Malcolm Robertson was hoping to coax the 8-ball into the side pocket in the billiards room of Clubhouse Three at Laguna Woods Village. But at 82, with a small but worrisome portion of his retirement funds shriveling up in the stock market, he had trouble focusing.
"My anger has been declining as my fear has been rising," said Robertson, who was trying to finish off his buddy Dick Bissell, 80, with one last shot.
Bissell, who said his wife was taking a bath on her Procter & Gamble stock, was doing his honest best to distract Robertson. He kept recommending illogical bank shots.
Finally Robertson put stick to rock, and the cue ball moved like a white mouse. It had good legs and even better eyes, kicking the 8-ball toward the side pocket, where it plunged like the Dow.
Game over.
But not the meltdown.
"I fear that my wife and I could outlive our assets," said Robertson, a retired professor of clinical psychology who has cut back on dining out and travel.
Leisure time has never been so stressful at Leisure World, or Laguna Woods Village, as the retirement community is now known. Roaming past fairways from billiards room to swimming pool to library on Thursday, I heard one screed after another about greedy lenders, shameful politicians and a generation of fools who lived beyond their means.
"If I went to buy a house with a big mortgage and the banker didn't even ask about my income, I'd walk away," said Robertson.
Credit cards, that's what gets everyone in trouble, Alice Foster said as she waited for Amigos Club canasta and pinochle at Clubhouse One.
What is a credit card but a way to buy things you don't need with money you don't have?
How could her grandson get one, no questions asked? And why does Foster get three more applications in the mail every week?
"Everybody's got to have what everybody else has," Arlene Zecca said, shaking her head in Dining Room Three and speaking loudly enough to be heard over the warbling of the Harmonaires Club, which was practicing down the hall.
And this presidential campaign?
More nonsense.
"All they do is bash each other," said Foster, who doesn't hear much of anything from Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama about the issues that burden retirees who worked hard their entire lives and now find themselves bailing out palookas and profiteers alike.
