moving from the beach in California to Warner America was quite a shock, we lived in a duplex on campus. I don't really remember it, except i could walk out my front door to the bus stop. It must have been bad, because my mother actually moved us into a trailer house. Now they are referred to as "manufactured homes", but we lived in a trailer house. I really think the only thing that could have made it more white trash was to take the wheels off and put them on the roof. I never understood why people did that, unless they were afraid someone would steal them or they would lose them.
I think now you can actually paint the walls in a "manufactured home" but we had either wood grain paneling or paneling with the ugliest design possible. The ceiling didn't have sheets of drywall, it was another textured panel that was secured with screws. Since it wasn't drywall, the fasteners weren't able to be disguise with mud and tape, someone came up with the bright idea to use plastic flower pieces to try and make the screws look decorative. Mother always said she wanted to unscrew those flowers and see if the ceiling would fall down. I found out years later that since trailer houses are put together with glue, they attract roaches, using the glue as a food source. I was told once that roaches would lay their eggs in the fiber of paper products, even to this day, i don't keep a paper bag in my house for very long for fear of roaches.
The spot on the land that was picked for the trailer wasn't level, so the front of the trailer was about five feet off the ground and the back of the trailer practically sat on the ground. I am sure it was a financial decision to not put skirting around the bottom of the trailer, so it was just used for storage. Butch even stored his playboy magazines on the wet ground. The only thing missing from this mental picture is a broken down car on cinder blocks. We had the next best thing, a catamaran. Why my adoptive father thought having a catamaran in Oklahoma was a good idea, no one knows for sure. I do know that the boat never saw water unless it rained. I once thought it would be cool to plant morning glories, which quickly engulfed the boat with their very invasive vines. A kid came to the house one day selling something and actually offered to buy that boat, the man wouldn't sell it. I was thinking if that kid was brave enough to dig it out of the jungle and fight all of the critters who lived in it, he could have it!!!
Years later, my grandmother would complain about how cold the house was that she paid to have a skirting put around the bottom of that trailer. Bob Villa, my adoptive father was not, so he hired someone to put sheets of plywood around the bottom of the trailer. He must have hired Larry, Darryl and Darryl. I am certain this was not an improvement, plain sheets of plywood, sitting on the wet ground with no paint or polyurethane to protect the wood from the elements. The trailer had already sat for years, animals tearing out the insulation and making it their home. I was in high school when the skunk moved in, i was terrified that me and all of my clothes would smell like skunk. I already had a horrible self esteem and i didn't need this help.
I still to this day sleep better in a house that is freezing, my poor husband swears that i am trying to give him pneumonia. I cant help it, my adoptive father said we couldn't afford to heat that trailer, so i learned to pile on more blankets, clothes, whatever and just deal. I didn't know any different, my bff wasn't much better off, they lived in a 2 story house and used the wood burning stove to heat their house....which is why the electric blanket is our best friend.
The womanizer that my adoptive father was, he used to bring home various women to have sex with. He had a water bed and when the motion of the ocean got to moving, the entire trailer would shake. The first time this ever happened i had a friend staying the night and we just knew that there was a monster outside trying to roll the trailer over. We kept hearing moaning and screaming coming from the bedroom, but we were so young, we hadn't a clue what was happening. I was scared and didn't know what was happening, the house was shaking, it was night, in the middle of nowhere, a perfect scene from a horror movie.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment