Thirty Years in a Housetruck
Moderator: TMAX
I managed to back my truck up the driveway past the house on the downhill side, and parked it more or less permanently off the northwest corner of the house. This meant that it was not looming outside of any of the house’s windows, but was still easily accessible from the deck. The electrical circuit breaker panel had some spare slots, so I wired in a dedicated breaker for my truck so there would be no interruptions in power and no brownouts due to sharing inadequate wiring.
Woodley parked his step van alongside the house, but since it was less tall than my truck, and because of the height of the foundation on that side of the house, all of the windows looked over the top of his van. Since he didn’t have any windows in the truck yet, his view wasn’t impeded by the location.
One of the rooms inside the house was a narrow passageway that might have been intended to be a sleeping area when the walls were installed. It had an exterior door and served as more of a second entry than a discrete room. The door was always difficult to open or close, so it got next to no use. The interesting thing about this room was that the wall separating it from the adjoining bedroom had never been nailed into the floor or ceiling. This meant that by wholloping it with a sledge, you could actually move the wall’s position in the room, making the room wider or narrower!. At any rate, since this room was not in use, I loaded a lot of the tools, possessions and materials from the Housetruck into it for storage.
Since I also had a spare set of homemade loudspeakers and a spare cassette player and amplifier, I set these up on the bookshelves in the living room. This gave a nice boost to the ambience of the house, as there had been no stereo there for some time after one or other of the roommates had moved out and take theirs, leaving an old turntable and a pretty good collection of scratchy rock-n-roll records behind. There were several selections by John Fahey, Grateful Dead "From the Mars Hotel", and one that has stuck with me for all this time, Leo Kottke's "Six and Twelve String Guitar". Whenever I want to get that old Schoolhouse feeling, I put on my CD of this album, and I'm transported back to the living room there.
In all, things fell pretty much into a comfortable place, and we relaxed into our new surroundings.
Woodley parked his step van alongside the house, but since it was less tall than my truck, and because of the height of the foundation on that side of the house, all of the windows looked over the top of his van. Since he didn’t have any windows in the truck yet, his view wasn’t impeded by the location.
One of the rooms inside the house was a narrow passageway that might have been intended to be a sleeping area when the walls were installed. It had an exterior door and served as more of a second entry than a discrete room. The door was always difficult to open or close, so it got next to no use. The interesting thing about this room was that the wall separating it from the adjoining bedroom had never been nailed into the floor or ceiling. This meant that by wholloping it with a sledge, you could actually move the wall’s position in the room, making the room wider or narrower!. At any rate, since this room was not in use, I loaded a lot of the tools, possessions and materials from the Housetruck into it for storage.
Since I also had a spare set of homemade loudspeakers and a spare cassette player and amplifier, I set these up on the bookshelves in the living room. This gave a nice boost to the ambience of the house, as there had been no stereo there for some time after one or other of the roommates had moved out and take theirs, leaving an old turntable and a pretty good collection of scratchy rock-n-roll records behind. There were several selections by John Fahey, Grateful Dead "From the Mars Hotel", and one that has stuck with me for all this time, Leo Kottke's "Six and Twelve String Guitar". Whenever I want to get that old Schoolhouse feeling, I put on my CD of this album, and I'm transported back to the living room there.
In all, things fell pretty much into a comfortable place, and we relaxed into our new surroundings.
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j_nigrelli
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8wheels
More!
Another voice in the wilderness agrees!
Your work is always appreciated. Over the years I've read the full story of Grace and almost everything else on this site - thought it was high time (pun? I gave my kudos. You really are an accomplished writer.
Most low-volume sites mean there's nothing to see, but yours is quite the opposite. Every few months it sure is a nice treat to escape to Sharkey's Lair.
Thanks again, Good Sir.
Your work is always appreciated. Over the years I've read the full story of Grace and almost everything else on this site - thought it was high time (pun?
I gave my kudos. You really are an accomplished writer.Most low-volume sites mean there's nothing to see, but yours is quite the opposite. Every few months it sure is a nice treat to escape to Sharkey's Lair.
