[A/S] Re: The Long Long Trailer

["Roger" <chief1120@xxxxxxxxx>]

To add a little historical perspective here...  Most of those trailers 
were produced and sold primarily as "inexpensive" housing for the 
post-WWII baby boomer parents.  Most of those trailers travelled down 
the road twice... once to the trailer park, and once more to the 
junkyard ten or fifteen years later.  Most were never built for nor 
intended to be pulled the way we use our trailers today.  And they 
were certainly never intended for self-contained 'boonies' camping!

Although many of those parks kept a few spaces open for tourists, most 
of the stalls were filled up with 'full-timers' (Trailerites in the 
movie).   Most new "trailer-houses" (as they were known then) were 
transported to the parks by the sales lot people, and parked with 
short-wheelbase trucks much the way mobile homes are sold and parked 
today.  They were sold and re-sold in place.

My grandmother lived in a 1953 twenty-eight foot Spartanette 
look-alike for the first twenty years of my life.  It was the only 
home I ever knew her to be in until after I was out of high school.  
It was parked before I was born, and wasn't moved again until she sold 
it and bought a larger mobile home in a park in the mid '70s.

Looking at the other trailers of that day meant for travelling, 
(Airstream, Silver Streak, and a few others), most are similar in 
length and are much lighter than today's trailers, and of course, 
didn't present near the difficulties that luci and desi encountered.  
Some of those are even referred to today (perhaps in error) as 'park 
models' because they have no holding tanks and have only 110v wiring. 

I'd even opine that the tow vehicles were less reliable and more 
trouble than the trailers they towed, as evidenced in the movie by 
Desi adding water to the radiator in one scene and checking it in 
another.

"The Long, Long Trailer" is funny because Luci and Desi make all of 
the classic mistakes that can possibly be made while "trailering": too 
large of a trailer for their tow capability; inappropriate loading; no 
route planning for their size load; not learning how to drive, park 
and back the trailer before hitting the road; etc. etc. 

It is a wonderful movie.  It's entertainment value is superb, and now 
it's wonderful also for it's historical perspective on life in the 
early 1950s!

roger