Road Trip!
Post-Trip Review: A Day at the Beach
Alakazam!
Note: This is the eighth in a series of posts describing my effort to get letters published in newspapers in every state and territory of the U.S.A. You can read the whole series here.
It is usually pretty easy to watch a local newspaper and figure out what kind of letter would appeal to the editor. However, Hawaii and the island territories were not so easy. The issues there are serious: poverty, government benefits, the rights of indigenous people, crime, tourism (pro and con), rising sea levels, and on and on. I could have weighed in on any of those issues, but I did not want to seem to belittle them, nor did I have a real opinion that I thought should be aired. I did not want to fall back on Niceness Bombs or the ever-popular chicken and waffles theme; that would be the lazy way out.
It was late winter of 2021 when I was grappling with what to write for the sandy-beach places. As most internet-savvy people know, in the cold months especially the news websites feature many pictorials of this or that pretty celebrity “flaunting” her body on the beach. I’m sure some are flaunting with intent, but many of them are probably just trying to enjoy some vacation time with friends and family. How can you tell the difference? If it’s a crystal-clear close-up and the flaunter is smiling at the camera, they or their publicist probably arranged a flaunting photo-shoot; if the images are grainy or the flaunter is not smiling hugely, then it’s probably a case of paparazzi hounding someone on vacation. Regardless, winter is Flaunting Season in the tabloids and even in more respectable news outlets.
I wrote this letter in February and submitted it to newspapers in every state in the continental United States with an ocean coastline. Also Michigan, with its beaches on the Great Lakes. No takers. I almost gave up on it, but then when I realized how difficult it was to write about actual issues on the island territories (and in Hawaii, which faces many of the same issues), I decided to try humor out on them. In retrospect, of course, the sandy places should have been the first targets for this beach-oriented letter.
It worked! I booked Hawaii and three of the five territories.
I usually link to newsprint but the island publications are either online only or else they don’t let you see the E-edition for free and their subscription prices are very high. So it’s online only for this letter.
As it appeared in the St Croix Source. I submitted the letter to one paper in the U.S. Virgin Islands. They published it in three separate editions, one per island.
As it appeared in the St John Source.
As it appeared in the St Thomas Source.
As it appeared in the Saipan Tribune. Look at maps of the island territories sometime. They are so small! I knew the name “Saipan” but I honestly didn’t know before this that Saipan is in the Northern Mariana Islands, and that it is a U.S. territory.
As it appeared in the Pacific Daily News.
As it appeared in West Hawaii Today.
I just hope my letter came along in time to spare some ladies the agony of FRI.
Boing!