Thanks again, Good Sir.
drop in
I haven't been to visit the sites in monthes. We moved provinces (big city to a small mountain town!), bought a house and are expecting our first baby in a a few weeks. Life has been full of changes. It is great to see there is more to your story. We (i am not the only one) love to read your biography. Thanks for the time spent on it. Keep up the good work.
-Richard in Rossland
-Richard in Rossland
OK, look, don't get excited, this isn't a real update (yet).
TMAX sent me some of the photos that I took using his camera 34 years ago, so I've edited two of them into this thread at the beginning:
A view of the Housetruck at the Long Beach Drive In Theatre during one of my selling days at the Swap Meet. See the photo in context here.
Then, an old shot of my beater station wagon sitting on the street after hauling an overload of engine parts to the machine shop:
Dig thoses Southern California Palm Trees! Scroll down from the post above or click here to view the post.
More photos to scan, but I'll have to toy with the graphics program to learn stiching to make a panorama.
More on the story itself as time (and weather) permits.
TMAX sent me some of the photos that I took using his camera 34 years ago, so I've edited two of them into this thread at the beginning:
A view of the Housetruck at the Long Beach Drive In Theatre during one of my selling days at the Swap Meet. See the photo in context here.
Then, an old shot of my beater station wagon sitting on the street after hauling an overload of engine parts to the machine shop:
Dig thoses Southern California Palm Trees! Scroll down from the post above or click here to view the post.
More photos to scan, but I'll have to toy with the graphics program to learn stiching to make a panorama.
More on the story itself as time (and weather) permits.
The long saga continues. We've finally managed to find a place where we felt like we belonged. I even wrote about it in letters to family. In fact, I'm just going to quote verbatim from a letter 33 years old:
Woodley's truck became the defacto transportation mode for hot springs trips, especially after he constructed kitchen facilities. I can remember several trips to Cougar with the truck packed with bodies. At night we'd be all crashed out under the truck to escape the morning dew, or else we'd camp at the springs so we could soak all night. This could be adventurous, because there were vey few level places to throw down your sleeping bag, and you were always at risk of being stepped on by people without flashlights arriving for a soak during the wee hours. On at least one trip, I had to straddle my feet inside the sleeping bag around a tree to keep from rolling down the hill. It wasn't very comfortable, but better than having hikers trip over you.
More from this letter, and others in future installments...
What the letter to Mom doesn't mention about the hot springs trip is that no one was bothering to wear any swimwear at the time!In a letter to Mom, dated July 27th, 1975, I wrote: It really looks like moving here was the right thing to do. Woodley and I don’t feel guilty when we use the shower or toilet, and most of all, everyone here is like a family to each other and to us.
There’s four men including us, and three women and Jonah, who’s four years old. Rent runs about $20 a month and we all chip in $5 for household expenses. It’s great.
Today I hooked up the washing machine that someone gave us. Yay! No more trips to the laundromat. I spent the rest of the day sanding and painting the cab on my Housetruck. It’s now bright white instead of rust and crust.
On July 8th, Woodley and I and four others in the house piled into Woodley’s housetruck and went to the Cougar Reservoir Hot Springs. It’s about a half mile hike from the parking lot to the springs, but it’s worth it. There are six pools on the side of a hill near the bottom of a small ravine. The first pool from the top is about 113 degrees, a real cooker. The second pool down is cooler, and so on down the hill. There’s also a fire hose that someone brought in which siphons cold water from a nearby spring. It’s really refreshing to hop out of the third pool, squirt yourself down with the cold water and then hop into the next hotter pool.
On the second day we were there, I went down to the lake and joined three other people in paddling a huge raft, made of logs lashed together, out to the water fall. Soon swimmers joined us and Woodley paddled out on his surfboard. More people swam to us and boarded. When we paddled back to shore, there were twelve of us. About fifteen more people were sitting on the bank of the lake, playing music and singing. Needless to say, the trip was quite enjoyable.
Woodley's truck became the defacto transportation mode for hot springs trips, especially after he constructed kitchen facilities. I can remember several trips to Cougar with the truck packed with bodies. At night we'd be all crashed out under the truck to escape the morning dew, or else we'd camp at the springs so we could soak all night. This could be adventurous, because there were vey few level places to throw down your sleeping bag, and you were always at risk of being stepped on by people without flashlights arriving for a soak during the wee hours. On at least one trip, I had to straddle my feet inside the sleeping bag around a tree to keep from rolling down the hill. It wasn't very comfortable, but better than having hikers trip over you.
