Thirty Years in a Housetruck

Discussions about all things to do with buses, trucks, and the homes made within them.

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Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Oh, I've doubled my audience overnight! Wait until Neilsen Ratings hears about this!!


After getting the car running, I dropped in on my friend Mike (known by his nick name, “Frenchyâ€
Stillphil
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Post by Stillphil »

I'm back reading too, Sharkey. Great stuff.

Stillphil
Illegitimi non carborundum!
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

When we returned home, we found that Kim and Terri had been eating the groceries that we bought the day I left. In fact, the groceries were gone. It would be understandable for them to consume perishables like milk or eggs, but they scarfed up the staples too. We asked (quite reasonably, we thought) that they replenish these food items, since we had made the purchase but then not been around to share in their consumption, but we were told in effect, “Tough luck, you move, you loseâ€
Pfeinstein

Post by Pfeinstein »

Ah, yes. The inconsiderate roomate phenomenon. I've had a few in College, so I completely sympathize.

I remember when *$40* went from being a lot of groceries to being a just enough for 4 people to have lunch. Maybe I'd spend less if I lived veggie, but for a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 small kids) it runs me between $100 and $150 a week. Not including lunch money for the kids.

I'd like to remind you that you threatened a while ago to tell us what happend to Prakesh in another story line. I'm enjoying the heck out of these, so no rush. Just don't forget, OK?

Thanks!
Forgottenhighway

Post by Forgottenhighway »

I am enjoyed the story too Sharkey....give till it hurtz !
Forgottenhighway

Post by Forgottenhighway »

Ahhhh, that should read "enjoying" ...as others have said, brings back memories of living with other people and some of problems that would crop up.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Roommates? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, these people were our landlords!

Time out for a character bio…

Let’s get to know Kim a little better, because he’s about to get a nickname (or "Prankster" name as we call them up here in Kesey Country).

I’d known Kim for probably seven or eight years. When I actually think about it, I don’t know that he ever attended my high school, or had transferred out sometime before graduation. Possibly, he was a friend of TMAX and Stu, who I did attend school with.

At any rate Kim had always been an interesting character. Possessed with a dry sense of humor, appreciative of the cartoons of Ghan Wilson, completely enamored of any music that Frank Zappa made, and fond of being a little wild in his own way. Never one to shirk from a challenge of any sort, he pulled off some nutty pranks.

Like the time one of his friends took his new girlfriend to the Torrance Drive In Theatre. Kim assembled eight or ten friends (including me), and BS’ed our way past the ticket takers to pull a "commando raid" on the movie-going couple. After locating their VW bug in the lot, we converged on it from all different directions at an arranged signal, grabbing the car and tossing it around violently while Kim hopped on the hood, stripped to the waist holding a machete between his teeth.

His favorite pastime when new visitors to his home came calling was to show them his parents "Custom, stock-from-the-factory dog" (a dachshund with one testicle).

One time, he talked me into climbing down a sheer cliff to the Pacific Ocean because someone had stolen a new Ford Mustang and driven it off the cliff. It was laying upside down in about two feet of water, and he wanted to see if it had any salvageable parts. It didn’t, but so that the trip wouldn’t be wasted, he collected about half a dozen Abalone (still in the shell), and a huge, heavy packing crate that he wanted to use as a cabinet for his stereo. Dragging all that crap back up the cliff wasn’t my idea of recreation.

In the early 1970’s Kim found that he was about 100% sure to get conscripted into the armed services and sent to Vietnam. Instead, he enlisted in the Army for four years and entered the medic corps. First stationed in El Paso, Texas, I sent him some custom cassette tapes of music, news and skits that those of us with high lottery numbers back at home would perform. I did this for a number of years, sending tapes to friends in the service stationed all over the world. Kim was the only one to ever send tapes back, filled with wit and his own selections of music (mostly Zappa). It was through these tapes that we formed the idea of creating a cooperative living situation in Oregon.

Back in the present (1975), Woodley and I found that Kim had positioned himself as the "alpha male", the boss, the "big cheese" and given that we were dependant upon him and his parents for a place to live, we were pretty much under his thumb.

