Have you ever lived in a trailer?
My mom, dad, and I lived in a trailer: Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, 1954. Note the US Marines T-shirt.
From my memoir Lightbulb Coffee:
The day I turned 18, my father insisted on driving me down to the Selective Service office in Hayward, California. He wore his undress khaki U.S. Navy uniform. He knew that, left to my own devices, I would probably neglect to register for the draft.
The clerk at the draft board took down my name and Social Security number, and handed me a stapled, multi-page form to fill out and return. Among the questions I had to answer was a real stumper: Please list all prior addresses where you have lived, by year.
With Mom’s help, and her meticulous record keeping, we determined that I had lived in twenty-one different houses in my first eighteen years. It didn’t seem possible, but bundles of saved letters from my grandmother proved it. The postmarks on the envelopes were dated from 1949 to 1967.
There was the beachside barracks in San Clemente, the trailer in a swamp near Camp Lejeune, and the house on the hill in Freshwater, Newfoundland; they were all there, as well as places even my mother could barely remember.
Growing up as a Navy Brat, our family changed duty stations every 18 months, and sometimes we had to move once or twice in the same year. When we moved to The Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. We lived in a trailer for a few months, until we were able to move into dependents quarters on the base. Many years later, I found out that the water supply on Tarawa Terrace, our street, had been contaminated with Trichloroethylene (TCE), Perchloroethylene (PCE), Benzene, and Vinyl chloride.
All of these chemicals are known to cause a variety of cancers. The Veteran’s Administration has awarded settlements to Marines and dependents in recent years. It was lucky that our family only lived on the base for a few months. I’ve avoided any ill effects in the sixty years since.
My wife Josie and dog Gus relaxing at our trailer camp, Pescadero, California, 2021
Six decades after living in that trailer outside Camp Lejeune, my wife and I bought an Airstream trailer. What comes around, goes around! A wise man once said “There are only two kinds of people: those who have lived in a trailer, and those who haven’t.” I am proud to be one of the former.
For more highlights and lowlights from my life as a farm boy and Navy brat, check out my memoirs,
Cold ‘Coon & Collards and Lightbulb Coffee available from Amazon, Barns & Noble, and Books, Inc. Both Kindle editions, and and Paperback are available.