Are These 1970 Retirees Funny To You? They Were Living The American Dream When I Filmed This

I filmed this so long ago. My soundman and I spent one day in Sun City, Arizona at the retirement community that was being built there. I had never been to Arizona. I’d never been in a retirement community which was something fairly new back then. There were some retirement communities being built in Florida like The Villages.
I was 29 years old. Everybody over 30 seemed old to me and the concept of retiring seemed weird. This community, like the others I assume, seemed to be all for white Americans back then. Very little if any diversity. And the residents had a similar view of the meaning of the American dream and of retirement that was a bit humorous to me as this video indicates. But it was also touching. These people had worked long and hard to have their retirement and they bought into what the Sun City organization said it should be. Houses were selling like hot cakes back then and the community was growing rapidly.

Now that I am 81 years old as I write this, unable to retire for financial reasons so I won’t really have that experience, I ask myself whether what I filmed back then would be anything like what I would do if I had a retirement and the answer is a profound no. I don’t put these people down for living their vision of the American dream. Sunny days. The pools. The clubs. The dances. The golf. The golf carts. A home decorated as you wish without any children around or as one of the interview subjects in my video says, without any dirt or dogs around.

I say video but in fact this is 16mm. 10 minutes of film per reel. We were a film crew of two, cameraman and soundman. I was one of the many freelance filmmakers in New York City who got work from PBL - The Public Broadcasting Laboratory, which did wonderfully creative stuff back then and ran it on national television. And as a kid from Long Island who had never really been anywhere, just about everything that I filmed was new to me. I found that if I was friendly and open to the folks in front of the camera whom I interviewed, they were open and friendly to me. I think that shows in this sequence.

If you have the wherewithal, I would appreciate your clicking on the Thanks button below the video screen to the right as it supports my efforts to present clips from my work going way back.

And if so inclined, I would love you to comment by sharing your view of what retirement means to you, whether you expect to have a retirement, and if you have a feelings about the American Dream.