Well, gentle readers, this is most likely our last Publishers Corner, because in just five hours of writing this on Jan. 13, we will have won the $1.5 billion Powerball lottery. Sure, the odds may seem daunting, but we have a basically fool-proof system. We cant tell you exactly what it is, but suffice to say it involves our dogs and a calculator.
Below are some of our plans for the winnings, and, funny as it may sound, none of them involve owning a community newspaper, selling crab feed tickets, or reminding people to pay the $15 for their classified ad.
We promise not go to the Dark Side with our newly acquired wealth. The money will only go for good, and of course to obscenely enrich ourselves. Kids, lose our phone number. You can have the house. Just make sure you clean the litter box every day, and garbage and recycling go out on Friday.
So, in no apparent order, this is what we plan to do:
Buy all the tickets for the Glen Ellen Village Fair quilt thats raffled off each year, thus guaranteeing that we will finally win that darn thing!
Buy thousands of acres of Sonoma County property and take down all unnecessary and inappropriate fencing.
Since the average NFL team costs $2 billion, well have to partner with someone to buy the 49ers. First order of business is to ban the York family from ever again entering the Bay Area.
Finance a Hollywood movie about a couple who buy a small newspaper in a colorful town, overcome the obligatory obstacles, and win a Pulitzer Prize. Cast Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence to play the spunky husband and wife.
Solar panels for everyone!
For Alecs poker group: A lifetime supply of Pliny and season tickets to the Giants. For Anns Mahjong pals: A lifetime supply of Champagne and fabulous cocktail rings from Cartier.
Pay to close off all of Highway 12 in Sonoma Valley on the 4th of July so the Kenwood Parade can march all the way to the city of Sonoma to show them what a real hometown parade looks like!
Buy the Kenwood Shopping Center, give free rent to everybody, and add something fun. Any ideas out there? Water slide? Miniature golf?
If you still see us around, that means that by some stroke of bad luck or shenanigans, we did not win the Powerball. Which would be fine since this is one of the better places to be on the planet. And wed have to make all those decisions about what to do with $1.5 billion. What a hassle, right?