When I was growing up, I had the same association with double wide trailers that so many Americans do. I felt that a double wide trailer was the sign of lack of class and perpetual poverty. Living in a double wide mobile trailer would be the lowest of the low, a guarantee that your neighbors would all be running meth labs and your children would have no teeth. This contrasted somewhat with my vision of RV trailers. You see, my uncle had an RV mobile trailer w hen I was a kid, and it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Like many kids, I loved taking car trips, but also like many kids, sitting still was a very difficult thing for me. I dreamed of having a mobile trailer that I could take with me all around the country. I would go with my best friend, and one of us would drive while the other could hang out in the back and just relax. Mobile home trailers seemed like a dream come true.
What I didn’t realize when I was a kid is that I would be spending a lot of my life both in Motorhomes and in double wide trailers. I am not poor by any stretch of the imagination – I actually have quite a bit of money – but I have spent a lot of my life on the road. As a traveling performer, double wide trailers are about as permanent as my living gets. For most of my trips, I take a motor home with me, preferring the convenience of being able to store all my equipment to having to ship it by plane.
Although to many Americans, double wide trailers are still a sign of low class, for performers like me they just make sense. Basically, I will bring my house with me, set it up in a trailer park, and operate in a particular region of the country for several months on end. Then, when I have to move somewhere else, I can take my house with me! It is much cheaper and easier, as well as much more comfortable than staying in hotels on the time. So next time you see double wide trailers being pulled down the highway, don’t jump to conclusions. You can never tell quite what the owner might be up to. Maybe he is dirt poor, but then again maybe he has too much to do to sit still for long!