From paddleboards to pickleball

fishing is better, Blankenship said.

“I know he has helped some veterans who are disabled,” he said.

It's a bit unclear exactly how Singer operates, but it's not a business, per se, and Singer never charges a dime, Blankenship said. “Unless he's lying to me.”

Within weeks of moving in, Singer — a fitness fanatic who lives in athletic shorts and T-shirts — focused his attention on getting the sedentary set of Isle of Palms moving.

Like the aliens who filled a swimming pool with “life force” that rejuvenated senior citizens in the 1985 movie “Cocoon” — filmed at a nearby St. Petersburg retirement community and shuffleboard club — Singer seems bent on a similar mission.

At an HOA meeting last year, Singer suggested turning a visitors parking lot next to the laundry room into a pickleball court, volunteered to donate a cornhole set to the clubhouse and offered paddleboards and two-seater kayaks for free outings.

In a community that seems to prefer fourwheeled scooters, no one really took him up on his offers.

But another proposition gained more traction — a walking club that would meet outside the park office every night at 7.

Blankenship, who weighed more than 300 pounds, became Singer's first project.

“I turned him down four or five times. And finally he said, `We'll just go down to the end of the block and back,'” said Blankenship, a retired truck driver and factory worker. “I knew he knew that I couldn't go very far. And so that's how we started.”

Singer even gave him a pair of pricey Hoka walking shoes to keep him going.

“He started out giving a little fib,” Blankenship said, pretending that he bought the wrong size for himself.

The gesture was welcomed and the shoes were a perfect fit.

Blankenship is now up to 8 miles a day and borrows the stretch bands in Singer's front storage box to work on his muscles.

He's lost more than 100 pounds.

Ennis, from the welcome committee, whom neighbors call “a saint,” also joined the evening strolls. They had been advertised in the HOA newsletter — “the benefits of walking as exercise are well documented. Get your sneakers on and join Bill and Rick!”

When Ennis mentioned a water aerobics class she took three days a week, Singer asked if another neighbor he was encouraging to get fit could join her.

The women have been going to the pool together ever since.

“He's doing good here. He's thriving,” Ennis said of Singer. “He's been productive. He's being friendly. I don't have a problem.” Some people do. Hurt, the HOA board secretary who also joined the walking group, is one of them. Yes, Singer comes across as “super friendly,” she said, but he also can be an annoying know-it-all.

He often gabbed away on group walks about financial markets, housing trends and other money matters.

To be honest, she said, “he was so busy talking about how smart he was, I got sick of listening to it.”

So she quit the walking group.

“Who's he impressing, you know?” she asked. “It must kill him being here.”

Bunny Ennis was among the committee that welcomed new resident Singer, not knowing his background.