At some point, I decided that he needed a more appropriate moniker. Since his military background was obvious, and because he liked barking orders at us, we christened him "Sarge", which suited him just fine. Terri didn’t care for our choice at all, but Sarge would respond to our calling him by that name, so we continued.

Just so you can see how fitting this name was, here’s a photo of "Sarge" at Christmas, 1973:

Image

What Woodley and I were finding that instead of a cooperative living situation, we were more like hired hands, without the benefit of being paid or having days off. Pretty much any time we planned to take a day off, go somewhere, work on our trucks, or just read a book, Sarge or Jeep would find something for us to do, and we’d be forced to cancel our plans. It wasn’t even possible for us to retreat to the tree house to practice duets on our recorders, as Sarge would hear the woodwind instruments through the trees and either yell for us, or, if we didn’t respond, come up the hill and rout us from our time together.

Sarge was very contemptuous of our desire to maintain a vegetarian diet, equating it with "stump-breaking cows". I didn't then, and never have understood how not eating meat is associated with having sex with farm animals, but that's what he was inferring.

He also took to using his pellet rifle to get our attention. If we slept too late in the morning, he’d stand on the deck outside the trailer and pepper the walls of our trucks with BB’s. He even shot Woodley’s oversized black Labrador, Zeus in the ass a couple of times, lodging lead pellets in his skin.

No, things weren’t turning out to be too terribly cooperative after all.
Tim Clevenger
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Great story

Post by Tim Clevenger »

Please keep it up. Very interesting reading.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Just so no one gets the impression that things were all dour and lifeless, we did manage to do a few enjoyable things in between being worked like mules.

There were two young women that worked in the office of Kitty’s interior decorating business on Jeep and Kitty’s property. One (or both of them) took an interest in Woodley, and had the means to provide some entertainment. Most days, she would drive Daddy’s Corvette to work, but it also turned out that her dad had a ski boat. One weekend after the weather turned nice, we all went out on Fern Ridge Reservoir for some water skiing. I hadn’t been on skis for at least ten years, but the knack came back fairly quickly. It helped a lot that the boat was of modern hull design, and had a powerful engine. I learned to water ski being hauled around behind a little underpowered runabout on the Colorado River, and the boat would take forever to get to plane, meaning that getting up out of the water on the skis and in good form was a difficult struggle that took way too long.

Another time a neighbor invited us to borrow their horses, and we took an all afternoon ride over the ridge and into a secluded valley. Of course, on the way home the horses got barn fever and wanted to run the last half mile or so home. Sarge kept yelling at us to reign them in, but eventually, Woodley’s horse broke into a gallop, inciting the other horses to run also, and we all got a chance to imagine ourselves in the Kentucky Derby. Woodley and I both got yelled at quite a bit afterwards, but I don’t know that there was any way we could have kept those lazy barn stall layabouts in a slow walk when they saw home.

There was also that time Sarge took us fishing out somewhere near Independence. It was pretty boring, and we didn’t catch anything. I was used to fishing off the Redondo Beach pier, catching mackerel and bonita, or fresh water fishing in Clearlake in Northern California. At least you could count on hooking a few bluegills to throw back.

Come to think of it, Sarge ripped off my fishing pole after that particular expedition.

Oh, I was supposed to be concentrating on having a good time. Well, there’s a big celebration with a surprise ending just around the corner….
Forgottenhighway

Post by Forgottenhighway »

More please !!

That was 9 tries to log on....grrrrr
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

The next one is a novelette all by itself. I spent part of last night composing it, but didn't finish yet. It should be posted early this evening.

Y'know, registration is free, and once registered, you don't have to deal with that confirmation image ever again. I don't collect emails to sell to spammers, and this site has resonable security precautions to protect your information. Just a suggestion. I do keep guest posting open on purpose because some people prefer to not register, even though it would be easier and safer to disable it.
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

Well, OK, so this next bit is hard for me to post, partly because it’s very personal, but it’s also very heavy. I guess I could skip it, but it’s part of my early life in Oregon, so here goes:

It’s the second week in June, 1975. Sarge and Terri decide that Woodley and I can get out of the work harness for a day and visit the Great Outdoors in observance of my 24th birthday. An outing is planned to Sahalie Falls on the McKenzie River, about 75 miles from Eugene. Lunch is packed, swimsuits and towels stowed in my car, and the four of us are headed upriver for the day.

