Posted on 01/12/2006 9:24:23 AM PST by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
A Korean veteran says he's too old to change his habits to conform to his housing society's idea of a wholesome recreational environment.
"I thought this was supposed to be the year of the veteran," Gerry Cooke said. "I don't know why they don't just board the [rec room] up and convert it into a two bedroom apartment with the amount of use they get out of it."
Cooke, 71, who lives in a building managed by the Anavets Senior Citizens' Housing Society, says his building's recreational room once acted as a gathering place for residents who would line up to play bingo, watch piano performances and drink and smoke socially with one another.
Over the years he claims the housing society has restricted the facility's use, leaving financially challenged veterans without a place to socialize the way they once did.
"Some residents go up to the pub at the corner," he said. "But I can't afford to go up there and pay $5 for a beer.
"It's out of my price range."
Last week the society removed a shuffle board from the room, a move Cooke feels was mean-spirited.
"It's just the principle," he said. "They should've consulted us living here."
Mary McLeod, the secretary for the society said the shuffle board was removed to make room for exercise programs being offered through the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
"As far as we were aware the shuffle board was used rarely," she told The North Shore Outlook. "There are 89 tenants and we've received one complaint from a disgruntled tenant. You can't please everyone."
Cooke said the society has introduced a number of seminars, lunch, dinner and recreational programs in the facility in light of the year of the veteran.
She acknowledged at one time residents used the facility for social drinking, but said it was never sanctioned by the society's board.
"It created problems for other tenants," she explained. "People living above were not able to get to sleep. It was not conducive to that party atmosphere."
Since restricting cigarettes and alcohol from the facility, the society has organized movie nights, adding a TV, VCR and DVD into the room.
"It's a more wholesome recreational activity now," she said.
But Cooke, a 15-year resident of the building, maintains the change has marginalized some residents who are too old to change their ways.
"I can see [the wholesome environment working for] younger generations, but us people are beyond the bill," he said.
"I'm not going to stop smoking and I'm sure not going to stop drinking beer."
Just put in the new video games and they can have
-virtual smoking
-vitual drinking
-virtual carousing with female members of the opposite sex even.
Now it's time for arts n crafts kiddies and some really kewl wholesome entertainment...milk and cookies and nap time later.
It's a Canadian facility.
Well, I wasn't a brave combat vet (I was scared ****less the whole time), but I am a combat vet that refuses to have the smarmy pieces of no-caring excrement talk to me as though I were a child and treat me as though I were nothing more than a pain in the ass that they have to deal with.
If I ever go back to one of the damn things, it'll be because I need a death bed.
And as I die, I hope I crap all over and vomit like a demon, just so one of the stinking "compassionate" employees (that rarely speak english) have to clean it up.
I would not have my dog treated in a VA hospital.
I'll NEVER be that old.
I'll pee in their wheaties and put butter in their shoes, I'll hide their ink pens, I'll tear up their remittance forms. If nothing else I'll strip 'em to their underwear in my mind and laugh uproariously at the picture.
I will NEVER be controlled no matter how old I become.
I'm sure MOST have always agreed with that and don't need convincing. I don't understand why it has been continued for so long. This problem should have ben fixed long ago.
Ah, yes. The much-vaunted Canadian health care and social safety net in action.
Sadly, we are becoming more like them, as other posters have noted.
Nanny staters are repulsive in thought, word, and deed.
Isn't the left, in their push for euthanasia, that is always citing "quality" of life over "quanity?" If you can't enjoy life, why live it?
Seems that only matters when they are ready to kill Granny or a disabled wife.
Wholesome and quality somehow don't seem to mix well.
"Wholesome and quality somehow don't seem to mix well."
IMO this was a wise choice since studies have found that smoking and alcohol will lead to premature death.........(/sarcasm)
In terms of ammenities (sp?) and quality of life, this country is unsurpassed. In terms of erosion of freedoms, this country leads the list. I have had the pleasure of visiting central America many times, I have a friend who married a woman from the Ukraine and in all the conversations I have had with my friends in CA and my friend's wife, their respective countries still have the personal liberties that our grandparents enjoyed...........
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