Open Writing

The “Snow Bird” phenomenon is so named for the wave of people who, every year, flee the tough winters of America’s northern states for the sunny warmth of Florida. The migration begins any time after September, and reaches its zenith in January and February. The return flow usually begins after Easter.

The “Snow Birds” are a mixture of retired and semi-retired people, business owners who can get away, and the families of the “Snow Birds,” whose young children are not yet in school. Amongst the middle aged and older people are unattached ladies - widows, divorcees, and career-women who never had time to get married, all looking for a man.

These are women with a mission. They are not by any means the prairie flowers that “Bloom to blush unseen, and waste their fragrance on the desert air.” These long- deflowered beauties are loaded for bear, and you are in their sights. They often stalk with married friends who do the spotting, and usually effect the introduction.

Before my wife joined me to live in Florida, I sometimes went to the “Happy Hour,” put on each Wednesday at one of our Community’s bar restaurants. On my first visit, sitting at the bar, I was approached by a lady and her husband who introduced themselves and welcomed me to the Community.
While her husband turned away to talk golf with a buddy, the lady engaged me in innocuous cocktail conversation. After we had become “Old friends,” with the help of a couple of gin martinis, she pointed out a woman at the other side of the ‘U” shaped bar. The woman was beautifully dressed, impeccably groomed and bejeweled, but clearly in her eighties.

My new best friend indicated that the lady was looking for a husband. I hurriedly and perhaps ungraciously explained that I was very happily married and that my wife would be joining me soon. We have not conversed at length since then, but I later discovered that her lady friend is a neighbor of mine.
Early one morning I encountered her putting out the garbage in her nighty. If I had harbored any illusions about her as a potential mate, they would have been shattered in that instant – all bed-head hair and unfettered torso.

The late life Amazons, as I call them, are well equipped to size up their prospects. No longer the dewy eyed maidens of their youth, they “have a lean and hungry look,” as Shakespeare might have said. They have the eyes of a hawk, and can scan a room with the precision and speed of a supermarket check-out laser reading a bar code.

Once a prospect is spotted, the laser goes down a list. Some hair – check. Acceptably small pot belly – check. Gucci trouser belt – check. Bally loafers – check. No stoop – check. Within the age range 45 to 85 – check. Once the scan is completed, the print-out instructs either to “Go for it!” or “Resume search – drinks too much, and has hearing problem” or some other caution.

Having less time, patience and energy for a protracted dalliance, once connected with a prospect, these ladies cut to the chase – pragmatism personified. A neighbor, who has been divorced for a number of years and has no plans to remarry, was told at the outset by his new lady friend that she would date him for a year, but if she found a marriage prospect in the meantime, she would marry – and she did. A recently widowed woman I know met a man at, of all places, a grief counseling group, and within a year they were married!

In singling out women, I’m not intending to be sexist. It’s simply that men are hard-wired by their genes to be predatory, so such behavior is not remarkable. It is interesting to ponder whether women are going through a generational transition, or whether contemporary social mores are allowing an inherent characteristic to surface. After all, in the world of the big cats, the females do all the hunting.

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