Category: History

Trailers For Sale Or Rent

mobile-018

Three blocks from my subdivision, I can throw a stick in any direction and hit a mobile home. And a chainlink fence. And some curious tire “art” formed into flamingos. And that old man in torn boxer shorts, standing wobbly near his bottle tree (yes, that’s a thing) that keeps his barking doberman company. But that’s not the point. The point is that none of the dozens upon dozens of mobile homes look like this swanky residence.

I want to live in this mobile home. I want that couch and those views of what appears to be a golfcourse (because most mobile homes usually have views of the green), and those curtains, and that record player, and throw in the little girl, please. I don’t have one of those yet.

And while I’ve driven past a whole mess of trailers in my lifetime, apparently my state doesn’t have nearly what the top ten states do.

http://www.bbc.com (yes, the bbc. i know, right?)

Last year’s Miss South Carolina announced her home state with pride: “From the state where 20% of our homes are mobile ’cause that’s how we roll, I’m Brooke Mosteller, Miss South Carolina.” Here, she demonstrates how to prop one up during a thunderstorm.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Come on, you know they are not safe in high winds (and fires, by the way). This is not news. And they depreciate instead of appreciate. But none of this mattered when I was young. Back then, I romanticized mobile home life, like an adult version of a fort. No attic, no basement, no five thousand dollar roof to replace every ten years. Just my size. And heck, you can take it with you when you relocate.

Come to think of it, while every home in my subdivision has .20 acres of land, our mobile home neighbors  down the road all have a sweet acre. Enormous expanses of land on which to put all sorts of things, but mostly immobile vehicles. Next to a mobile home. That is ironic, right? I am not trailer-bashing; this is reality. I have been inside nice mobile homes. But dang–not that nice. Not 1952 nice. I just want to know where those trailers are, like the one above. I never see those. Do they exist?

Well, they sort of exist. Parrish Manor in Raleigh, North Carolina boasts manicured lawns (sans vehicles and tire art) and a nice pine-lined creek. Looks pretty peaceful and clean, huh?

pond-with-nessie

An estimated 20 million Americans live in mobile homes, more than any other country. And they aren’t living in new ones. According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, in the late 1990s, nearly 400,000 new manufactured homes sold a year, down to 55,000 now. This necessitates more upkeep and maintenance on existing homes. Do not neglect your mobile home.

Whether it’s motivated by the freedom and mobility of the American way or simply a cycle of poverty that prevents site-built home ownership, mobile homes are here to stay. Just please–put your shirts back on.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24135022
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24135022

Need more trailer posts? Check out last year’s Teepees and Trailer Homes.

 

Pickpockets Gonna Pick

Matador-015What a whirlwind of activity there is here! A bloody bedazzled Mexican matador (oh, that’s a nice title!), an irate bellhop, an Iowa farmhand (freshly flung into the ring from a far-reaching midwest tornado), and the Artful Dodger, doing his best to carpe diem in the midst of all this brouhaha.

The magazine, Hoy, published the picture with this comment: Just as it happens every day in every section of the city. Note to self: don’t visit Mexico City in the 50s. Or ever. Or Liberia in 2014.

Before There Was Daylight Saving Time…

Ventana52-006…young men set their pocket watches to pin-up time. Witness this lad trying to get the minute hand just right. Men who did not hang pin-ups in their rooms usually found themselves tardy to important appointments. Even on Saturdays.

KU-Fall40005Sadly, campus buses did not run their routes on weekends and fellows were forced to hitch.

KUFall39-003

Pin-up time has gone the way of the dinosaur, but a new time has risen in popularity.

http://shauniisagranny.blogspot.com/
http://shauniisagranny.blogspot.com/

And according to my watch, that’s pretty soon.

Modern Library

Ventana52-008before tablets

before Kindle

before Barnes & Noble and the now-defunct Borders

there were libraries

and corner bookstores

and meg ryan did not work in them but that was okay

there was no coffee, no chai, no biscotti

no wi-fi

but boys and girls could meet there and look at each other when they spoke

and touch globes and point to countries they would visit

one day

and grab a paperback and get lost in it so that they forgot all sense of time.

If The World Were Flat, Dragons And Monster Fish Would Attack Ships

flatLet me be the first to say I am so grateful that the earth does not look like an overflowing oyster shell, spilling like Niagara Falls into the nothingness. How odd it would be to have clouds below us.

Science-038

 

My Sweet Nearly Embraceable You

Comet54-004What’s up with Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons here? That fourth season doesn’t quite know how to put his arm around a girl. That’s not even first base.

These are my guesses:

  • He’s taking extreme measures not to be perceived as “getting fresh.”
  • Margie recently had lap band surgery and lost half her weight, and old habits die hard, on his part.
  • Margie contracted Hep C by sharing a needle with Tommy Lee, and might be contagious.
  • There is an invisible parrot named Rio on her shoulder.
  • He was the very first tree-hugger, and his arms froze that way.

Do you have the answer? Can you tell me why the leaping Wolfman has one black hand?

 

 

Coffee At Ruby’s

At first, this image of Ruby’s Diner in Schenectady, NY may seem like a study in isolation. The calendar shows September 1988, and while that may not seem like that long ago to some of us, just peek in to this scene to see how the world has changed. RubysDiner88-034Gerd Kittel’s pre-digital camera shows us a man and a woman (presumably both past their physical prime), sharing booths with no one. The woman appears contemplative and dressed for work. The man reminds me of my grandfather: intent on reading the news, colder in his old age and consequently cardigan-clad, and probably smells of Old Spice. No laptops, no iphones, no flat screen TVs. Just take that in–no one is staring at a screen. Like you’re doing right now.

There are Polaroids tacked to the wall. A cigarette machine. God knows the price then, but I passed one only last weekend, a relic itself, and the cost was $10 per pack. And you know smokers will pay it. Formica tabletops. The TV is not a wide screen. It has knobs which to turn. The coffee cup is small. It is not a Starbuck’s grande. That doesn’t mean he won’t consume more than the 16 oz; it just means a waitress will be by shortly to top him off. And that means human interaction. She might bring more cream. She might ask what he is reading.

But first, she will ask the photographer to step out of the way. You can see his reflection to the left of the TV, the man in the Anthony Bourdain sweater.