If you’ve ever watched the Trailer Park Boys TV show on Netflix, the wild antics and wacko characters portrayed could very well have been based on a trailer park I was quite familiar with in my high school days.
I’m not sure if it was an official “park.” In a dry creek bed north of Livermore, CA, it had little grass and a few desperate trees, but it was “home” to about a dozen families. Or something like families. The well-used, single-wide trailers were not lined up in neat rows like on the TV show. Some were oriented east/west, some were north/south, and some were just…there. Were they ever hooked up to water & sewer? Who knows? Electric power was, I think, by generator. A small overgrown burial ground nearby gave it the nickname “Boot Hill trailer park.”
My pal Bob and I– see our earlier post, Learning Life’s Lessons Playing Pool–had befriended two of the park’s residents. Dave and Ray were southern boys who came to the Golden State with their parents after fleeing the dust bowl. Such folks were often referred to as California Improved Okies. Now in their mid 30’s, and not used to having much, the Boot Hill park suited them just fine. We’ll talk about how culturally insensitive the 60’s were in a moment.
When the characters on the TV show saw the roof off a car with a Sawzall, or start a fire by siphoning gas while smoking, that seems just like my buddies Dave and Ray.
Now before you go thinking these were a couple of no-class losers that college-bound honor students shouldn’t be hanging around, you need to know that Dave and Ray were absolute experts on 1952 to ‘55 Lincolns! They always had 2 or 3 in various stages of (dis)assembly lying around their trailer. Generator went junk on the 2-door? No problem. “I think the one on the four door is good.”
Introduced in response to the 1949 Cadillac and Oldsmobile, the “ALL NEW” 1952 Lincoln featured an overhead valve ( OHV) V-8 motor. A big-ish motor in a small-ish body, they were the Original Hot Rod Lincolns.
In 1954, a Southern Cal grocer named Ray Crawford entered a bone stock 1954 Lincoln in La Carrera Pan Americana. The “Mexican Road Race” was a 2,100 mile race run the length of Mexico on the Pan American Highway, which, theoretically, ran from the southern tip of Argentina to Prudhoe Bay Alaska (theoretically). Some of it was paved, some was dirt, but all of it was open public road. Run from 1950 to 1954, it ended in 1955 due to the high number of driver, spectator, and animal casualties. Duh!
Ray was an Ace P-38 Lightning fighter pilot in The War, and soundly trounced a team of “specially prepared” Lincoln factory cars, plus a handful of Ferraris and other exotics, several driven by big name drivers.
The factory cars were scheduled to make a triumphant tour of Lincoln Mercury dealers to celebrate their victory. “No problem. Just paint ‘em to look like the Crawford car and send ‘em all out as Race Winners. No one will know the difference.” Apparently, it worked.
The original Henry Ford did the same thing when publicizing the 10 MILLIONTH MODEL T. He had several painted in 10 MILLIONTH livery and sent them out to dealers as The Car to promote show room traffic.
If there’s a Trailer Park Hall of Fame somewhere, I’m sure Dave & Ray occupy a special spot. Dave was working on the steering column of one of his beloved Lincolns when he felt the need to go into town (probably out of beer). Rather than waste time reinstalling the steering wheel, he just clamped a pair of Vise Grips onto the splined shaft and trundled off to town. When a passing cop noticed Dave steering with Vice Grips(!) he lit up his roof mounted Gum Ball and took off after him.
Livermore in them days was a farm town surrounded by vineyards and fields, with a patchwork of public and private roads, some paved and some not. Some went thru and some were dead ends. When Dave got into that warren of back roads, he easily outran John Law, Vice Grips and all, thus enshrining himself into teenage hearts as Our Hero!
Back in the day, if you were the wrong color, the wrong class, or just looked funny, and you didn’t have 10 or 20 dollars cash on you (it varied) you could be arrested for VAGRANCY. Our boys were frequently brought up on charges of “VAG” and given 10 days, probably to pay for past, present, and future sins. Everyone knew everyone, everyone knew the game, and somehow it all worked.
The Lincoln romance wasn’t all roses, however. After several days of trying, and several cases of brew, one of our heroes couldn’t get his Lincoln to start, so in a fury took a hammer and busted off all the spark plugs. “Thet’ll teach ya!”
Like I said, the script for Trailer Park Boys was written long ago.
After I’d been in college a couple of years, I stopped by the Park to admire the current selection of Lincolns. Or maybe it was just for old time’s sake. I found Ray had married a gal who could have been Aunt Jemima’s sister, and moved her into the trailer. In many places, interracial marriage, miscegenation, was against the law. Ray introduced her as Hawaiian, which I guess was a little more acceptable.
Thus, Dave and Ray, the Trailer Park Boys, without a hint of advanced education or sensitivity training, turned out to understand Diversity, Equity and Inclusion better than most of today’s “Progressives.” And they were good guys too.
To be continued …
You can order a nice color DVD produced by Mobil Oil of the 1954 race at this site.
Until next time, thanks for listening.
Duane