Editor’s Note: In my January 30 Happy Trails column, I mentioned that that column was the start of a three-part column on the Sun Day’s history in Sun City and would lead up to the final installment in our April anniversary edition. The second installment is supposed to run in this edition, but this is a pretty tight edition with limited space, and I thought what follows was of more immediate importance to Sun City readers than my public trip down memory lane. The second installment of the Sun Day’s history will run in the next edition on March 12.
When Sun City Huntley was built starting in the late 1990s, the theme was, “retire from work, not life.” And that’s still the best description of Sun City that I’ve ever known.
Along with hundreds of couples looking for a resort lifestyle in their senior years, we came to Huntley and moved into our new home on March 26, 2000. Wow! We thought. We were 65 years old (almost), and here in Illinois is the first Del Webb community north of the Sun Belt. It was, and remains, one of the most beautiful resorts we’ve ever lived in. Beautiful landscapes everywhere, an attractive golf course, clubs, activities, first-rate entertainment, new friends, a professional restaurant, and wonderful opportunities to sleep late seven days a week (Well, most of the time anyway).
My wife Karen and I continued to work for a while, but by 2005, work was often many miles away and the good life in Huntley constantly beckoned. I retired from full-time work that year, but Karen soldiered on as a surgical nurse in a major Chicago-area hospital. “This retirement gig isn’t half bad,” I thought to myself as I plunged into Sun City’s culture in two choirs, two card clubs, dinners at the Prairie Lodge restaurant. Karen and our friend Jean Christie, filled every available minute with all kinds of events. Rocksprings Lane became one the busiest social capitals of Sun City.
Fast forward to 2009. A neighbor of mine asked, “Have you seen the newspaper that we’re getting in our mailbox every other week?” As a journalism graduate with two degrees and almost 50 years experience in news writing for newspapers and websites in the Chicago area, my “put one word in front of another” antenna, went into overdrive. “What, there’s a guy publishing a newspaper in Sun City? Thoughts of retirement, resorts, clubs and activities, faded, and I said to myself,” I just have to check this out.”
I met Chris LaPelusa, publisher and executive editor of the Sun Day, and sure enough, he was putting out a 24-page Chicago Sun Times-style paper and mailing it to every Sun City household every other week. We met, we talked, I volunteered, and later got paid for writing news and features about Sun Citians, starting early in 2010. “This is cool, “ I thought. “I can work out of my house, write whatever I want, and have fun doing it.”
By this time, there were almost 5,000 six pack townhouses, condos, and single family homes on nearly 2,500 acres, making Sun City one of the largest residential subdivisions in the Chicago suburbs. I attended community management meetings and wrote about how our resources were cared for and how our assessment money was being spent. I had the privilege of meeting many residents and writing about their careers, their sacrifices for our nation, and t heir stories of how and when they came to Sun City.
THANK YOU so much to all of you for sharing your stories with me. I wrote about a lost World War II dog tag that was found 50 years later. About a love affair that began in Europe and ended up in Sun City. I wrote about Sun Citians who served in the U.S. Coast Guard, and about why Canadian Geese love Sun City so much. I wrote about how the Sun City Garden Club decorates our two lodges so beautifully every Christmas. I wrote about the Bocce Ball Club’s tournament, and listened to the club members celebrate by speaking Italian to one another.
I feel like an author acknowledging all the people who helped him write a book. Thanks to current Sun City board president Dennis O’Leary and many other management volunteers and staff members who keep our community looking so good. As the Sun Day expanded its coverage to the Huntley community, I wrote about how Huntley has been transformed from a tiny farming town of 2,000 to one of the fastest growing communities in the Chicago suburbs. I have described how Huntley’s population grew from 2,500 when I came to more than 28,000 today. And I have appreciated the opportunities I have had to cover Huntley High School’s student population growth from 350 to more than 3,000 in 20 years.
Many Sun Citians know me only as a name in print. I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the only son of a probation officer/social worker and a school teacher. I loved to write term papers in high school, and a teacher noticed it and advised me to pursue journalism or a similar field. I earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota, and later a master’s degree in mass communication at the University of Iowa. We came to Chicago in 1965, suffered with the Cubs for half a century until 2016, and celebrated with the awesome Bears in 1985-86.
About five years ago, Karen was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Now I’m caring instead of writing. We are temporarily living at Belmont Village in Carol Stream, trying to determine if their services and atmosphere are helpful as we enter the genuinely senior part of our lives.
THANK YOU, Chris LaPelusa, for putting up with me for a decade, and for enriching my Sun City experience.
That’s a wrap, Sun City. May your next 20 years be as amazing as the first have been.
Dwight Esau
Sun Day
