Chapter 5, Part 1 - The Activities

Harbor View is such a vast place that the condo development offers every activity imaginable to man, woman, and senior citizen. There are an 18-hole golf course, three pools, a few lakes for fishing, and the clubhouse. What the condo buildings lack in character, the clubhouse makes up for with its beauty. It is a grand, exquisite building with white columns and a circular drive leading up to the entrance. It is pictures of the clubhouse that they put in all of those glossy brochures used to sell the condos. (Funny, I never saw any wheelchairs in those brochures.)

Once inside the lobby of the clubhouse, you see a beautiful crystal chandelier and yards of red carpet. That is if you can get inside. They guard the clubhouse as if it were the Holy Grail. Big, young security guards, who are completely unlike the little, old guard at the entrance gate, protect it. (I suppose the higher-ups at Harbor View think they will taunt would-be trespassers by letting them into the development grounds but then stopping them at the clubhouse. I have no idea why.) Only residents with valid Harbor View ID cards and guests with a current visitor’s pass ($3 daily, $7.50 weekly) can get inside. Otherwise you do not enter, no exceptions, period. They mean business here. You have to wonder if there is more going on inside the clubhouse doors than water aerobics and ping-pong.