David Roffman, former editor and publisher of The Georgetowner, retired to the Gulf Coast six years ago. He and his wife Carmen are living and loving the beach life, taking it easy every day with their two big dogs. Washington seems so far away now — not that Roffman has stopped commenting about politics and American life. Nevertheless, one never knows what excitement retirement can bring. The following is an update from our favorite old guy.
I was just elected president of our homeowners association. There are 290 homes in our Ashford Park community, which is in Foley, Alabama — on the Gulf Coast, near Mobile.
On my first day as president, on Jan. 12, I was holding my first meeting with the newly elected board of directors when two guys brandishing guns entered the home and announced, “Everybody down. This is a holdup!”
There were eight of us at the meeting, almost all senior citizens. I stood up and faced them with a gun pointed right at my stomach and said, “This could take a while. It’s hard for us to get down … let alone get back up again.” True story.
One of the seniors started to scream, another ran down the hall and jumped out of the bedroom window, and the two perpetrators ran outside chasing him. We locked the doors and called the police. A few hours later, after a robbery at the nearby Walgreens parking lot, the police caught the guys — two 18-year old punks who were former football players at Foley High School. The cops booked them and their bail was set at $100,000 each. They had been on a crime spree all the way from Texas, according to WKRG-TV Channel 5, which also interviewed me and others about the crime.
How’s that for my first day in office? Just like old times in Georgetown, when I was Crime Prevention Chairman for the Citizens Association of Georgetown. (And, by the way, bring back Au Pied de Cochon!)
