“I call this community: “Life after Life”. There are people well into 80’s and 90’s enjoying their life as if they were 50’s and 60’s. You can actually look forward to growing old. There is a lot to do. A reason to live,” said Vera MacIntosh, on a Sun City blog.
Within 10 years, for the first time in human history there will be more people aged 65 and older than children under 5 in the world. -Richard Suzman, Ph.D., a director at the National Institute on Aging
Pat Hafey describes Sun City as a best kept secret as he lawn bowls with friends. “It’s like recess seven days a week. You wake up in the morning and it’s not gotta, gotta, should, it’s what do I want to do today? What do I want to play today?”
January first of 2010 will mark the 50th anniversary of the first Sun City. 50 years ago, a traffic jam was backed-up all the way to Peoria, Arizona full of people in line to purchase a home in Sun City. 237 houses sold that weekend. The idea of retirement was shifting, thanks to Dell Webb, the man behind Sun City. (Mr. Webb was on the cover of TIME Magazine, “A New Way of Life for the Old,” in 1962 for his remarkable real estate idea.)
For 50 years, those 55 and older have relocated to Sun City, Arizona, a city self-governed, a city unlike any other in the world. Sun City is 13 square miles of a retirement paradise of palm tree lined streets, each with a golf cart lane. The average age is 73. The community boasts eleven golf courses, seven recreation centers, seven swimming pools, three country clubs, 16 shopping centers and two libraries; the 42,500 residents have a lot to keep busy.
The women in the advanced Tip Top Tap class call out their ages to me, “83, 70, 79, 76, 80, 73, 79.” Then they start their routine, legs moving swiftly in unison. “Teeth, taps and tits, girls, show ‘em what we got! Attitude, girls!,” yells out instructor Kelley Greenburg. Her mother Jane, 93, is the MC for the class.
These residents aren’t your stereotypical grandparents living with their children—they are quite the opposite– to live in Sun City one person in the household must be 55 or older and no one younger than19 can stay year-round. Why have a reminder of age when you’re already heading to your cheerleading practice in the morning, lawn bowling after lunch, metal-working before dinner and a singles dance before bed?
“People assume we’re in God’s waiting room and that we’re all in our 90s and waiting to die. We couldn’t be farther from that,” said Paul Hermann, 10-year resident and Director of the Sun City Visitor’s Center.
With all the activities going on at Sun City, one might think these are old people playing young. Really, these are just people living their lives as fully as they can and without the responsibilities of young children and a 9 to 5, why shouldn’t they?
From an outsider’s perspective, there are hints of aging. A wheelchair in the corner of the Men’s Social Club, three funerals at Sunland Memorial Park Mortuary on any given day, a man walking through the parking lot to the Bell Recreation Center pushing a walker, amended rules to avoid injuries for softball for the 20-plus teams. The reality of all this living is that it doesn’t last forever, but that is easy to forget most days in Sun City –and maybe that is part of its grand plan.
This shift of thinking of the aged as living fully, rather than inching toward death is an important one. According to a recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau commissioned by the National Institute on Aging, “the oldest old, people aged 80 and older, are the fastest growing portion of the total population in many countries. Globally, the oldest old population is projected to increase 233 percent between 2008 and 2040.”
Age is forgotten in Sun City, and dying is easy to forget until you wander Sunland Memorial Park. Grave after grave of couples lay side by side. Hazel and Fred, “Together Forever.” Eleanor and George, “Sweethearts Forever.” Yet, you can’t help but think that maybe these lives were lived fuller until their ends.
Jessica Lowry
December 22nd, 2009, 4:10 pm #
Kendrick!
What a great idea for a project. I love the photo from the dance class with the ladies in green and the older couple with their heads together on the dance floor. Nice job! Glad AZ treated you well!
Eric Kayne
December 22nd, 2009, 4:22 pm #
Great work, Kendrick!
Jenn
December 22nd, 2009, 4:33 pm #
Amazing stuff, Kendrick! I’ve been following your work for a while, but this set holds some of my favorite images of yours to date. I adore that first portrait and may have to commission a print from you someday.
Corey Perrine
December 22nd, 2009, 4:39 pm #
I saw this at Eich’s. Wonderful work. Favorites are number one and lawn bowling on the dirt.
Greg Kahn
December 22nd, 2009, 6:32 pm #
Dang Kendrick! Really great work, I love your vision on this project.
Chip Litherland
December 22nd, 2009, 8:03 pm #
Looks like home to me…for someone who lives in Florida (God’s Waiting Room), I truly appreciate this seeing.
Really amazing, and makes me want to go out and make pictures.
Keep it up, kid.
Chip
taco bell loving taylor
December 22nd, 2009, 8:52 pm #
great work kendrick, really nice.
Stephen Voss
December 22nd, 2009, 11:07 pm #
Wonderful work, Kendrick, so many good photos. Love the kleenex box on the cooler at the cemetery.
James Folker
December 23rd, 2009, 1:35 am #
Very nice, Kendrick. That helicopter ride was worth the terror. I love the aerial shot, and the head-to-head dancers.
Best,
JF
Anjeli
December 23rd, 2009, 11:44 am #
Great work Kendrick and such an amazing way to illustrate this beautiful story!
Bryan
December 23rd, 2009, 1:38 pm #
Such a good story, Kendrick. What a fascinating place and very well shot. I’m inspired.
Matt Roth
December 23rd, 2009, 2:15 pm #
Yaaaay! Nice stuff Kendrick. I hope you get to go out there again. I really love the couple dancing and the metamucil shoe detail.
Brad
December 23rd, 2009, 9:43 pm #
Great story and photo series!
Kendrick Brinson
December 27th, 2009, 7:33 pm #
i am so overwhelmed by all the comments. it was a lot of fun to work on– although those people had me running around like a mad woman. lawn bowling to tap to cheerleading to bingo to singles dancing to tennis. good Lord, I felt old!
I hope to head back in March. so, more then!
ewbie
December 28th, 2009, 4:20 pm #
is this what you see in your crystal ball?
sigh.
stop making me hate you for being so good.
it’s not healthy.
Shaena Mallett
December 29th, 2009, 12:45 pm #
This is awesome, Kendrick! love it. great job
Jim Heinrich
December 29th, 2009, 3:28 pm #
I so enjoy your Sun City photos, Kendrick. Brad Horn sent me the link to your Sun City photo essay. I apologize for not contacting you before you arrived (Brad had asked me to), but it’s obvious that you found your way to some key features of this town. I’ve worked in it for 30 years and have lived in it for the past eight years. You’ve captured the playful residents very entertainingly! The ones you missed weren’t there for you to shoot: they were at work (like me) or volunteering at schools and care centers or gone back to Ohio to help their kids and grandkids pack up their foreclosed home or lobbying for a pet bill at the State legislature or . . . After 30 years of knowing Sun City, I see it as anyone sees their “home town”–a haven from the world and a launching pad into it. Throw the end-of-life facts into the mix of our activities and you just begin to feel what it’s like to live in Sun City.
Helena Price
December 30th, 2009, 7:49 pm #
I am completely enamored with this set. So so so wonderful.