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Report # 14: An on-going series from Stephen P. Bye, a former Correspondent for the Mirror Rearview, a fictional newspaper in Laicos County, an imaginary USA municipality. Please refer to the previous thirteen reports on the seven-month history of the transformation that has occurred in Laicos County. March 17, 2019: I now write as an independent blogger, as I was terminated last week as a correspondent for the Mirror Rearview by their backward-looking ownership group. The Mirror Rearview readers supposedly indicated that my reflective columns violated the paper’s motto, “The Mirror never lies”. The newspaper editor, Ed Itor, fired me by kicking me in the rear and simply telling me “Bye-bye…Stephen Bye.” My termination was likely the result of insightful reporting, after discovering that Alice N. Wonderland had assembled an eclectic mix of investors, called Pot Luck, Inc. to purchase a 50% interest in Round Trip Fields from the County for ten dollars and “other valuable consideration”. I couldn’t verify what “other valuable consideration” included, although reliable sources indicated that the consideration was of limited value. Pot Luck inked the deal with Laicos County, taking a gamble with the struggling golf course through a revenue split agreement where the income includes the sale of cannabis grown at the course, as well as the profits generated from all the operations. Last month, the County commissioners approved clothing optional for the golfers at Round Trip Fields and over the first few weeks, the course has been overrun with nude players and throngs of spectators wearing only thongs, as well as many others shedding all their clothes. With the frenzy about Round Trip Fields created by the national media, thousands of visitors are descending upon Laicos County. I’ve learned that every hotel room in the County has been booked for six months in advance with endless waiting lists. The nudist party atmosphere and the attraction to legally smoke marijuana has labeled Round Trip Fields “Naked Potpourri”. Pot Luck has even created a new ad campaign… “Puff in the buff from the rough…you cannot get enough!” The lack of parking at Round Trip Fields has dictated the urgent need of mass transit transportation to the course, so Pot Luck has acquired a fleet of electric buses, charging each rider ten dollars for a round trip ticket plus the twenty-dollar admission fee. They have also erected viewing stands next to the tees and greens, charging patrons ten bucks to sit there, as well as have introduced a twenty-dollar rental for binoculars. With the sudden increase in camera equipped drones, the air space over the course has been declared a no-fly zone. In addition, the County has built a fifteen-foot-high concrete wall around the perimeter of the golf course to eliminate illegal migration and peeping. I-phone devices are also restricted, although a secured locker can be rented for a fifteen-dollar storage fee. Timothy Leery has been retained as the head golf professional at Round Trip Fields. His favorite slogan is “Turn on…tune in…drop out.” After I questioned him on the meaning of the phrase, he elaborated. “Turn on to playing golf high on grass…tune in to the Doobie Brothers’ greatest hits…and drop out if you whiff too much.” I noted that Pot Luck has now named the holes on the back nine… “Magic Carpet Ride”, “Along Comes Mary”; “One Toke Over the Line”; “Stoned Soul Picnic”; “Smokin’ “; “Feelin’ Groovy”; “Grazin’ in the Grass”; “Let’s Groove”; and “Fly Like an Eagle”. As I mentioned in an earlier edition, the front nine holes had been named “Good Vibrations”; “Strawberry Fields Forever”; “Dear Mr. Fantasy”; “Eight Miles High”; “Sky Pilot”; “Ball of Confusion”; “Purple Haze”; “Hypnotized”; and “Psychedelic Shack”. Lester “Duff” Hacker, the former Laicos County Golf Executive, has been demoted to a janitor at Hammer Valley Club. As a former manager in the County’s waste management department, Hacker should be in a familiar role, now changing the cheaper toilet paper rolls at the courses. With the demotion, Hacker has reportedly been severely depressed, living in the comfort room at Sausage Creek Links and conversing for hours with Clare Voyant, the soothsayer he hired months ago to hypnotize golfers into hitting a hole-in-one at Round Trip Fields. Two weeks ago, I arranged a meeting with Ms. Wonderland to congratulate her on the innovative ideas at Round Trip Fields and the overall economic success it has created for Pot Luck, Inc. and for Laicos County. Upon labeling her an innovative capitalist, she became incensed, ranting about the evils of entrepreneurial philosophies. When I pointed out the various revenue sources created by Pot Lucks’ business decisions, she had me arrested by a swat team and I was thrown in jail, charged with heresy. I’m currently appealing my free speech rights, but the County is charging me a hundred dollars for each word I use in my plea. Ironically, not long ago, one could be thrown in the joint for smoking a joint. Now, I’m being incarcerated because Wonderland’s nose was out of joint. I’ve engaged an attorney, Sue Yorbutt, known for her “hard ass” legal tactics. As you may recall from my prior reports, Yorbutt has cracked heads with the County on several personal injury claims filed on behalf of several golfers. Thousands of Laicos County residents, who marched in protest to the new taxes imposed by the Executive Council, have been arrested. Apparently, no one is too big to jail. My cellmates include real estate magnate, Donny T. Rump, who is also president of The Laicos Country Club. Wonderland has called Rump an “ass” for demanding the County pay for a wall to be built around the exclusive golf club. County Executive, Jim Nasticks, has also been incarcerated for exercising his opinion and is in solitary confinement, chained to an unbalanced beam in a cell with uneven bars. Prominent local businessman, Paul Ronnald, was also arrested for repeatedly playing the Beatles’ song “Taxman” over his boombox for several days in front of the Laicos County administration building. For those of you who have never been a “guest” at the The Laicos County Jail, they pipe in speeches by Fidel Castro, Karl Marx, Nikita Khruschev, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Bernie Sanders. To overcome the drone of the socialistic propaganda, we shared our despair by joining hands and communally singing “In the Jailhouse Now”, “The Hokey Pokey”, “Down in the Boondocks”, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, and “Jailhouse Rock.” Alas, I am falsely accused for spreading false information and confined to the calaboose under lock and key. I soon expect the guards to lock up the keys on my laptop, so I’ll have to smuggle in a pen to write from the pen. So long and thanks for reading my reports over the past seven months. Looking Forward Through The Rear View Mirror
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