CYBERCOLUMN:
Might as well start someplce
___By Donna Van Cleve
___The year was 1975, and it was love at first sight. She was a beauty--even though her debut into the world in the ‘50s made her old for a model in the ‘70s. Pale peach was the color of her body, but shades of an earlier blue peeked through blistered cracks here and there. One could stand in the middle of her with arms outstretched and almost touch both sides. She was a dream come true--primarily because she was our ticket to off-campus life

DONNA VAN CLEVE

in college. We moved from the dorm into our very own peach-colored trailer house away from campus.
___Our home away from dorm was 40-some-odd feet long and all of eight feet wide. Her windows to the world were the rollout louvered panes that ventilated whether they were open or shut. My sister had the spacious 8x7 master bedroom if you measured on the outside of the trailer house—although 18 inches of the 7-foot length actually was closet space. A 6x5 cubbyhole was the second bedroom in which my best friend and I shared a bunkbed. The bathroom would rival any travel trailer’s potty closet. The small kitchen was fashionably open to the 8x12 living room, and the dinette set straddled the line between the kitchen and living area. We were living the high life.
___Some college students will forever treasure their time lived in a college dorm. I couldn’t wait to escape.
___Living in our own trailer house meant three girls having their own microscopic bathroom rather than a room of multiple showers, toilets, sinks and large mirrors. It meant going from a small dorm room with twin beds, dressers and desks to a cubbyhole in the trailer house that contained a bunk bed and, uh, that’s all it had room for. Living in our own house meant shopping for groceries, cooking our own meals and washing dishes rather than having someone else plan and cook nutritious meals for us and clean up after us in a dining hall. It meant washing clothes at a laundry mat instead of in the same building. Having our own trailer house meant taking care of a yard without any yard tools and solving maintenance problems on our own. The idea of living off campus was magical and wonderful, and reflecting back on it now, all I can think of is what in the world were we possibly thinking? Were we completely nuts?
___I guess you could say we were idealists and romantics at the time. Doesn’t that sound better than impractical and ignorant? But at this same time in my life, I also was learning that God was interested in every aspect of my life, and I was beginning to ask for his guidance even in the small things. Before, I felt like he was just too busy to be bothered with anything other than the major crises in my life, so I didn’t think minor details were important enough to disturb him.
___One of the first things I asked God following this new revelation was where we should park this trailer house while we were in college. I was amazed when we drove up to the first trailer park on the list, and there was a Baptist church sitting right across the street. I knew it had to be a sign. We walked confidently into the office and were handed several legal-size papers of rules and requirements for living in this particular trailer park. One of the first was that they wanted to see a picture of our trailer house before they approved our moving in. We walked out of the office crestfallen, knowing full well that our peach-colored beauty would not make it past the photo session. They also required skirting around every trailer, which does look nice, but that required extra money. Later, our idea of skirting was piling hill country rocks around the end and half of one side of our trailer. We thought that worked just fine, and it was the right price--free.
___We ended up moving our mobile home to a park several miles out of town that didn’t have age and color prejudices against certain trailer houses. I thought the Lord had let me down--that he really was too busy to answer small prayers.
___One day not long after we had moved in the trailer house, we decided we were going to barbecue. My roommate pulled out her mammoth hibachi grill, which held maybe four or five pieces of charcoal, and placed it on our patio. She squirted some lighter fluid on the charcoal and threw a match on it. It flamed up, and went out. She squirted more lighter fluid and lit it again. Same thing happened. After dousing the hibachi with enough lighter fluid to start a major forest fire, we noticed our neighbor across the street watering his yard and having a good laugh at us. He finally took pity on us and came over and helped out.
___We eventually met his wife and two precious little girls. They were a young married couple that became dear friends who watched over us those three years we lived in that trailer park. I even stayed with them the last week or so before I graduated from college so we could go ahead and move the trailer on home.
___It wasn’t until I was out of college that I remembered the prayer I had asked God several years before about where we should park our trailer house. And remembering the Dannelley family, I realized He had indeed answered my prayer all along.

___Donna Van Cleve is director of the public library in Cotulla, a writer, wife, mother and member of First Baptist Church in Cotulla, where she is pianist.






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