Timber Pines lifts ban on residents of color

By Marshall Hutkey | marshall.hutkey@springhillcourier.com

SPRING HILL, Florida – Timber Pines has lifted a nearly 20-year ban prohibiting non-white retirees from residing in the gated community.

President of the Timber Pines Homeowner’s Association, Larry Garfield, approved the deal at the close of last night’s meeting.

“I had a dream, that one day blacks and whites could retire together,” Garfield said. “In that dream, we were judged not by the color of our skin, but by the strength of our boom-time pensions.”

The vote was a controversial one and drew criticism from some residents, one of whom argued against allowing minorities because of their “disposition to spreading Ebola.”

“Do you people have any idea what this is going to do to the property value? What’s next, kids and gays?” said 83-year-old Edna Shoemaker, secretary of the HOA.

Garfield called the opposition absurd.

“Most of us don’t think twice about letting a black nurse into our homes every day, but is it too much to ask that we let them into our hearts for once, too?” asked Garfield, who recently married an African-American woman 32 years his junior.