Last summer I accompanied my recently single cousin and her four month old son Ayson to Spokane. My presence, part of larger mercy mission, incorporated emotional support, the presence of a “man” to do the negotiating, and the reality that four month old infants are not inclined to gracefully embrace three hour stretches in a car seat. Even if said journey takes place from within the luxurious confines of a King Ranch 4x4.
Part 1 of the mission was the pawning of the wedding ring- an understated celebration of her second wedding anniversary. Part two of the mission included the viewing of and shopping for numerous double wide mobile homes- the most affordable housing solution for the newly single mother and her two young kids.
Our trip seemed to embrace the title “learning experience”. Discovering after ninety miles that, at least in Spokane, pawn shops are not open 24 hours a day, we also found that these days those in the know refer to mobile homes as “Manufactured Housing”. Never is the word “trailer house” to be mentioned.
Venturing down East Sprague Avenue, our arrival at the various display lots seemed without fan fare. Thankfully many of these institutions were already closed. Our viewing of the various option-heavy model homes went unencumbered. Not see a single salesperson interrupted our progress as we strolled from model to model. We enjoyed plenty of time to size up all the various offerings of what’s currently “in” in “manufactured housing”. Starting with singlewides, moving on up to the double wide, and finally dreaming of the quadruple wide, the three of us made quite the sight as we clambered up and over exposed grand porches, tip toed to peek inside spacious windows, and gazed toward heaven to decipher if we preferred a 4’12” pitched roof or the stately 6’12” style.
Whether to glamour bath the home up, garden tile it down, super size the kitchen or add craftsman dormers-these were the questions of the day. As used car shoppers, fast food trippers and meth dealers sped by, their curious glances confirmed that more than one passer by assumed that we were a “young couple” eyeing our first home. Innocent, naïve, and fresh from the farm, our appearance could deceive any casual witness, especially as brave little Ayson rested his head on my shoulder and a determined my cousin did the math of what she could and couldn’t afford. But, so much for the reliability of assumptions-she is definitely straight and single, I’m partnered and Ayson isn’t voting yet.
Which brings me to the rural gay community, assumptions, and our community’s representations of trailer park living. Admittedly I have an obsession with mobile home architecture. Yet I am not alone in this calling. The majority of the rural gay folk I know either live in a travel trailer, a park model, in a modular home or in manufactured housing. That would include those gays who often have the word “real” plastered in front of their professions such as truckers, cowboys, farmers, loggers and the like.
Numerous factors contribute to these trends-the higher labor expense of using contractors in remote areas, lack of skilled labor in the middle of the prairie, highly cost prohibitive travel times to the home construction site, security issues (i.e. theft), shortened building seasons, and the limited building materials choices that are available in most rural areas.
Forget the stereotypes-those porno fed visions of hot sweaty men drinking endless beer under metal awnings, those high achievers just released from doing time, still living with their mom, the over the top Canadian Comedy Series “Trailer Park Boys” or any number of other wayward working class based impressions. Manufactured housing has come a long way baby, and these days many in our community now speak fluent double wide regardless if they are blue, white or no collared workers. Hold the trailer park, please.
No matter where one travels in North America, plenty of rural gay folk live in mobile homes. Hard working, creative, and able to leap a tip-out in a single bound, many of these homo home owners could easily give the urban HGTV set a run for their money-especially when it comes to creative improvisation, creating mansions out of base models, or the appropriate tin roof color to complement any Hardie Board Siding.
Some of the men and women I know have even taken forsaken, used single-wides and in a ballet dance with come-along, lag bolts, and ingenuity, they’ve boldly gone where no HUD inspector dare travel. Others have braved high country winters hunkered down in Airstreams, or lived in log sided, metal roofed homes complete with full time generators. Because when it comes to creating fabulous manufactured housing in remote locations, where there’s a will, there’s often a gay.
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