I'm Not Trailer Trash - I Just Lived in One (or how I came to be a magnificent obsession)

I went to college in a small town that doubled in size when school was in session. I loved that town and the University. After a couple years of living in the dorms (which I recommend to all in-coming college Freshman) I moved to off-campus housing. I didn't do the Sorority route, so in this small town where trailer parks were the norm it was common for students to rent trailers. I lived in two during my stay there, both owned by the same person.

The first trailer was a quaint little place - tiny really. Snug, I call it. It was very vintage with a small little 50's fridge and happy, pin-stripe primary colored wall paper in the kitchenette area. I had to walk through a room that had purple shag carpet in it to get to my tiny bedroom.  It was a cold little place, I had to use a space heater often. I really didn't know how cold it was until one winter day after staying overnight at a friend's house, I came home  to find a miniature snow drift in my little living room; to this day I'm still stumped at how the snow got in there, because I didn't find anything open. I probably didn't look too hard in my naive, college student frame of mind.

Other weird things happened in  that trailer -to the point where I thought it was may be haunted. One night I heard someone walking around my trailer in the snow. It would crunch under the feet, but the next day - no prints in the snow. Nothing. Ugh... Or knocking on the outside wall at night. Drove me nuts.

Several months later, I had to bring my dog to school with me, therefore I had to move because my trailer park didn't allow animals. The person who owned that cute little trailer had another one available - one block over. It was bigger and it didn't snow inside the living room! I loved my larger (but not too much) bedroom, it felt like a cruise ship cabin. Wood paneling all around with built-ins. I loved my kitchen too, it was big and roomy and I laid down carpet in it to keep it warmer on my toes in the winter.

Although...

I came home one day to find my dog gone. After a long, stressful search throughout the small town, I found her at the Pound. As I relayed the story to a friend a few days later she said, "maybe she got out through the hole in the window where the air conditioner fell out?"

WHAT!

I have an air conditioner??

Apparently, behind the large, dark-orange ceiling-to-floor, wall-to-wall curtains was a window air conditioner that fell out one day when I was in class. I could have used that thing! It gets HOT in South Dakota in the summer; but I never opened those curtains, I never needed to. I was rarely home. I. Was. A. College Student.


That person who owned the trainers helped me out tremendously. He had read a book, which was made into a 1954 movie by the same name, Magnificent Obsession, and had chosen to live by the same ideal - To help others, selflessly and in secret. I had taken a semester off then returned to school, I struggled financially in college and this person offered me a home - rent free for the remainder of that first year until I moved to the larger trailer. Even then he helped me with phone service and only charged me minimal rent so that I had a chance to concentrate on my studies. The only condition was to not tell anyone and to some day - do the same for another. Over the years I have tried to do just that when opportunity arises.

I don't know what happened to him. I contacted him once via mail years ago to let him know I was well. I received a very nice letter from him.

He had a daughter my age, we even had classes together in college. She moved out to Los Angeles a few months before I did. She lived in the heart of Hollywood. Not a fun place. Her father helped her move back home only a few months after that. I never saw her again; I hope she is well.

I hope she learned a magnificent lesson from her selfless father.

I know I did.



And I know there are still good people in this world.