture, interview, vice videos, lifestyle, independent, vice guide, exclusive, vice magazine, vice.com, world, documentaries, docs, retirement planning, retire early, retired working for you, retirement party, retirement withdrawal strategy

Id: 63qdAAxHSwU

Length: 22min 26sec (1346 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/kaevne]

This was oddly heartwarming, thanks for sharing!