An Inaugural Address: An Inspiration - Mike P

 An Inaugural Address: An Inspiration

We, the citizens of the Elements, are now joined in a great

communal effort to rebuild our neighborhood and restore its

promise to all our aging residents. Together we will

determine the course of the Elements as we stare down the

Dark Forces of Big V for many, many years to come. We will

face challenges. We will confront hardships, but we will get

the job done. This year we gather on the Magnolia steps to

carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power. We are

grateful to Mayor Jim Carpino and First Lady Diane Carpino

for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have

been hugely helpful.

Only a fraction in our 55+ community has reaped the rewards

offered by the Magnolia while residents of Phase One have born

the cost. The godless Viridian mothership has flourished with our

money, but the Phase One residents did not share in its wealth.

Management prospered, while the events rapidly filled, and

Thursday night happy hours quickly closed to thirsty homeowners.

The Mothership Management team protected itself, but not the

citizens of the Elements. Their victories have not been your

victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. While they

celebrated with heightened HOA fees, there was little to celebrate

for struggling homeowners across our motherland.

That all changes starting right here and right now because this

moment is your moment. This side of the bridge belongs to you. It

belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching,

from Blackwood Cross to Spotted Fawn, out to the distant

reaches of Kings Garden Parkway and down to the swampy

wasteland of Boyd’s Branch. This is your day. This is your

celebration.

The vermin and jail birds who live and breed across the bridge are

listening to you now. You moved here by the hundreds to become

part of an historic movement the likes of which Arlington has

never seen before. At the center of this movement is a crucial

conviction that a retirement community exists to serve its fading

and feeble citizens. Elements citizens want great pools without

bratty kids infesting them, safe neighborhoods free from the

diseased illegals of Big V, and lighted street corners that keep

hungry coyotes at bay. These are just and reasonable demands

of righteous Baby Boomers, but for too many of our residents, a

different reality exists.

Hollowed-out men and women trapped in poverty inside

tenements dotted on Spotted Fawn, rusted out shotgun shacks

scattered like tombstones up and down Park View Place, and rat-

infested Drees McMansions slapped together atop haunted

Indian burial grounds. All of which leaves our lost souls longing for

a life depicted like those gleeful and plastic actors in the television

ad. The Elements carnage stops right here, and it stops right

now.

The oath of office I take today is an oath of allegiance to all

Elements residents. For many years, we've greased Howard and

Bob’s sticky fingers at the expense of Elements wallets,

subsidized the younger and ungrateful varmints across the bridge,

while allowing for the very sad depletion of our Citizens on Patrol.

One by one, our HOA and Social Committee sponsored activities

fill up within a day or two. Too many of our residents left shuttered

to exist within the squalor of their second-rate starter homes. The

wealth of our Baby Boomers has been ripped from their homes

and then redistributed across the bridge to the unwashed scum.

But that is the past and now we are looking only to the future. The

assembled here today are issuing a new decree to be heard on

every block, and pocket park, from the clickety clack railroad

tracks to the barren and bumpy Bark Yard. From this day forward,

a new vision will govern our 55+ community. From this day

forward, it's going to be Elements first. Every decision on

Magnolia parties, on HOA fees, and landscape work will be made

to benefit Elements residents. And Elements residents only!

I will fight for you with every breath in my body and I will never,

ever let you down. As we make our stand, down in Elements land.

Thank you and my God bless Commander Cubin and our Citizens

on Patrol.