LIFE IN A TRAILER PARK

My first years until third grade were spent living in a trailer, the kids made fun of us  and called us trailer trash...none of us cared, we had more fun than any of the other kids. We had so many playmates and we all played together...release was our favorite. We played long into the night...and we hid everywhere in the park. Our summers consisted of every evening long games of release. Life was good! We had a red coca-cola machine up near the new wash house. People there got showers, did laundry, there was a long  line of toilets and sinks in the block building. The coke machine was the hang out spot and it was the place where the kids decided who was who. So many wonderful memories of that place. Across the highway, Lebanon Church Road there was a small little grocery story called Shorty's. He had all kinds of snack, popsicles and food and penny candy. We took our chore money, if and when we got any and went right over to Shorty's to purchase some chips, or candy. It was great. At  the bottom of the cement steps on the side of the new wash house was a place to hang your laundry after washing them n the Double Dexters...back then there were no automatic anything...the washing machines were as modern as any of us could imagine. The clotheslines were heavy wire and made great tightropes for the brave at heart...One of which I was..My mother used to tell the story when she went back to hang clothes she found me walking on the wire.. Daring not to yell,  for fear I would be startled, fall and literally split myself up the middle...she stood frozen waiting for me to come down...I fell out of a tree that stood behind our trailer...20' in the air...not once but twice and completed knocked myself out...my father had to cut it down to keep me out of it....There was an incinerator toward the back of the park where people burned their trash.. It was the home of the neighboring rats that would scurry when anyone passed at night...Nobody was afraid we all just ignored them. I remember the day I learned to tie my shoes. I remember so many things so well. Memories that all stored away in the recess of my mind...soon those memories will be gone and forgotten forever...and only these that I write will remain...