Write With Wit

Writing e-mail newsletters is a great way for RVers to inform others about your adventures—
if those newsletters are actually read! While your adventures may be exciting to people at first, their interest may wane.

After writing newsletters for years (first we went here and then we went there…), I was beginning to snooze, let alone my readers. So I began writing the Hager News Flash, where humor is the heart of it.

In case you would also like to try something different, here’s a way to make newsletter writing more fun for you and, hopefully, for your readers.

Satisfaction: Terry, Ruth and a friend left their RVs behind and went to Escondido to stay a week in their friend’s timeshare. On their way, the three friends learned that, in their youth, each of their families had a traditional way of expressing satisfaction after dinner. For Terry, it was “I am sufficiently surensified.” For Ruth, “I am sufficiently safonsified.” For their friend, “My capacity is fully quadalified.” Each insisted that their phrase was legitimate while claiming the other phrases were ridiculous, this despite Mr. Webster’s failure to support any of the odd expressions.

 Here’s another example in which I poked fun at myself by highlighting a characteristic of mine. I always exaggerate the characteristic greatly, but Ruth claims I’m simply writing the bald-faced truth.

Church: Terry says he loves their church except for the time in the service when you greet your neighbors. People shake hands, hug and talk to everybody in the congregation until the pastor has to corral everyone back to their seats. A confirmed introvert, Terry prefers the more formal “Peace be with you,” spoken to his two closest neighbors (one of them being Ruth) before sitting down again and avoiding all eye contact.

Oops!: Ruth recently backed the truck into a motorhome, causing some damage to the motorhome. Terry suggested Ruth seek intensive psychotherapy for the deep shame she felt for the incident. Ruth, instead, opted for Two Buck Chuck
(wine) therapy.

 Here’s a before-and-after example. In my previous newsletter format, I would have written Ruth and Terry and a friend enjoyed a great meal at a seafood restaurant. For the News Flash, however, I added a little spice by teasing Ruth.

Supurb Seafood: When the Hagers and a friend ate at a seafood restaurant, Ruth did not hesitate to give five-star ratings to all three lunches. When asked if that meant she had tasted Terry and their friend’s meals, she confessed that she suffers from WFS, or Wandering Fork Syndrome.

Reclaimed from the Wilds?: Terry recently boasted that he was a virtual pioneer, having carved his RV site in Park Sierra out of the wilderness. He stated that he’d faced the bitter elements of the weather, as well as cougars, bears and rattlesnakes. While the Hager site does indeed look beautiful, this reporter determined that Terry merely weed-whacked his site (a three-hour job) and that there have only been infrequent sightings of cougars, bears and snakes in the park, with no injuries to people reported. Further, the weather was sunny and in the 70s.

Parts Replacement: Terry will soon have total knee replacement surgery. He said he was super-excited about it since Ruth had promised to be “at his beck and call” after surgery. Although he’d married anticipating that was how marriage worked, Women’s Liberation had robbed him of that experience.

Abandoned and Alone: Terry reported that Ruth flew to New York for a weekend despite his barely being able to function after his surgery. Reliable sources, however, tell us that Terry was seen fast-walking at the mall and tooling up and down the stairs there. Reports of his bar-hopping in Grand Rapids during Ruth’s absence were unconfirmed.

Intimate Moment?: When Ruth and Terry finish making the bed in their fifth-wheel, they have a ritual kiss. One morning Ruth was so distracted by the beauty of one of her photos on the wall that Terry had to repeatedly call her attention back to the task at hand. When it was time for the kiss, Terry said, “Now focus! Forget the blinkin’ photo.”

Ruth said, “Okay, I’m giving myself to you, totally and completely, just as you’ve always dreamed I would.” The ritual kiss had the potential, in that moment, to blossom into a deeply intimate event
were it not for Ruth’s giggles as she made her declaration.

Sold Out: Terry was excited to report that his books had sold out. When pressed further, he admitted he’d actually sold two copies of Death on the Night Watch and two of Last Call for Murder at the bookstore. Nevertheless, he considered this a milestone, given his meager marketing efforts. The two clergy detective mysteries are also available at amazon.com, as is his novelty book of humorous interactions between an RVing couple, Old Dude and Precious on the Road. The rumor that those interactions are based on Terry and Ruth’s relationship could not be confirmed. To the eyes of this reporter, however, the illustrations of the gorilla by Emmy-award-winning Nanette la Salle do bear a strong resemblance to Terry.

Hagers Transfer Residence: Terry and Ruth have transferred their residence to California. Ruth passed her driver’s license test while Terry failed miserably. When he asked Ruth her secret, she said it was reading the prep booklet. Oh, yeah. Terry passed his test the second time—with flying colors. When he tried to rub that in, Ruth compared their total number of mistakes (Ruth’s one test, Terry’s two) and said, “Do the math.”

Heavy Rains: After days of rain and more heavy downpours predicted, Terry knew what he had to do. He remembered the story of Noah and the ark, recalling even the dimensions of the vessel. Unfortunately, he remembered an old version of the story. As he supervised several of the guys in Park Sierra on the project, he was heard by this reporter impatiently yelling, “I said thirty cubits high, guys! What is it about 30 cubits you don’t understand?”

Ringin’ It: Terry and Ruth rang out the old year and rang in the new in raucous merriment with fellow guests in a California RV park. Of course, most of the group was, like the Hagers, old and feeble, so they did their midnight countdown with the crowd at Times Square. That way folks could drag themselves to bed to recover from their debauchery by 9:30 p.m.