It bothers me that our Cumberland County neighbors think so untowardly of Fairfield Gladers.
I was being tactful. I’ll say it straight: Some – even many – think we’re uppity, arrogant, and we feel privileged.
It’s unfortunate we are viewed that way as most of us are regular folk who moved here from wherever to live out our remaining years in a place we consider a sort of paradise.
For sure, there are unsavory personalities among us. An acquaintance once told me about a conversation he overheard at the former Fireside Lounge at Druid Hills, which with the adjoining Legends ballroom typically was regarded highly among the membership. A woman at a table next to him said to the others in her party, “I’m from California. I know good food, and this isn’t good food.”
That’s probably one of the more gentler examples of snootiness we know exists here. But it doesn’t align with how most of the rest of us are. A case in point:
A few weeks ago, I read a social media posting from a Fairfield Glade woman who was speaking with another woman in a Crossville allergist’s waiting room.
“At the end of the conversation she asked me where I lived,” the Glader wrote. “When I said FFG she said she was shocked because I was so friendly.”
We’ll take the backhanded compliment.
But what one guy from Cookeville said in a Facebook video that has been a recent hot topic online was extraordinary because he went, as the saying goes, off the rails in spewing his disdain for Gladers.
The short of it is he said we’re a bunch of rich, old people who live in a “ritzy” community, drive around in Cadillacs and BMWs and feel “entitled.”
Let’s pause it right there. Where is the Cadillac and BMW I’m supposed to have? I feel deprived.
This dude said he not only can spot us by what we wear but can even smell us by the perfume and cologne we wear. All the way to Cookeville? (Note to self: Stop slapping a half a bottle of after-shave on my face.)
He also told the story about how some Gladers years ago apparently tried to have a Fairfield Glade-only checkout line at the Walmart store in Crossville. If you’re not familiar with that one, it’s part of Fairfield Glade lore. True? Myth? We may never know, but this guy told the story as fact. He didn’t say how he knew.
I do, however, give some credence to the Glader in the allergist’s waiting room who also wrote that the woman she spoke with said the story was true because her brother was the store manager at the time.
“I am embarrassed to say I believed the story,” she wrote.
That aside, what I do know is that most Gladers are much different from the picture the Cookeville guy painted with one whacky, broad stroke of his brush. I see Gladers as generous, caring people. Being mostly retirees, they work in droves as volunteers for worthy causes, not only in Fairfield Glade but also in Crossville and elsewhere. They do many acts of kindness. We see this every day.
They do their good deeds not from their high horses but at ground level.
Something else I trust that our Cumberland County neighbors know: We’re not all millionaires. Far from it. Fairfield Glade’s median household income in 2023 was $75,000 compared with $58,457 for Cumberland County as a whole, according to estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
But it’s safe to say many of us accumulated nest eggs during our careers of 40-plus years that help us to live somewhat comfortably in retirement. Maybe that’s a reason why we are perceived the way we are.
I’m thinking we got our bad rep more because of how some Gladers, whether they are aware of it or not, have a haughty aura about them.
I just hope our Cumberland County neighbors understand that most of us do not.