More from this letter, and others in future installments...
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Jerry Campbell
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Ahhh Yes, I remember it well. And I'm sorry if I stepped on you, But it was hard to see in the dark after being up all night in the hot springs on acid, with or without a flashlight.
I was there last summer and the Forest Service is taking care of it now. I think it cost about 5 bucks but it was still pretty nice and naked if you like.
Jerry
I was there last summer and the Forest Service is taking care of it now. I think it cost about 5 bucks but it was still pretty nice and naked if you like.
Jerry
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Dennis The Bus Dweller
- Seasoned Nomadicista
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??? Are you referring to the ""Dead Zone" between diary entries?
In my last post, I mentioned that there were others living in the house, so maybe some introductions are in order.
I've already mentioned Rosalie and Jonah. They lived in the cabin up the hill, a rustic collection of scrap wood and windows set on the side of the hill by the upper garden. The cabin had a thin electric wire so it had lights, but there was no running water, and no creature comforts like insulation or interior siding.
Rosalie was a transplant from Rochester, New York, who had been raised in an upper middle class family and had received some higher education. She had lived at the Schoolhouse for a couple of years, being in her "middle twenties" and as such, was the default "House Mother". I took to affectionately calling her "Ma". I don't know who Jonah's father was, but I assume that she does.
One of the other two women in the household was Seretta, a US citizen born of South American parents. She was just 20 or 21 years of age, and generally had a sunny, if clueless disposition. Her room in the house was next to the hallway, off the kitchen, and was the least appealing space available (other than the narrow storage room), being dark and with only a small window.
Finally, we had Laura. Laura's room was on the northwest side of the house, off the living room. It had a large window on the west wall and a full-lite patio door on the north. The room was painted a cheery yellow color, and Laura had decorated the windows with faux stained-glass paints, in a pattern of vines and flowers.
Laura, it turned out, was a 16 year-old runaway who had been living at the house for a couple of months with the knowledge of her mother. These days, kids of this sort are known as "throwaways", I suppose. Laura was very dedicated to the study of Krishna, and practiced non-violence in all things. This led to some difficult times when we put up flypaper in the kitchen, and she would have a mini-freakout if you asked he to get into a car that had seats upholstered in what might be leather. I assured her at the seats in my Rambler were made of genuine Naugahide, and that the Naugas had been humanely killed before being stripped of their skins. I stuck Laura with the nickname of "Karma Kid". We didn't get along all that well, but it was a benign truce between us.
More than once, we had to drive into town to the Skipworth Juvenile Detention Facility to spring her after she got picked up in town for underage curfew infraction or some such. The officers on duty had a very hard time accepting that a carload of hairy hippies were actually her "guardians", and we would always have to wait until they would call her mother to confirm this before releasing her to us. Of course, the first thing we would do after picking her up is light up some joints on the way to the grocery to by the evening's supply of wine and beer.
Of the two other men in the house, one was Jay, who resided in the cabin that used to be the stable when the Schoolhouse was an actual learning facility. This cabin was also pretty rustic, with a sleeping loft built into the former hayloft over the barn bays. There were electric lights and a small, smoky, airtight wood stove.
Jay was also a transplant from the East Coast, and had traveled extensively, including Central and South America, and Hawaii. He was perhaps the oldest of us, being just over thirty. He was also the most musical, and frequently would sit in the open doors of his barn/cabin picking out tunes on his banjo on warm summer nights. He was fairly intellectual, and seemed to have a good education.
Finally (but not least), there was Paul, yet another New Yorker recently moved to Oregon. I think the Schoolhouse was his first place to stay after moving into the state. Paul was 29, sported a huge bushy beard, and was quickly balding. He had been an office worker in NY, working for a large insurance firm, and destined to slave away in a cubicle somewhere until he got the bug to travel. His room was the largest in the house, on the southeast corner, and it had it's own wood stove.
