Mike and Sally VanZuiden moved to Lawrence in 1958, when he was transferred from the DuPont plant in Clinton, Iowa. Today, they still live in the same quiet, winding neighborhood where their seven children attended Broken Arrow, Central, South, Lawrence High and KU. When Mike retired in 1978 they never even considered moving anywhere else.

“I’ve been all over the world, you might say, and I don’t know of another place I’d want to put down roots,” Mike VanZuiden said recently. “Oh, there might be places I’d like to visit or vacation.”

Mike served in the Navy in World War II. He saw both coasts and was in Pearl Harbor. “But I don’t want to live there,” he said. “So it’s warm in the wintertime.”

Mike and Sally VanZuiden moved to Lawrence in 1958, when he was transferred from the DuPont plant in Clinton, Iowa. Today, they still live in the same quiet, winding neighborhood where their seven children attended Broken Arrow, Central, South, Lawrence High and KU. When Mike retired in 1978 they never even considered moving anywhere else.

“It was close to our families, both sides, and we took advantage of that,” Mike said.

These days it’s still close to their children.

The city is a lot different than it was in 1958 or even 1978, Sally acknowledged. “We used to go to Kansas City a lot, Topeka a lot, but we have more of those things now. We have appliance and furniture stores, plenty of clothing stores. We do all our shopping in Lawrence. We don’t need much any more.”

The growth of the city over the past nearly fifty years hasn’t bothered the VanZuidens, though the couple are now in their mid-80s.

“A lot of people complain about traffic,” Sally said. “We never had any trouble with traffic. That’s for the birds. We don’t have to get out when everyone’s going to Kansas City or when they’re getting home.”

“We wait until traffic’s depleted. Don’t try to battle the crowd,” Mike agreed.

On that 100-degree afternoon, Mike and Sally were relaxing indoors, in their cool living room. They had comfortable places to put up their feet, cozy cushions on the divan, old pictures of family on the wall and a banner rippling in the hot sun outside the front window. But they don’t spend all their time relaxing.

On a typical morning, they like to exercise and go for coffee with friends. “We exercise five days a week,” Sally said proudly. They both take advantage of cardiac rehab at the hospital and PATH (Personal Action to Health) at the First Christian Church. Like the VanZuidens, their friends there are active, too.

“We’ve got 90-year-olds, and they’re driving yet,” Sally said.

According to the couple, there’s plenty in Lawrence for senior citizens to do.

“Lawrence has the Lied Center. It has museums, things for retired people to do, places for them to live,” Sally said. “It has everything close by and buses if you can’t drive.

“We don’t use the bus yet,” she added.

The city’s night life is perhaps less attractive. “When we were younger the movies were musicals,” Mike said. “Now they’re all sex and violence.”

“We don’t go out at night,” Sally said.

As for concerns about crime in Lawrence, “I don’t care what the population is, you’re going to have crime,” Mike said. “By and large, I believe Lawrence people are law-abiding and considerate of each other.”

When asked the most challenging thing for them about living in Lawrence, they looked at each other, bewildered, and shrugged as if to say, “Challenging? Lawrence?”

To them, Lawrence is more than just a potential retirement community. It’s home.

Sally said, settling back into her easy chair, “I feel no need to go to Arizona or Texas or anywhere else.”