Green Places

Lots of places don’t get used enough in this world. I’m not talking about places like jungles or swamps— they get used. Ducks, gorillas, catfish, mountain goats, and God knows what use them day in and day out.

I’m talking about places people just fence in and lock up for themselves—I am talking about cemeteries and golf courses. I don’t know why but when I drive by these big, green, mostly empty, well-watered lawns behind fancy fences and big gates, I get annoyed. I want to do something.

Those lawns need more use. Right now both get used about the same, if you only count the people on top the ground.

My idea--why not just combine them into a fancy newGolfoleum. That's right a Gold-o-leum. A lot of golfers would love to be planted in a nice long fairway. And most dead folks don’t mind if you step on them.

OK, there is one problem – those hard rock tombstones. Even if they were lying flat, golf balls would bounce all over the place—so here is the trick. We need our cracker-jack Silicon Valley programmers to start work on i-Cemeteries. People get buried in the ground just like before and covered over with good green fairway grass, but put nothing physical gets left on the ground. To find you dead friends and family, go to Google Maps (extra-closeup view). When you walk around the Golfoleum, they hand you an iPad and it’s easy to the locate uncle Frank or sister Linda, six feet under. Sort of a treasure hunt, but you don’t dig up anything. (You can’t do that on a fairway or even worse on the green.)

You think Facebook is big, just wait for Deadbook. Think how you could jazz up your i-Grave page. Animated skeletons dancing and singing with your from-deep-in-the-grave voice. Or build a 3-D mausoleum that rivals the Taj. There are opportunities here. i-Graves may just pull us out of this economic mess. Unless you start buying them cut rate from China, that is.

OK, you point out another problem. Golf balls are hard. The last thing you want when you are standing thinking of the great times you had with the guy now doing his big farewell speech on the iPad is to get beaned with a hard flying golf ball.

I am not suggesting softer golf balls or even using Wii wands and i-Balls to play the game as you walk around the course (but , come to think of it, why not ??). Here is my idea, we start selling mourning suits. They look like the StarWars troopers but maybe in grey. All hard and plastic. If they can stop a laser sword then they can stop a golf ball. And everyone will know the difference between the fat guys in shorts playing golf and the mourners looking like they are heading to a StarWars convention. (Do they still have those?)

Maybe we could combine a couple more things in theGolfoleum space. Every little bit helps as we fill up this planet. If you can think of anything to do there, let me know (but don’t suggest anything using frisbees, dogs or guns, they really annoy the golfers.)