As usual in Boca Raton, the sun was shining and the Palm trees were drooping and needed dusting. We were welcomed into a three story marbled foyer. The bright sun was shining down on us from a beautiful flower shaped sunlight way up high. We were almost accosted by three women running about wearing pink maid uniforms. The host and hostess were welcoming and bade us to sit on a chaise lounge at one rounded glass wall of the foyer. They were not old and not young, they wore shorts and she wore no underwear under her shorts.

He explained rather profusely the place we would call home. Amid a forest, lakes, trees, bears, golf course, country club, tennis courts, and the delights of the changing seasons.

He insisted on showing us pictures of The Lords Valley that he had mounted and framed in his bedroom. He was so very proud and waited for us to be astonished at the beauty and, of course we complied.

He made sure to tell me that of course our home would not be as large or opulent as this, here in Biocca Raton. A week later we were invited back for a cocktail party. In the same foyer a bar had become the centerpiece. The guests, all summer residents of The Lords Valley, all jovial, all bronzed and jeweled were welcoming, friendly, and excited us with tales of beauty of their retirement environment.

Sitting around a pool at little tables we were free to drink and eat and greet our soon to be bosses. I originally sat with a withered woman who told me she had been a U.N representative for a national Jewish women’s organization. She was so very proud of her accomplishments it took awhile before she told me how lovely the parsonage was. When she finally told me the appliances were avocado green, I realized immediately the vintage being offered to us.

We accepted this position sight unseen. We had found this community and job on the Internet. It offered us a wonderful chance. A chance to be with children and grandchildren in the U.S,  for six months each year, and the chance to see our Israeli children and live in Israel, our home, for six months of the year. Obviously G-d takes a vacation when it gets very cold and the snows whiten the trees and lakes and goes south to Boca Raton.

What a find for us. A unique community of Jews in a gated community in the woods. When we arrived a committee greeted us and showed us the parsonage and with glee told us how comfortable they would make the home for us. As though they were selling us, the provincials, the home.  They were having the outside of the home painted to be more agreeable for us.

A hideaway in the woods. Three bedrooms, two baths, fully furnished, complete with all necessities from the early 1960’s. The welcoming committee took pride in telling us how they hired people to clean.

After I took the rusted brass starburst ornament off of the fireplace wall a member was astounded, why hadn’t I liked it? The previous owner had the furnishings “done” by a decorator. She and her husband took great pride in their own custom made home and furnishings. Beautifully done.

We were hosted continuously as the community wanted to share in showing us the grandeur of their homes. Everyone took great pride in beautiful homes of dignity and wealth.

Shortly after our arrival the painters arrived. I awoke to a painter watching me; our new home was without walls. Windows floor to ceiling except bathrooms. Beautiful views, not so beautiful for painting. This chore took weeks as “the painters” primed the house very slowly. Days on end not showing up. One day as I looked out I saw mustard yellow being applied. In this the woods, where all houses were wood and glass and brick. The colors of wood with perhaps a beige house here and there. I called the housing committee chair and asked him to please checkout the color. He came over and agreed Heinz’s yellow mustard was not an improvement. So, he chose a subdued French mustard color.

During our first year in the home, we scrambled to “nest”. Always our homes had been important to us. We enjoyed making our living places a home. We would be entertaining and we in no way saw our home as competitive, but pleasing to us.

David was handy and enjoyed changing light fixtures, faucets, locks, and screens. A visiting board member insisted we order new carpeting. To both of us, it was with great humiliation that congregants bought and paid for a stove to replace the one that was unusable upon entry. Someone’s newer old refrigerator eventually replaced the old, rusting refrigerator. The propane heater in the fireplace was another donation. The cold winter was approaching. Another embarrassment to us. The very term “parsonage” was not a place that would have been acceptable to any member of the community. Moldy, rotting, broken furniture does not constitute a good place to live.

The parsonage was part of our salary package. We were not happy at having rain pour on our bed from the roof. We dried the mattress with a hair dryer.

In the winter we could not see through the windows. Mold and mildew and dirt around the edges of the carpeting were joined by thick ice inside the entire perimeter of the house.

The floor in the guest bathroom was slowly rotting. We packaged and towel draped our toilet. The repair work was too difficult to maintain. We made our case known and small repairs were done and we continued to try. We bought furniture and replaced a great deal in order to make it our home.

After the rains a contractor was chosen for the roof. The same man that took months to paint the house. Our roof was covered with tarp; we were packaged like sliced cheese, and the house smelled like cheese gone badly. The board begged this man to take the job of patching the roof. He was cheap. He had many jobs lined up and had to juggle jobs. We lived shrouded in hot weather under plastic tarp with the ceiling opening to the elements.

We can no longer live in a house maintained by a committee. As David lay dying on one couch and I lay in another recuperating from surgery, the patched roof collapsed on us during a thunderstorm damaging our dignity.