April Fool’s Day Joke? Nope!
Advice for when you run afoul of the law, plus a challenge and an invitation to dine with the FMCA president in Nebraska.
Jon and Sondra Walker
National President
Jon Walker
jwalker@fmca.com
April 2020
(Note: after press time, FMCA’s upcoming convention in Lincoln, Nebraska, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.)
Sometimes I just never know what will come out of my mouth. A short time ago, Sondra and I were finishing up our winter swing to California to attend the Western Area Rally and then to Florida to attend the Southeast Area Rally. The weather was pretty bad back home in Michigan, so we called Charlie Adcock, FMCA immediate past national president, to ask whether we could leave our motorhome at his house in Arkansas until we returned in March to travel with him and his wife, Gloria, to the FMCA convention in Tucson, Arizona. He, of course, gave the okay.
On the final leg of the trip from Florida to the Adcocks’ house, we were driving through a small town in Arkansas that Charlie had warned us about as being a speed trap. He has been stopped in this small town several times over the years for speeding, so I thought I would call him on my new, hands-free Apple AirPods to let him know where we were. There are several little towns in Arkansas that are notorious as speed traps. The town we were going through was the one that had “captured” Charlie the most times. As we rolled out of the city limits and hit the cruise control to resume our road speed, I called Charlie and told him that we “survived” his speed-trap town. We chatted for a few minutes, joking about the town and talking about what we were going to do when we arrived at his house in Searcy later that day.
I hit the button on my AirPods to end the call, commented to Sondra that we had survived another trip through “Speed Trap Junction,” and then I looked up to check for traffic, only to see flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror.
What? No way. That policeman must be going after the truck that passed me a mile back. I kept on going, and he kept right on my tail behind our motorhome and the bright-red Ford F-150 truck we were towing. I then heard the loud siren, so I started looking for a safe place to pull over. I finally found a spot that I thought was safe to stop.
I have to admit that I was a little anxious and nervous, because I had never been stopped in my many years of driving a motorhome. As the young officer came up to my driver’s-side window, I could tell he was not really in a safe position, because he was standing partially in the lane of traffic. As I opened the side window to see what he wanted, our three poodles started barking at him, and two of them jumped at him through the screen on the partially open window. I asked him whether he wanted to come in, and he said, “Absolutely not.”
He then proceeded to say, “Sir, do you have any idea why I stopped you?” I immediately replied, “You are playing an April Fool’s Day trick on me?” Wrong answer! He replied: “No, I am not playing an April Fool’s Day trick on you. You were going 66 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone.” In disbelief, I said, “I was not going 66.” Wrong answer again! He said, “You can tell that to the judge. Let me see your drivers license and insurance papers.”
As the three dogs continued barking at the officer, I got out of my seat and went to the back of the motorhome to get my insurance papers. He took my papers and went back to his patrol car.
I told Sondra that this could turn out to be a very interesting situation. “Why?” she asked.
I said, “Well, you know our motorhome is registered to our business in Indiana. It has Indiana plates. My drivers license is from Michigan. Our truck is registered to our company’s LLC in Montana, so it has Montana plates, and the plate says ‘BADNANA.’ Oh, and our insurance papers on the motorhome show that the insurance has expired. And there also is not a 2020 sticker on the motorhome plate, because the new one was mailed out the first of January, and we have been on the road since Christmas. Don’t you think that police officer might decide something ‘odd’ could be going on here?”
I decided that I had better go show the officer the motorhome registration papers reflecting the paid-up fee, even without the sticker. I cautiously got out of the RV and walked back to his car with the paperwork plainly visible to him. He rolled down the window, and I asked him whether he wanted to see my registration. He said, “Nope; here’s your drivers license and insurance papers back, and here is your ticket.”
I asked him how much the fine was going to be. He told me he did not have a clue; I would have to call the court or go online to pay it or to set up a trial date. He then said, “Have a nice day,” and he pulled away.
So, a word of advice: Watch what you do and say in small towns in Arkansas. As you read this, we now are into April, and I’m hoping I survived without any more April Fool’s jokes for this year!
April is also the time of the year when the northern part of our continent wakes up from its winter nap and starts coming alive into spring. April makes me happy, because it is now time to get the RV back out on the road for our next adventure — more area rallies!
I would like to talk with you about what I call the PRESIDENT’S CHALLENGE. In February, I asked whether you would be my Valentine. I know you read this column, because some of you actually sent me Valentine’s Day cards. It really warmed my heart to see that someone does want to be my Valentine! To those who sent me a card, THANKS!
This month, April, I’m asking you to make a pledge to me that you will sign up at least one new FMCA member. I have found that if you talk with someone who is not a member and tell him or her about the wonderful benefits, and the real value of those benefits, he or she will sign up and join our wonderful association — the largest — and best — not-for-profit RV group in the world!
FMCA has some wonderful recruitment materials that can make your task even easier. We have booklets that detail member benefits, PowerPoint presentations, copies of Family RVing magazine, and other resources to help you. Just call the FMCA Member Services staff at (513) 474-3622 or (800) 543-3622 and ask for recruitment materials. They would love to help you.
I would like to sweeten the deal for you. If you sign someone up between now and our international convention in August, I will buy your dinner at the convention. Hold those dates in Lincoln, Nebraska: August 26 through August 29. All you have to do is sign up one new member and let me know. Once you have recruited a member, please fill out the simple form that appears here: https://join.fmca.com/ne20presidentsdinner/ You also can email me, call me and leave a voice mail message, call the FMCA national office, or knock on my door to let me know. I would love to have dinner with you and the other “FMCA recruiters” at our event in Lincoln! We can even talk about how to become better FMCA recruiters.
And that is NOT an April Fool’s Day joke. Hope to see you around the dinner table in Lincoln!
Remember, it is still all about having fun!
Garbage In, Garbage Out: We Need Your Help!
FMCA will be moving to new association management software this fall, and we want to avoid the old “garbage in, garbage out” syndrome. We need your help to clean up the FMCA database before we migrate data from the old system to the new.
For instance, we have quite a few bad emails in our database that we’d like to eliminate and update. Maybe you’ve changed email addresses and forgot to notify FMCA. We rely on email to share information with members, because it is the most expedient and cost-effective way to communicate. If we don’t have the correct email address for you, you could be missing out on vital information.
Please take a minute to visit FMCA.com, sign in, and look at your member profile — www.fmca.com/member-profile — to make sure your email address and all of the other information we have on file for you is correct: mailing address, RV type, etc. You can find your profile via the top menu bar under the Membership tab, or via the icon on the right side of the page that looks like a person.