As mentioned, we lived in a trailer on five acres that was owned by Art's friend Chuck. His brother, Dallas, owned the five acres in front. This meant that everyday we would have to drive past Dallas' place to get to ours. Now Dallas was, at the time, working for some company or another laying tile and doing odd jobs. We drove by their place on our recent trip to Florida only to find that no one was working; this hindered my picture taking as they were home. I did my best, though. How did Dallas (complete with missing teeth) meet his (not so) lovely wife, Trixie? Well, she was working at a strip club as a dancer (hey, a girl has to support herself somehow) and Dallas saw her and they fell in love. A bit like a fairy tale, don't you think? Her name isn't actually Trixie, I just feel that is an appropriate name for an ex-stripper. Anywho, they have two (not so) wonderful boys, Dallas Jr. (of course) and Dalton.
Dallas and Trixie lived in a mobile home. It was a sh-t hole of a mobile home, too. In Florida we have what are called 'Palmetto' bugs, which are nothing more than flying roaches. We also have regular roaches, not necessarily because everyone is dirty, but because it never gets cold enough to kill them off. I was always a stickler for keeping the doors closed and keeping all food items in the fridge or freezer as I wanted to keep as many of those palmettos out as I could. Not Dallas and Trixie. As long as someone was home (which was usually all day) their front door was wide open. I have never been inside, but Art has and he assured me it looked just as bad inside as it did out. They had so much junk laying around it looked like a landfill. They had this 8x6 foot circular area that was fenced in with chicken wire. Almost every month they would fill this area with beer cans, cash them in, and go buy something. One month they had $400 worth of cans, so they bought a television. They also raised wild hogs. They never did anything with them, just let them run wild. It was a little creepy walking outside to see a sow and her babies running into the bushes.
Now, Dallas was a heavy weed smoker and an even heavier drinker. Many nights Art and I would lay in bed, listening to Dallas walk up and down the lane yelling "I got kids! I got bills! Goddamn it, [insert family member here]!" It was pretty entertaining in a sad sort of way.
Here are a couple of pictures- it's not much, but like I said, I tried.
The swamp buggy/mower; you can sort of see the junk around...
The drive way and lane-way. You had to be sure and hit the drive way straight on because it was about a six foot drop to the canal below.
We were also surrounded by leeche nut orchards
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