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At my book signing last week, I met a gentleman and his wife from Del Webb’s Sun City in Huntley, Illinois.

I confess that I was a bit surprised; Huntley is just under an hour’s ride from Park Ridge. I would have thought that there would be a senior center a lot closer. In thinking about it further, it could be that they had lived in Park Ridge before they had moved into the retirement community. I’m in trouble already for calling it that — the Del Webb website calls it an “active adult community for those 55 and over.”

Back to the book signing. Although they stopped to look at my book, PARK RIDGE, they seemed to think that since it was about Park Ridge it wasn’t for them. They were from Huntley. I told them that for sure they should read my second book about the Six County Senior Olympics. The man corrected me, “Don’t you mean seven?” “No,” I replied. [in order to write this post, I double-checked with the Encyclopedia of Chicago. Sure enough, Cook has five what are called "collar counties": DuPage County, Kane County, Lake County, McHenry County, and Will County.]

Then I emphasized that the book would be about the Senior Olympics. Teresa, the Director of the Park Ridge Senior Center, had told me that Huntley always had a large contingent of competitors. The man and his wife agreed with that. “Particularly swimming,” said the wife.

For the summer of the book, Sedgebrook, an Erickson Retirement Community in Lincolnshire, is a corporate sponsor of the Six County Senior Olympics and site of the Breakfast of Champions and Vendor Expo. I had portrayed a group from Sun City as being in attendance. But because of the wife’s comment, I went back and made sure that Huntley showed up in the swimming competition.