Paul and I became very fast friends, and over the years both traveled and worked together, as will be revealed in future episodes. After eventually moving out of the Schoolhouse, he bought a converted bus, a 1946 Dodge, which I put a lot of work into over the next few years, which again, is a subject for later. Over the last 33 years, Paul and I have remained friends. We don't cross paths all that often anymore, and the last time I saw him was just before I moved (2006). I'm sure we'll be seeing each other in the near future. Oh, and he is crazy about turtles. Hear that, Roger?
In my last post, I mentioned that there were others living in the house, so maybe some introductions are in order.
I've already mentioned Rosalie and Jonah. They lived in the cabin up the hill, a rustic collection of scrap wood and windows set on the side of the hill by the upper garden. The cabin had a thin electric wire so it had lights, but there was no running water, and no creature comforts like insulation or interior siding.
Rosalie was a transplant from Rochester, New York, who had been raised in an upper middle class family and had received some higher education. She had lived at the Schoolhouse for a couple of years, being in her "middle twenties" and as such, was the default "House Mother". I took to affectionately calling her "Ma". I don't know who Jonah's father was, but I assume that she does.
One of the other two women in the household was Seretta, a US citizen born of South American parents. She was just 20 or 21 years of age, and generally had a sunny, if clueless disposition. Her room in the house was next to the hallway, off the kitchen, and was the least appealing space available (other than the narrow storage room), being dark and with only a small window.
Finally, we had Laura. Laura's room was on the northwest side of the house, off the living room. It had a large window on the west wall and a full-lite patio door on the north. The room was painted a cheery yellow color, and Laura had decorated the windows with faux stained-glass paints, in a pattern of vines and flowers.
Laura, it turned out, was a 16 year-old runaway who had been living at the house for a couple of months with the knowledge of her mother. These days, kids of this sort are known as "throwaways", I suppose. Laura was very dedicated to the study of Krishna, and practiced non-violence in all things. This led to some difficult times when we put up flypaper in the kitchen, and she would have a mini-freakout if you asked he to get into a car that had seats upholstered in what might be leather. I assured her at the seats in my Rambler were made of genuine Naugahide, and that the Naugas had been humanely killed before being stripped of their skins. I stuck Laura with the nickname of "Karma Kid". We didn't get along all that well, but it was a benign truce between us.
More than once, we had to drive into town to the Skipworth Juvenile Detention Facility to spring her after she got picked up in town for underage curfew infraction or some such. The officers on duty had a very hard time accepting that a carload of hairy hippies were actually her "guardians", and we would always have to wait until they would call her mother to confirm this before releasing her to us. Of course, the first thing we would do after picking her up is light up some joints on the way to the grocery to by the evening's supply of wine and beer.
Of the two other men in the house, one was Jay, who resided in the cabin that used to be the stable when the Schoolhouse was an actual learning facility. This cabin was also pretty rustic, with a sleeping loft built into the former hayloft over the barn bays. There were electric lights and a small, smoky, airtight wood stove.
Jay was also a transplant from the East Coast, and had traveled extensively, including Central and South America, and Hawaii. He was perhaps the oldest of us, being just over thirty. He was also the most musical, and frequently would sit in the open doors of his barn/cabin picking out tunes on his banjo on warm summer nights. He was fairly intellectual, and seemed to have a good education.
Finally (but not least), there was Paul, yet another New Yorker recently moved to Oregon. I think the Schoolhouse was his first place to stay after moving into the state. Paul was 29, sported a huge bushy beard, and was quickly balding. He had been an office worker in NY, working for a large insurance firm, and destined to slave away in a cubicle somewhere until he got the bug to travel. His room was the largest in the house, on the southeast corner, and it had it's own wood stove.
Paul and I became very fast friends, and over the years both traveled and worked together, as will be revealed in future episodes. After eventually moving out of the Schoolhouse, he bought a converted bus, a 1946 Dodge, which I put a lot of work into over the next few years, which again, is a subject for later. Over the last 33 years, Paul and I have remained friends. We don't cross paths all that often anymore, and the last time I saw him was just before I moved (2006). I'm sure we'll be seeing each other in the near future. Oh, and he is crazy about turtles. Hear that, Roger?
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Jones'n4chrome
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Dennis The Bus Dweller
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