The Hawken Family Newsletter: Full of Letters, But Very Little News

Every Fall The Beast starts planning the annual Hawken Family newsletter. There are very few things that make her quite so excited, and it is one of the things which makes me screen my calls.

Long ago, she gave the newsletter what she considered to be a very clever name (I will not indulge it with a reference), and ever since the annual witticisms have been flowing freely--like concrete out of a sewer pipe.

Long before Thanksgiving, The Beast is already madly typing things and giggling to herself about some clever alliteration or use of terrible Clip Art. As soon as the basics are completed, the barrage of e-mails to Jake and me begin.

She wants, we learn, some input from us about what we've done over the last year, and she wants to know what we think of the articles she has already written.

Each of these articles details one member of the family, and provides a rich level of detail. While The Beast's colorful, lyrical literary style is well suited for a holiday letter, and the design of these letters is meticulously well executed, she is far, far less concerned with facts.

Indeed, she is entirely disinterested.

Year after year I read, with no small amount of interest, of the very interesting life of an individual who, despite sharing my name, bears very little resemblance to me.

Whereas I might have been in college that year, this person has "been working at the store." The year I got married, the other "oldest son, Ben" was "keeping busy with his classic cars and coaching volleyball."

Some years, other things, like ER reruns, limit The Beast's accuracy even further.

In 1999, the family newsletter spoke of Hal, Jake and someone named Travis. Although Travis and I went to the same school and had traveled to the same places, he was the only one that had recently returned from a fact-finding trip to Puerto Rico or written a romance novel set during the Battle of Pharsalus.

Tomorrow I'll be writing my section of the 2007 Hawken newsletter. I'm considering submitting a cartoon or graffiti art instead, but I don't think The Beast will go for it.