Life is full of surprises. Some are not fun, but many are and they make life a wonderment. I will now give an example that will make residents of The Villages who have been here for any length of time blink in amazement. I am referring to the fact that I have come upon a pocket of residents who own golf carts, but have never used the golf cart bridge to cross over U.S. Hwy. 27/441. This may be somewhat understandable as these pocket people are reasonably new, but after a year or more it becomes harder to reconcile.

However, the eye popping part is that they have no interest or desire to do the cross over. I have tried to explain to them what they are missing, but the only response came from one individual who wanted to know, if he should add it to his bucket list. Well certainly he should, but I believe that it is highly doubtful that he will. If he does it at all, it will most likely be way at the bottom and he will never have time to get to it. They all seemed to feel that there would be no big thrill in riding up and over the golf cart bridge.

Boy are they wrong! As all users know, going over the top increases your adrenalin in a big way. In case any of the few people with carts who have not done the crossing are reading this, let me explain.

Before beginning the ascent, you should be certain that your cart is well charged or well gassed as the case may be.

You do not want to start up the grade, have the power fail and you start drifting backwards. Most likely there will be several carts behind you, and if you drift back into them, they will bang into the one behind them and so forth which could cause considerable carnage.

In most cases the above does not occur, but the ascent up can still require nerves of steel. One reason being is that you can’t see who is coming up the other side so you have to hope that they are on their side of the narrow pathway when you suddenly do face each other.

Also at least on one occasion there was a car attempting the climb. That is not a good situation to be in especially if you are not in the car! In short, you do not want to play bumper cars with your expensive golf cart.

Assuming you make the top without incident, then you need to trust that your brakes are in good shape. I mention this because if you are heading east across the bridge and your brakes fail you could mess up parts of Paradise Park on the historic side. If you are coming west toward Spanish Springs and something gives way, you could zoom into the parking lot at that end just as a visitor comes by in their very large RV. Life as I mentioned above can be very surprising at times. Thus, it is obvious that those who have never used the golf cart bridge have a void in their life that needs to be filled. I say “go for it” to those with adventure in their souls.

At this point I would like to make clear that the stuff mentioned above will probably not happen on the historic golf cart bridge. I have written the above in a manner similar to what happens on the television ads for prescription medications. You know how they describe all the glowing benefits of the drug and then spend the next five minutes indicating all the horrible things that can occur to certain people who take it. It is not always completely certain who these poor people are, but you hope that you are not one of them.

Thus you have my full assurance (subject to the warnings above) that you can go on the golf cart bridge and have the time of your life. Once you do, I would hope that you will aid me in convincing the pocket of residents mentioned in the first paragraph that they really need to live a little and try it themselves.

After all, a true Villager is a dynamic individual who partakes of all that is offered to him/her and smiles with heartfelt sympathy at those who know not what they miss!

Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for www.villages-news.com