The McKenzie Highway (Oregon 126) is a very picturesque highway that parallels the McKenzie River, climbing gracefully up the valley through the foothills of the Cascade mountain range. Just before the road gets steep and begins to really climb into the mountains, and very near Clear Lake, the source of the McKenzie, there is a pair of spectacular waterfalls, Sahalie, and Koosah. The area is a National Park, and is developed with hiking trails, campgrounds, and picnicking facilities.

Crosby, Stills and Nash’s "4 + 20" from the Déjà Vu album was just ending on the cassette player as we pulled into the parking area. We grabbed our gear, and headed down to the first falls, Sahalie. The view from the stone observation platform was indeed inspiring:

Image

The spray from the falls made the air alive with negative ions, and the temperature from the constant evaporation of the mist lowered the heat of the day by a good ten degrees. Of course, the thunder of the water echoed off the trees and rocks.

A rustic path lead downriver, winding between the trees, and scrambling over roots and stone. The river itself is moving fast, fairly boiling with air and energy from the falls, and the colors of the water with the sunlight penetrating it was amazing. No painter’s palette could ever hope to capture the shades of blue and green contained in that living body of water.

About a half mile down stream is Koosah Falls. Much rockwork has been done to the paths around the falls, creating stairways, observation decks both above and below the falls, and trails to an adjoining campground.

Another half mile of hiking brings one to Carmen Reservoir, where one of the electric utilities diverts a portion of the river’s flow into a canal, to be carried to a powerhouse several miles down stream. Here, the water calms a bit, and the widening channel that leads into the reservoir allows the river to slow somewhat, although it’s still a huge quantity of water, and moving right along as well.

Over the entrance of the reservoir is a vehicle bridge, a single lane span to allow cars to reach the parking lot on the opposite shore. A few fishermen try their luck on the far end of the bridge. Woodley and Sarge decided that the coolness of the air at the falls has worn off and it’s time for some swimming, so they begin taking turns diving off the bridge into the river. I was content to sit on a large stump off to the side and observe. Eventually, Woodley came over and tried to interest me in trying a dive. I wasn’t really into it, but he was persistent, and talked me into removing my boots, taking off my glasses and coming over to the bridge to try it.

Without my glasses, not much was in focus, so Woodley guided me over to the place on the bridge where they had been diving, stood me up on top of the guardrail, and said something like “Right here, the water is so cold, it’s a rushâ€
TMAX

Sharkey's misADVENTURE

Post by TMAX »

Wow Sharkey! I never knew. The worst that I was aware of was the time you were thrown from a horse and suffered serious back issues. I'm pleased that you made it through this challenge though. You leaving the scene at 24 would have left a hole in my life that I could well live without. Good friends are not that easy to come by. By the way, thanks for the help with the golf cart. / T
Sharkey
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Post by Sharkey »

So… I spent the next week going around looking like Frankenstein’s Monster. I was able to pull a hat over the shaved area of my head, but my facial injuries were right out there for all to see. I got asked a number of times if I had a bicycle accident, apparently, the scrape marks on my chin made it appear that I had gone over the handlebars.

In about a week, Sarge removed the sutures, saving me another visit to the doctor’s. From that point on, I let my moustache grow, partly to cover the scars, but also because shaving over the proud flesh with a razor was not a pleasant, or bloodless experience. In fact, I think I shaved my upper lip only once since then, which will be explained in a future posting.

The need for Woodley and me to have our own kitchen was still a pressing issue, so when we had the opportunity, we worked on the counter/cabinet, and I began installing one of the operable windows that I had salvaged out of the old Flamingo trailer factory. Some 2x2 framing was secured between the steel framing of the truck box, and a hole the correct size for the window was cut using a reciprocating saw. Some “putty tapeâ€
captainkf
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the story

Post by captainkf »

Hello Sharkey, it's been a while since I have been able to visit and have been really enjoying your story. Thank you for you frankness and I look forward to more. Thank you for your effort.

-Richard in Rossland BC
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