When I was younger, I wondered why so many older people moved to Florida and other warm-weather states, or spent the winter months there. Now that I have grown older myself, I am more in tune with the reasons why winter is so hard on older people.

Many years ago, when I was in Florida visiting my friends Josey and Wally, I noticed a large apartment building that seemed to cater to older residents. My friends told me this building was actually a winter retreat for older adults who lived in Florida during the cold winter months, but resided up north during the summer and fall months.

The local Floridians call these temporary residents from the north “snow birds” because they flee to Florida to avoid the cold, snowy north during the winter, just like most birds. During the winter, Josey and Wally lived in an apartment in Florida, escaping the cold of Southern Illinois.

What I’ve always liked about Southern Illinois is that we have four seasons. We enjoy occasional snowy mornings in winter, the awakenings of spring, the green of summer, and the beautiful fall colors. Florida can’t offer all four seasons like those that we enjoy here.

When I was younger, I used to think that all that talk about the warmth and sunshine of Florida was overstated. Now that I’m older, I’ve come to realize why Josey and Wally were drawn to a warm-weather state when it’s cold. I dislike the cold weather myself. I have decided that snow and cold are for hardier young people, not people like me.

This March I travelled to Florida to bring my mother home. She spends her winters in Florida just as Josey and Wally. I had never seen her apartment there as my siblings had always volunteered to go to Florida and drive mom and her automobile home.

While in Florida before we started home, I visited a seaside restaurant, saw the Kennedy Space Center, and visited a lovely state park. I enjoyed the warm weather, flowering roadside scenes, and plentiful sunshine.

As we drove home, I began to feel the colder weather, see snow banks piled up beside the road, and observed much grayer skies. The proverbial “light bulb” went off in my head, “this is why people flee to warm-weather states in the winter.”

Because older people like Josey and Wally, and my mother, escape their homes up north to a warm-weather state in the winter, they don’t see the snow-covered mornings, or experience frostbite “nipping” at their noses.

Deciding between winters with frostbite nipping at my nose up north and warm weather down south is not that tough of a decision now that age has enlightened me.

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