Thursday, June 26

The Beginning...

I don't know why, but I have had this blog address for almost a month now and haven't done anything with it! I guess I didn't know how to start it out. I would also guess that the best place to start is at the beginning, so that is what I am going to do. Once T and I were married, we decided to move to Phoenix because I was still going to school there and I was so close! During our whole engagement, I was living in P-town, while my soon-to-be husband was living in Logan, so it was up to me to decide and get arranged our living situation.

Unfortunately, we didn't marry each other for the money, and apartments around the university are so expensive. That, and I'm cheap. If you know my family at all, I would assume an expression of understanding is sweeping your face right now. Anyway, I went from apartment complex to apartment complex, and all the rent prices seemed to be the same. There was no way we were going to pay what they were asking for, so T's brother so generously donated his camper to our cause. I had found that rent in trailer parks were so unbelievably less expensive. So, I found a trailer park close to the school, and decided this was the place for us. If you know T at all, you will also know that he could care less about his living situation.

Let me tell you a little bit about our trailer park. First off, the address is spray painted on the wall to indicate where to turn into the actual park. I wish I had the opportunity to take a picture of it because it is pretty funny. We had a very interesting neighbor. He was an older guy, who was pretty racist, and only came home during weird hours of the day.


One morning, we were sleeping, and we woke up to this gentleman talking to his friend. He told this friend that we were louder than Amos and Andy. Now, could someone please tell me. Who are Amos and Andy? Are they particularly loud indviduals? Why would he compare us to them? I wouldn't consider myself a loud individual, and I am pretty sure we weren't screaming in there. Anyway, from then on, I tried to whisper as much as I could so not to bother the 'Amos and Andy guy'.

Our landlord was a very interesting fellow. When I first met him, I called to make sure where the place was. No one answered, once I got there, I looked around at the front office and no one was to be seen. I looked around the park itself, and found our landlord; he was lifting weights. I guess that is what he does on his down time? Anyway, he would always charge us a different amount for rent every month. Some months, it was $200, other months, it was was $250. I'm not exactly sure what he did either, because basically we saw him all the time either in a wife beater, or no shirt at all just walking around.

Weekends in the trailer park are treat! (In this trailer park, usually Thursdays were the beginning of the weeked) We would wake up to the deafening sound of mariachi music! It would last all day, and people were over visiting all the time, so it was difficult manuvering around the crowds if you wanted to get out.
This is our trailer from the outside. It is a small little thing, huh?

Let me tell you about the trailer itself. The very first day we get into the park and get everything hooked up something happened, and the light fixtures shorted out in half of the house. To this day, we still can't figure out what the heck happened. I didn't realize how dark it actually got in there at night! The shower was a delight! In order for one to take a 'shower', I use this term loosely because this type of shower came from hose water, and lasted about 5 minutes. You had to go outside, and heat up this coil thing that was used to heat the water. It was broken or something, so we had to do it everytime. It took about 30 minutes to heat up the water, too. Since this was such a pain, I resorted to taking showers in the university gym showers, and T decided to either take a cold shower, or refrain from bathing all together. Sometimes, the water would be shut off completely! Those were the times I would go crazy. I'm sorry, but I draw the line somewhere.


Thankfully, it wasn't a very hot spring because the air conditioning didn't work. Near the end of our stay, I just about died because it felt like I was being cooked in an oven that actually looked like an oven! Near the end, we could both tell that we were becoming a 'trailer park' couple because we would see a trailer or a mobile home, evaluate it, and discuss the merits of them. I personally really like the mobile homes with a sliding glass door.


This is the inside of our camper. You can see just how teeny tiny it is. Is was nice though, because it was ours, kind of.



Not only was our trailer park stay an adventure, it was a great story to tell our grandkids.




3 comments:

Trish said...

Wow, you guys are brave! But when you're done with school, you should come and live in San Antonio again! The home prices are way more reasonable than anywhere else (except Idaho and Kansas I think). Yeah, so are you still living there?

allison said...

Jackie! I love blogging! I am adding you to my list of friends, and feel free to do the same if you want to! Your living arrangements could be worse...my brother and Hans (I think) lived in a tent for a semester. With an old pulpit as a drawer and the school gym for the daily shower. Welcome to being an Isom, you fit right in! I love it!

Nat said...

Did you ever figure out who Amos and Andy are? Ask T to show you the Apple Dumplin' Gang. I'm loving your stories. Thanks for sharing. Looking forward to getting to know you better. Natalie