Some Kind of Heaven

Turn to the center now.

And then single file.

Watch your spacing, yeah, yeah. Okay, good.

Center.

Good speed.

Very nice spacing.

Ted, hang back a little.

Get back next to Cindy, Ted.

Ted!

Come on, give me your best strokes!

That's the power.

Together!

Everything here is just so positive, so...

I'm lost for words.

I don't see the slums. I don't see death and destruction.

I don't see murders.

You don't see a lot of children running around here either.

You're not gonna be, tomorrow,

the same age you are today. So think about you.

You come here to live.

You don't come here to pass away.

You don't need to go outside the Villages.

You would never have to leave.

Everything you ever want is here.

Everything is here.

The restaurants, the golf course, the tennis courts.

If you try to come off as, you're "bored",

then you're full of it, because they have everything here.

There is no place like this.

This is Nirvana.

One, two, three...

Woo!

When you live here, you...

kind of become younger.

We have more than 20,000 single people.

When they become single, whether it's through divorce,

whether it's through death,

it's a new awakening.

It's like a butterfly coming out of that cocoon.

After the wife passed, I started night-clubbing.

I got a second chance and a second bite at the apple.

I ran into my new love of my life.

And met her on the square at Spanish Springs.

From then, it was the best of times.

I'm not in a hurry, I'm meeting a lot of people.

And I know eventually, I'll meet somebody nice

to share the rest of my life with.

There are lots of people that have been married

a really long time here.

I'm proud. I'm proud that we've made it 47 years.

What does that mean?

That means, "Time flies when you're having fun."

Yeah.

Hey, everybody.

When you move here, it is like going off to college.

Since nobody's from here,

everybody can be what they want to be down here.

Hey, everybody!

- Anne, how are you? - Hey, Larry.

What strikes me is,

people move here with the intention

of having a happy, healthy life.

They've been workaholics

to keep from thinking about their problems in life.

They're in a box with their time.

Most people are like that.

Including Anne.

She's such an athlete, and she's living her dream.

It leaves me alone,

which is really good in a lot of cases.

But then there's days which I would like to have...

I'd like to have somebody to pal around with, you know.

...the sooner you will start feeling like yourself again.

No, you know what, I can get through this...

My husband was getting ready to retire.

The Villages seemed like a magical, beautiful place.

I decided that I would sell my house

and we would move down here and start fresh.

If you're looking for fun,

there's only about 3,000 clubs here in the Villages.

I mean, gosh, if you can't find something here,

check your pulse, will you?

Yeah, well, alright, here's, for example...

Hi, this is Barbara.

Hi, it's Barbara from the Villages' Rehab and Nursing.

How you doing?

No, it's going to get delivered, the equipment, to the house...

But there's one person for Sunday who needs

a 20-inch wheelchair with a cushion.

Alrighty, thank you.

My mind is always wandering.

Always wandering to home.

- To Massachusetts. - Hello?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, sorry. Yep?

Yes, that's fine.

My savings over the 11 years that I had are gone,

which would've been enough to go back.

I'm just saying, for me,

it hasn't been the fantasy land that I thought it would be.

For reasons that... Some are true to my own self, you know?

Oh, my god!

I am sorry. I...

Fifi! Fifi, please!

You'll always remember me, guys!

Fifi, please stop!

It's a dominance thing, honest to God!

It has nothing to do with sex. The vet told me.

The reason I came here is because I figured

this would be the last hurrah.

Where else can you party seven days a week

with live entertainment? It's a great place.

I came down here from California

to meet some wealthy women and get set up for life.

I think I'm gonna have to live in the van

until I find that woman

that I'm looking for, and it's getting close, I think.

What I'm looking for is a companion,

a nice-looking lady with some money

that looks good, that I'd be

not embarrassed to be seen on the street with.

And down here, they're rare.

It's rare to find a classic lady down here, actually,

that's really sharp, but they're out there.

But you have to find out where to find them.

And I've been working the bars, and that's not working.

I tried the churches, and that's not working.

So then I started hitting the swimming pools

a few months ago, and that works really well.

I just hustle them and talk to them

and get them to invite me over for cocktails.

Then eventually I can move in with them

if everything works out alright.

It should work.

This place was developed originally by my father,

Harold Schwartz, in the mid '80s.

When I got here, there were 800 people.

And now there's 130,000 so...

we did something right.

They're living their American dream, as we are.

We needed to create this place not brand-new.

We wanted to create it... old.

We decided to bring the baby boomers

to a home that they were familiar with

when they were young.

We're often referred to

as the "Disney World for retirees".

We contacted a company to design and build

an old-fashioned town center, the kind we all grew up in.

And we were taken aback by their first question.

"What's your storyline?

Every town has a reason for being."

"That's easy," we said.

"Our villagers moved here because they found

the Fountain of Youth."

The history here in the Villages,

there's a real history, and then there's the...

kind of the made-up history.

Back then, Andrew Jackson hadn't come down into this area

and made the Indians mad yet.

And the local people tried to replicate the Indian dance.

And to this very day, you can still see that dance

if you go to the squares at night.

Because you see the...

You see... They say white people can't dance,

but you see them doing their little hop...

That's our local prison.

There's a lot of history on all the buildings.

Different stories that have all been made up

over a bottle of scotch.

When we first moved here,

it was like being on vacation every day.

But it is not the real world.

We live in a bubble.

Yeah!

With Reggie, you have to be very open-minded.

I never know what he's going to come up with next.

And you never know what people are gonna think about it.

That's the horrible part.

What her friends might think about me.

They think you're unusual.

The Villages has given Reggie an opportunity

to grow in different ways.

You tickle, fly, go away.

When we got married, he really was not so unique.

That kind of developed over the years.

My whole training is about ending my life

with a smile on my face.

Everybody knows they're on the verge of death.

And people are just still ignoring it.

And so, I really like...

stimulating myself with drugs.

They get me to a spiritual place really quickly.

I don't understand it and I don't like it,

because I think it's a dependency on something

that just is not good for you.

But I can respect what he's found

and what he's looking for.

Hi, my name's Elaine.

Hi, my name is Elaine.

Elaine is our name.