I was a trailer park boy

Before Ricky, Julian, and Bubbles made it hip to be white trash living in mobile homes and trying to make ends meet any way they can, I was already living the life of a recreational trailer park dweller. It all started when my father bought an outboard motor boat from a minister in the country. After one season of constantly towing the little red runabout back and forth from home to the boat launch at the lake for a day of boating, dad decided to find a permanent place to dock the boat.

One of the places considered for docking the boat in the summer, which was close enough to get to for a weekend outing, was a trailer park. Well, that opened a can of worms because after a couple weekends of driving 45 minutes both ways my parents decided we would become weekend residents to maximize our time spent away from the city as a family. They bought a cozy little trailer that had a bedroom at one end with a short galley kitchen leading to a dinner table that converted into another bed. They managed to get prime lot with a large fire pit area and close to where our boat was docked.

As a preteen/teenager I grew up with summer weekends spent in a trailer park. My sister and I made friends with the other weekenders and a few full timers too. At that age you don't really know the difference in class or station in life so everyone was equal. Thinking back now, however, we were in the minority of middle class families who used the trailer as a cheap cottage getaway. The management tried to divide the park into sections that reflected this, creating a microcosm of neighbourhoods not unlike the Sims. There were parts of the park that we didn't go, given what I just said, because our mama didn't raise no fools.

I suppose the park depicted on the TV show is not the same kind that we had experienced. Therefore we did not see the stereotypes they portrayed so vividly. I would actually have been afraid if that were the norm. Overall, we had some great times at our little mobile cottage over the years and it's something that I would like to do again someday.