Tag Archives: Williamsburg

Happenings

Hoping all had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and did not forget what and/or why the holiday is. It’s not for commercialization but for the religious beliefs that is meant. In fact, here we are just a few days after Christmas, New Year is not here yet, and Valentine stuff is already up. Now we are in the new year with new things that will occur (especially here in the USA). There are other worst things that are occurring in the world. Let us not forget good old Imperial Plaza have it’s problems also. Oh well..Life goes on.

Being retired means having fun so I’ll mention only a couple things that is happening at Imperial Plaza. Our head of food services is out although he just got here. I’ve talked about food services before therefore I won’t get into it again although my heart is pulling me to speak more on the subject. Alas, I will not, for now. Also, there are a lot of people that is crying about the rent going up but it is just a little bit. I know that being retired put most people on a fixed income but this is not unexpected. No matter where a person go, the rent takes a yearly rise. Not much but it will rise. There is a very old joke that mention “like age, rent goes up” and it does. And we have a new director for Imperial Plaza, Mr. Don Jones. I am patiently awaiting the good things that is promised to happen.

In Imperial Plaza’s weekly travels, this week we went to the Virginia State Capitol Building. I have been to the U.S. Capitol many, many times but not my own state’s. Why and how, you would ask. Easy. The word is “segregation”. As a kid I lived in Washington, D.C. and we used to play in the capitol building and go to many other places. It was not like it is now. The Virginia Capitol is beautiful, not because it has been through a recent renovation but it is. The first capitol was in Jamestown then it moved to Williamsburg and, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War it moved to Richmond.

I took many pictures and listened to the tour guide with fascination. Much of what was said bought back my teachings in school. When I started school, it was a requirement to take the course, Virginia History. This was a requirement all through elementary school. It would have been nice to come to the capitol, when I was in school, but two things were in the way to keep that from happening. First I lived in Petersburg and Richmond was twenty miles away with zero school buses and second, it was during segregation and that meant many places I could not go and that was one of them.

I’ll cut this short for now and go on to another pressing thing. Before I go I want to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR and want you to keep reading and please pass this on and on and on. I need followers and likes for encouragement to continue and, most of all, for the blog to grow. Suggestions for topics to write about would also be great. See ya and remember my saying…Be kind to your neighbors because you’ll never know when you’ll need them. Also, ensure your words are soft and sweet because you’ll never know when you’ll have to eat them. Bye, bye…

Taking Advantage of Retirement

I will write, again, about being retired and all the fun that is out there to be taken advantage. But, there are others, in my retirement community, that want to just sit and complain about this and that and rarely, if not ever, take advantage of the magnitude of opportunities. I promised to give a little more of my travels and/or taking advantage of the opportunities, not only here at Imperial Plaza but outside the gates of the community. But, first I must say, there are numerous things to do and most are free and what is not free is very cheap.

Everyone here know my wife and I love the casinos and the last one was a stay at the Sands Hotel and Casino/Mall in Bethlehem, Pa. (Sunshine Bus Tours). To say the casino was huge is not a dream but the truth. Of all the casinos we have visited, that was the largest. The hotel room was very large and cleaned daily whether we wanted cleaning or not. There was a cards tournament going on and the number of people playing (must have been in the hundreds) would not fit in Imperial Plaza’s auditorium. It was a nice trip…

The Activities Department, here at Imperial Plaza, have been doing a great job. Among the many trips (I’ll name two) was the fishing trip at the mouth of the Chesterpeak Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and the latest trip was on (The Alliance) a schooner on the York River. We sailed out of Yorktown and, after sailing in the triple mast (sails) schooner, had lunch at Outback in Williamsburg, Va. This Wednesday is to the Maryland Live Casino/Mall, can’t miss that, and, two months from now, a trip to the casino in West Virginia (Charlestown).

I just found out that a Richmond Mayoral Debate will be held here and I am wondering how many residents will attend. People here have so much apathy toward so much yet they can sit around in the lobby area and gripe about everything. I didn’t care about Richmond politics until I started living here. Now that Richmond is my city of residence and where I vote (we have a voting precinct in house), I am very interested and there is a need to know before I vote. Since there is a voting precinct here, I wonder how many residents vote, especially the Black vote. I have found the Black people here show more indifference than most and participation is seldom, with the exception of very few.

A few days ago I was talking with a couple of people about cities and, out of the blue, I was asked “what makes a city a city?” and I had to stop and think a second. It came to me about a conversation I had with a ranking postal official in North Dakota. I had wondered what made such small towns in North Dakota designated as cities. Some of the cities in North Dakota are smaller than our large trailer parks here in Richmond. This man told me that all the place needed was an operating post office and it could then become a city on it’s own. Well, Imperial Plaza don’t have a post office per se, but it does have package pickup, stamps, mail delivery and mail pickup. To top that off, Imperial Plaza have a bank, store, restaurant, doctor’s office, pharmacy, etc. All the places some cities in the USA don’t have and that includes having police, buses, barber shop, beauty parlor, etc. The resident don’t have to leave the premises for anything that is needed. We are a city within a city but without our own zip code. Now I don’t want to hear anyone saying I didn’t name this or that because I purposely didn’t mention everything. There is so much here to mention that I don’t want to attempt naming everything because I know I will miss something.

So, until the next time, I want everyone to be careful out there because any bad thing can happen at any time. Just be vigilant and careful but don’t go off the deep end and take matters into your own hands. Let the proper people do that and respect them for doing a great job in spite of the miniscule few that put a taint on their name. Peace Out

facebook-20160918-101543(I’m hoisting the foresail by myself but the teenager, in the blue cap, was suppose to help me)