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Despite his stern rhetoric, Reagan is almost never visibly angered, even by the most hostile questions, and banters easily with practically anyone; he and his wife Nancy have made a ritual of passing out candy to reporters on campaign planes and buses. The old entertainer usually seeks to entertain his companions too. On a campaign bus driving through a heavy snow in New Hampshire, he started out with a labored joke: "If anyone hears dogs barking, it's because the next leg will be done by sled." That led to a stream-of-consciousness monologue skipping erratically from dogs to other animals to firearms (Reagan has a small gun collection and does some target shooting, though he does not hunt) and concluding with a reading aloud from that day's installment of Doonesbury, one of Reagan's favorite comic strips. In a 1965 autobiography, recalling his elation at acting in college plays, Reagan wrote, "Nature was trying to tell me something —namely, that my heart is a hamloaf."
On the campaign trail, Reagan does very little handshaking; his standard appearance is a short speech followed by a question-and-answer session. With the actor in him again coming out, he loves to roll words around and test out lines, noting and then repeating at the next stop whichever ones get the loudest laughs or applause. At the end of the New Hampshire campaign, he could feel affection flowing from the crowds, and he responded exuberantly. His last appearance before the vote was a classic campaign scene: a crowd of 300 gathered inside the white clapboard town hall in New Boston (pop. 1,630); sirens screeched, bells clanged and lights flashed from a firehouse across the street; a brass band belted out lusty, if strangely matched, renditions of God Bless America and Ease on Down the Road. Reagan, visibly buoyed, even got off some unrehearsed one-liners. When a local politician proudly showed him the town's 90-year-old heavy polished-oak ballot box, Reagan cracked, "I'd like to stuff that ballot box."
Away from the crowds, Reagan has an odd kind of little-boy quality that makes his wife and staff protect him. Aides are forever reminding him to get his dinner, to put on his overcoat, to make in public some interesting point he had discussed with them privately. However, relations between Reagan and his staff, for all its consideration and devotion, are strictly businesslike. None of his present aides address Reagan as anything but "Governor." For personal friendship, Reagan turns at home to old buddies from his movie days, among them William Hoiden and Jimmy Stewart, and a few of the California businessmen who first backed him for Governor 14 years ago.