ANOTHER DAY I ALMOST DIED

Lin reminded me recently of the times I crawled under our “house trailer” and helped my dad level up after arriving at a new destination. Underneath I was save and secure working along side my dad, even though he constantly yelled at me to push here, pull there, and go get me this or that, or how I couldn’t “drive a nail up your ass with both hands!” But, at least under there, I was still in our world and did not yet have to face all the new kids in a strange new world.

However, when the time came, there was no doubt in my mind that I could “set up” a trailer in short order!

Connie (wife #1) and Betty Anne were hairdressers and had operated a shop together that I christened “Two Hairdressers!” I think the name and the logo were one of the few things I ever got back from my college degree in “advertising!” (The photo is of the old location before the events below took place.)

Anyway, they paid high rent where they were and one day it was decided that they would buy their own lot and build their own shop. The whole idea sprang from an ad in the local paper about the Scottish Inns, a local manufacturing company that made modular motel and business units, was going out of business and having to sell their existing inventory.

The two beauticians decided that one of the little 12’X25’ yellow units would be perfect for a four-station beauty shop. So, bright and early on “auction day” I was elected to go and bring one home - alone.

The best I can remember, I paid about $3,000 for the unit, but I could have gotten it for around $2,500 had I not bid against myself twice! Hell, I’d never been to an auction before and I had no clue what was going on. However, I was determined to bring one home!

After winning the bid, probably because I frightened the other bidders by screaming out bids, even when it wasn’t my turn, I went forward to sign on the dotted line. “You have a week to have the building hauled away and bring back the trailer frame it is resting on. Otherwise, the sale is revoked and the sale goes to the next highest bidder. Do you understand,” the auctioneer asked.

Well, I understood, but I had no idea who to call to pull the trailer, with the building on it, to our lot, or even how to get it off the trailer. “Who do I get to pull it?”

The auctioneer pointed over my shoulder to a shady looking fellow wearing a frayed and dirty yellow CAT hat, a sleeveless shirt, and very dirty jeans. Basically, he looked like “Larry the Cable Guy!” As I approached him he spit out a long brown line of tobacco juice and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, the same hand he held out for me to shake!

Long story short, he was hired to do the hauling and then pull the trailer back to the Scottish Inn warehouse. The next thing for me and Squeaky (Betty Anne’s better half) to do was to coordinate the operation so that we could be ready to jack up and block up the building so “Larry” could pull the trailer out from under it. We picked a Saturday so we would have all day to figure it out!

On that faithful day, the day that almost became my last, the building arrived and Larry was anxious to "git’er unloaded" and be on his way. He worked under our command, though showing much frustration at our directions, but he finally squared up the trailer along the intended lines the building was to sit.

Squeaky and I sized up the situation and we deployed on the project while “Larry” watched us carry and stack blocks along the perimeter of the trailer, set up our two jacks on two opposite corners in the front, and distribute the wooden wedges used in leveling atop the cinder blocks. This alone took an hour of hard work and the sweat was pouring off us both.

The plan was to jack up the two front corners, build up a single stack of blocks, let the trailer back down on the stack, then move down about 10 feet and jack it up again, and continue down the length of the building until it was all about 2 or 3 inches clear of the trailer. We then planned to have “Larry” pull the trailer out slowly, and he could be on his way.

Following the removal of the trailer, we would then replace the corner stacks with double stack blocks all the way up…shim it, get the level bubbles close, and move on down the line. This plan worked well, at least for the trailer removal. The trailer was clear of the building and “Larry” honked his horn, waved his CAT hat, and was gone. We breathed a sigh of relief to be free of the trailer and the contractual obligation to have the trailer back in short order.

But now the long hard task of leveling and setting up the building permanently was ahead of us.

It was decided that we needed to get some support under the center of the structure before moving on to the permanent plan. So, I slid in under the building with no thought of danger, and began stacking block. Neither of us had noticed that the weight of the building was pushing the block stacks on one side slowing into the soft earth. Suddenly, and about the same instant, we noticed that the building was leaning hard to one side and was just moments from toppling off the blocks. Squeaky instinctively pushed hard against the side of the building, and at the same time I rolled to where I would at least be between two floor joists if it fell. Truth is, that would have meant I would have only been half crushed!

Strangely enough, Squeaky’s strength seemed enough to stop the slow tilt, or maybe he had some help from some angels, I don’t know! I took the pause in collapse to roll out from under the structure and jumped up to help him hold the building. The building seemed steady enough, so I also began to double stack blocks up about an inch higher than the bottom of the building. I then sat up one of the jacks on another stack of blocks, topped off with a cap block, and jacked until the building rested on the first double stack.

Soon we had one side, the sinking side, resting on four separate block pillars. We shifted to the other side and soon had everything resting comfortably and stably on double stacked blocks in permanent positions. The building, our pride, and my life were finally safe!

The building is still functioning today and rest beautifully on a complete block underpinning foundation. Every time I see it I’m reminded of what could have been.

