Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news source designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, trifling, and superficial events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives at Rogue Valley Manor

MANOR MAN FOUND SEMI-CONSCIENCE IN FRONT OF OWN COTTAGE

Responding to distressed Life Alert alarm, Manor Security rushes to village site of recently-arrived Manor resident.  Experience difficulties reaching suspected victim. Front lawn area recently converted into labyrinth of mature six-foot high cannabis plants.  Dense maize stalls rescue efforts. Dead-ends abound in thicket.

Mercy Flight chopper called to aid search. Spots victim. Guides on-ground responders to key path leading to center of labyrinth.  Responders find supine victim lying in patch of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Area fawn licking resident’s face. Victim roused. Speaks haltingly.

Claims late-in-life recurring bouts of despondency. Finds solace in labyrinth meditation and mushroom-induced out-of-body experience. Responders suspect overdose likely cause of temporary unconscious spell.  Victim waves off additional help. Re-enters cottage under own unsteady power.

Nit Wit Newz investigative reporter, Sally Forth, at recovery scene. Senses deeper backstory.  Uncovers victim bio info.
Name: Sully Waters. Retired, single male, loner. Born, raised in North Carolina. Vocation: decades-long civilian job at nearby military installation. Avocation: shuffleboard. Three-time state champion in sport. Waters’ life wrapped up in career and shuffleboard.

Sudden departure of Waters from east coast. Decision followed abrupt severance of long-time employment. Was Water Commissioner at North Carolina Marine Base. Charged with malfeasance. Bitter over dismissal. Despondency follows.

Reporter Forth wheedles interview with reclusive Waters. Reveals to reporter: sought major change after job discharge. Left east coast. Searched senior communities in west. Tabs Rogue Valley Manor last September: Liked leafy, wooded campus. Liked RVM cottage accommodations with yard to grow serenity-providing, despondency-soothing labyrinth. Manor Summer Game offered opportunity to indulge lifelong competitive passion—shuffleboard.  Shocks soon follow.

Discovered that among thirty events included in Summer Games— no shuffleboard!  Worse. Discovered that though Manor had tennis courts, golf course, croquet court, lawn bowling court, horseshoe pit, pickleball and badminton courts, swimming pool, pool tables, ping pong, bocce ball and a court for corn bag tossing—there was no shuffleboard court at Rogue Valley Manor!

Waters decries, “RVM only senior community in U.S. without a shuffleboard court.”  First, career loss, now, shuffleboard skills scuttled. Despondency morphs into deep despair.  Tells reporter Forth, realization of facing a shuffleboard-less life prompted his retreat to labyrinth and mushroom overdose on day of front yard incident.

Forth submits Sully Waters plight to authorities. Rogue Valley Manor administration responds.  Enlists Wellness Department aid.  Waters, eager to move past life of quiet desperation, begins intensive rehab program.

(Readers: fast forward several weeks to present, early November)

Marked improvement evident. Waters despondency wanes.  Credits daily regimen of Zumba dancing, Tai Chi, Pilates, and Aqua Conditioning for improved physical well-being. Competitive spirit re-ignited due to comprehensive instruction in the Corn Bag Toss. (Claims he’ll be serious contender in event at 2023 Summer Games).  Reveals to reporter Forth, major force in his rehabilitation was new-found friend. Shares silent bonding moments in labyrinth each morning with Manor fawn.

Tranquility returns to Rogue Valley Manor.

—A. Looney

(Nit Wit Newz is an unauthorized, often unreliable, on-line news source designed to keep Manor residents abreast of the inconsequential, trifling, and superficial events that dramatically shape and inform our everyday lives at Rogue Valley Manor.)

BITTER RIFT SPLITS MANOR BRASS
AND WELLNESS CLASS MEMBERS

March:  Manor’s fave dance instructor, lithe, lovable Jeanette Bournival  (J. Bo’) forms rain dance class.

Class purpose: Raise lagging area rainfall measurements to traditional levels. At the same time, promote improved cardio-vascular health among residents through practice of ancient and vigorous Native American incantation rites.

Class yields immediate results. Credited by many for delivering unusual spate of late April- May showers last spring. Brought 2021-22 season rainfall totals to near normal levels. Participants began to report improved heart rates, lower blood pressure, increased energy, weight loss, sounder sleep, and decreased irritability.

News provokes growth of dance class size. By end of June, reaches over fifty members.

Early July:  Despite unqualified success, Manor authorities cancel class.

Class members shocked. Demand explanation. Demand resumption of class.

Authorities cite freak July 2 evening deluge dropping of unprecedented five inches of rain (as measured by Saul K’s reliable Peartree Lane gauge) in matter of hours.

Inexplicable storm.  Was RVM specific. Oddly, same storm delivered less than an inch of rain at nearby Medford airport.

Damage to campus widespread: garages flooded, skylights leaked, streets mud-filled, landscapes lashed.

Probe by authorities turns up possible causal activity.

Wellness department records reveal July 2 afternoon meeting of J. Bo’s rain dance class on lawn bowling green adjacent to gym. Unexpectedly joined by six-piece steel drum band.  Presence of steel drum ensemble heightened intensity of ritual dance. Frenzied levels reached among fevered, chanting, foot-thumping, rain-beseeching seniors. Regular 45-minute class stretched into three-hour mania dance. Exhaustion sets in. Session ends.

Four hours later, fury of aforementioned tempest unleashed on RVM.

Suspicious link between devastating storm and high-octane campus dance session earlier in same day gives pause to authorities—coincidence, or cause-and-effect?

Decide on caution. Class temporarily halted in July. Final decision on future of class to be reached at start of new rainfall season, October 1.

Intense lobbying of authorities begins.  J.Bo’ and her not-so merry band of drought busters seek class resumption.  Nothing less.

Claim class continuation of rain dance activities promotes plentiful season of precipitation. No need to face another year of watching agonizingly slow trickle of rain drop into Peartree Lane gauge as parched-earth drought drags on.  Class offered bountiful side benefits:  improved resident physical well-being, healthful bonhomie bonds among participating dancers.

Authorities unpersuaded.

Late September:  Tensions tighten. Clock ticking. New rainfall seasons upon us.

Loggerheaded issue headed to Special Master Judge for mandatory arbitration.

Both sides fear outside source decision.

Rain dance group floats eleventh-hour compromise:

– No dance session to exceed forty-five minutes.

– No steel drum band.

Manor authorities relent. Parties ink pact. Class to resume.

Harmony returns to campus.

First class: Sunday, twelve noon at lawn-bowling green stomping grounds.

J, Bo’ to dancers: “Bring your galoshes!”

—A.Looney