Today I’ll introduce you to a small town strikingly similar to
Hollister.
Today I’ll introduce you to a small town strikingly similar to Hollister. Remember one thing as you open the doors to this world: I’m a poet (just for today) and not everyone will understand much of the artistic musing.
In other words, don’t expect to comprehend too many phrases. Just trust that I’m not rambling and appreciate the rhythm of the precious words.
(Note: Although it may seem so, I did not consume drugs before writing this column.)
Welcome to New Acidria, a tiny dwelling menaced by a recent explosion of controversy. Eight citizens currently live here – nine if you include Mayor Green the Goose-Poo. Located about 50 minutes northeast of Hollister, New Acidria is a blue-collar town dominated by a single cheese factory – Acidria Co-Jack.
I’m just the town scribe with my own weekly newsletter. I call it the Weekly Bamboozle, which is not to be confused with another local weekly newspaper. I actually named the paper after my dad, whose name is Weekly.
Everyone else in town works at the cheese factory, including my brother Kory, who recently ran for mayor and graciously lost. While the other seven citizens each voted for themselves, my write-in choice for Green swayed the results.
Green isn’t a person. He really is just goose-poo dressed in a tiny suit – which doesn’t matter because New Acidria’s mayor is just a symbolic leader who doesn’t hold much power. Even so, citizens of New Acidria have historically condemned the mayor for any disdain toward the city.
Green has taken office while the latest quarrels in New Acidria center around an invasion of red ants into our cheese factory. I exposed the disaster by writing an article called “The Ant Plague.” Everyone in town raged in animosity – not at the ant invasion, but because the article was 18,000 words long and nobody could finish it.
But the citizens are pissy over the ants, too, especially members of the New Acidria Bird Watchers Society – Sunny Dee and D.J. Spike, who are not to be confused with WATCHDOG members Paul Grannis and J.J. Vogel.
With any spare time from the factory and bird watching – any! – Dee and Spike write passionate, well-versed letters to the Weekly Bamboozle. And I print them because the people deserve a voice.
Just last week, Dee wrote a letter bashing former Mayor Magnus Americo, who is not to be confused with Hollister City Councilman Tony LoBue. Dee wrote that Americo “neglected glaring problems” and “showed insolence toward other Councilmembers as a mayor.”
I wonder if they’ll blame Green if havoc stirs the city’s milkshake again in 2003.
Americo chose not to reply to Dee’s letter and its sweeping claims. He just laughed and continued eating his Acidria Co-Jack cheese sandwich, which he habitually sprinkles with garlic and dips in Frito-Lay nacho cheddar.
“This is damn good cheese!” Americo said. That nonchalant response infuriated the bird watchers even more.
In the next letter, which I just received today, Spike wrote: “New Acidria is anxiously braced for its new magistrate and his self-possessed leadership. Green the Goose-Poo, the greatest leader of our time, will stand up against the aggression of red ants jeopardizing our livelihoods.”
Spike’s assertions are precise as the ingredients in a can of Coca-Cola. Green reportedly appointed Councilman Lurkin Gurken – not to be confused with Hollister Mayor Brian Conroy – to a special task force to solve the ant plague.
Gurken toured a cheese factory Monday in the neighboring town of Rigglesby – where ants invaded years ago – so he could gauge solutions for New Acidria’s crisis.
Meanwhile, Hollister’s unremitting storms of controversy in 2002 have finally calmed. But as City Manager George Lewis retires Friday after five years on the job, the City Council braces for its own daunting challenges – most notably a moratorium on building permits for three years and a brittle relationship between city and county officials.
New Acidria leaders have vowed not to follow the bumpy path of the town’s geographic cousin.
“We will turn back this ant invasion,” Green said in a statement to the press. “Our Co-Jack will live on forever.”