Thanks Lin for reminding me, and thanks Squeaky for saving my life!

TRAILER TRASH

If you have been reading this biographical blog, you know that I first lived in a trailer in 1954, but that was only a temporary situation when my mom and I stayed the summer with my dad in Paducah, or rather Kevil, Kentucky while he worked at the government’s gaseous diffusion site there.

My family abandoned the traditional frame house in 1956 when we moved to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. Dad had resigned himself to following the Tennessee Valley Authority construction work as an electrician and bought our first “house trailer,” I think it was an Elkhart model made in Indiana. It was blue, white, and just 8-feet wide and about 35-feet long. There were two bedrooms and my brother’s baby bed sat in the alcove space in front of the back door.

Besides the scary moment when the lady scared me during the Wolfman movie, the only other thing I remember about the trailer was that mom almost caught it on fire one day went the pilot light on the oven went out and the propane flowed out and ran invisibly underneath my bed, which was nearest the kitchen. When she struck a match to light the oven, it flashed over and almost cost us the trailer. However, it apparently did not cause much more than some singed hair and life resumed.

We lived in that trailer until we moved to Florence, Alabama. During that time dad purchased a 10 by 48 footer that was oddly painted brown, golden-yellow, and white. I remember this because mom insisted we wash and wax it once a year! To us this was a mansion of great proportions! There were still only 2 bedrooms, but everything was much larger and the kitchen and dinning area were located in the front section, with the living room located mid-trailer, and now the washer and dryer were inside.

Two other trailers come to mind, between this one and the next one my family owned, but they were only rented for the summers: one was in Birmingham, Alabama, the other in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

I do not remember too much about either trailer, but I do remember the trailer in Birmingham had a foot peddle to flush the toilet and we often got called down for kick starting the toilet just for the fun of it.

However, we lived in the brown, golden-yellow, and white one until I left home for the Air Force in 1964, at which time my brother got full custody of our bedroom. I remember that bedroom, because my feet extended into the hallway and every time someone passed by, my feet got brushed and I woke up.

I also remember sleeping with my brother and giggling and poking at each other almost every night. Once dad told us to quite down and go to sleep and said he did not want to hear another peep out of us.

Well, that recalled a story from my mom who slept in a room with at least 4 siblings and they were told to do the same one night and that if another “peep” was heard they would all get a spanking. Well, someone said “PEEP” and they all got it! So, my brother said “Peep” and we got it!

However, in the dark my dad could only see general shapes. I raised my leg up slightly, deflecting the burnt of the belt licks and my brother and I screamed as though he was killing us. He soon tired and felt satisfied we had learned our lesson and left the room reminding us to “go to sleep.” It was all we could do to keep him from hearing us snicker under the covers with our faces muffled against our pillows!

While I was in the Air Force, maybe in Vietnam, mom and dad bought their last trailer. It was a grand 12 by 65-footer from Norris. They were made not too far from where we lived in Norris, Tennessee. They even got to visit the factory and watch some of the construction. Dad was so proud of the real 2X4 and 4X4 wall construction that he could talk for several minutes about how much it was like a “real house.”

This trailer seemed like home to me mostly because I had my own bedroom in the front of the trailer, but also because it was my last home with the family. I only lived there only a short time before I married and moved out.

Just a few years before my dad died, they bought a lot in a residential area, took the wheels off, put it up on a block foundation, put aluminum awnings on both sides, and made it appear as a much like a real house as they could. It was a nice place and because they tore an old eye sore down, even the neighbors welcomed them to the neighborhood. The place was full of flowers, a garden, children playing, and mom continued to wash a wax the trailer until it was sold some five years later and a permanent house was built on the lot.

As I look back, I have to say that I am proud of my “trailer trash” past. The people that traveled the country in the late 40s, the 50s, 60s, and 70s helping build power plants, dams, and secret government research sites were a different breed of folks. In a way they lived the end times of the American pioneers and just followed the work. They pulled up stakes, jerked the kids out of school, and just moved expecting only better conditions and better pay. They were welders, electricians, boiler makes, pipe fitters, carpenters, masons, and all the other craftsmen and labors that built a better world for us all.

They did not live in trailers because they could not afford better, but because it was easier to move their families and follow their work. They did not sit around and let things grow up around them, rust, and fall down around them. They were proud of their little home on wheels and their pride was evident to those that passed. Evident in the mowed grass, the brilliant flowers that grew from seed they saved and moved with them, in the waxed trailer and car, and in the laughter of the happy children that lived there.

They also took their values with them and passed it own to their children - the boomers of today. These people, our parents, still valued God and family, friends, and this country. The worked hard for what they had and took care of it, and instilled the same pride in their offspring.

In my mind they are a dying breed that is not being replaced, and dying with them is our sense of values. And deep in my heart I know that you are only “trash” if you sit by and let things that should be valued slip away, and you do not have to live in a trailer to let that happen.