Topic: "...the curved length of the trailer"

[chowhound]

I was reading the opening of the short story earlier today and paused at this sentence:

"The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he [Ennis] can hear the scratching of fine gravel and sand."

What does "curved" in this sentence actually mean or suggest? I assume it's not suggesting that trailer was "curved", is it? Is it suggesting that the walls were straight but the roof is "curved". Or is it something painfully straightforward and obvious which I am clearly overlooking when I have difficulty trying to picture "the curved length of the trailer"?

[Oregondoggie]

On another forum, there are photos of those small travel trailers from the Depression into the 60s.  Sort of aerodyanmic.  If there is no inside toilet, then I agree with the person on that forum that it wasn't so unusal for  Ennis to pee in the sink.

[jackster]

Howdy CH, another great question-
A curious verbal description that I have also wondered about many times. Of course trailers aren’t “curved” they’re straight (in plan), virtually without exception, as they are designed and built within the limits of what is legally allowed to be transported on the public highway. They’re truly modular, factory-built housing, pulled to site on its own set of wheels. So yeah, why does AP say “curved”?

Could it be that AP was referring to the profile of many trailers, that while the floor plan is by necessity flat and straight the roofs are sometimes curved. This would be true for a certain class of travel trailer, especially those of the Airstream manufacturer. These are certainly curved in profile, and maybe this is what she’s referring to. But here’s the problem with this reference, these are typically exclusively “travel trailers” not mobile homes. As travel trailers they are designed to be towed behind a vehicle for recreation not parked as a semi-permanent home. They are generally quite expensive, really the “Cadillac” of travel trailers, not at all whut poor Ennis could afford.

Typical AirStream Travel trailer


The more typical mobile home type trailer or even more middle class camper that we see Ennis in at the end of the movie is really a quite rectilinear affair, very boxlike, not curved at all. Small camping type trailers did have some curves, to make them slightly more aerodynamic on the highway, but generally only at the front and back. Not “down the length”. This could be one of the few, very few, instances where AP misses the mark with her word picture of the scene. While it sounds quite convincing, it may not actually be what one would find in lonely rural Wyoming, inhabited by an almost destitute cowboy.

Standard camping trailer


As a side note – urinating in the sink – even the smallest post-war travel trailers typically had toilet facilities, this is what distinguished them from campers on the back of a pickup. Urinating in the sink is more of a convenience for a single man living in a trailer, it’s easy, handy, and uses little stored water compared to a typical toilet. It bespeaks of Ennis’s basic work-a-day character and modus operandi, the sink can function as a countertop urinal as long as you have the "equipment at hand".
 

[chowhound]

Hi there, Jackster. Many thanks for you full and comprehensive reply. 

I think AP must have been envisaging a trailer with either a curved roof or slightly curved sides or, indeed, both. I suppose Ennis could have been living an older, disused travel trailer rather than a mobile home. If it was an older model, maybe it didn't have any bathroom facilities. But your explanation for Ennis peeing in the sink is just as likely.

We don't know the exact date of when Ennis had to leave the ranch but from "the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair" I assume it could be up to twenty years after Jack's death and therefore could have been as late as the end of the nineties or even just into the present century. By then, this type of trailer might well look out of date and old fashioned and therefore never used on the road if "curved" trailers were found more often in, say, the fifties, sixties and seventies than later but of this I'm not sure.

I assume, too, that the trailer belonged to the ranch and may well have been included in the upcoming sale. This would explain why Ennis had to be "packed and away from the place that morning." I imagine Ennis would have lived there either rent free or for a very small rent.

Obviously he didn't own it otherwise he would have taken it with him when he left. I wonder if Ennis ever owned any property or accommodation. Probably not though there seems some form of pride of ownership when he puts the number 17 on his new mail box towards the very end of the movie

[jackster]

Hey CH:

Agreed on all points. You, being a certified expert on the timeline   probably know when Annie actually wrote the story - I don't. But I do know it was first published in the New Yorker in October '97, so writing was probably, whut, '96 or so? Makin' Ennis 52 or so (assumin' a 1944 DOB). So this is 'bout 13 years after Jack died. 'Course Annie could have been projecting into the future, there's nuthin' to say she ain't, but doesn't seem like her style. Grey belly hair seems plausible at 52 and certainly provides the imagination with a wonderful fantasy scene.

Seems the studio felt a little grey (maybe salt+pepper) wouldn't hurt here in the sideburns when Ennis was 39 or 40.


Didn't even think about Ennis not actually owning the ranch trailer, very good observation.

Not to belabor a point, but a trailer with a sink (i.e. plumbing) would almost certainly include a commode which would generally be considered a more critical piece of equipment. Pissin' in the sink seems more common among old single men than one might think, Garrison Keillor (Prairie Home Companion) has even commented on it in regards to something done by Norwegian bachelor farmers in Lake Wobegon.

Wonder if the pride Ennis shows after carefully numbering the mail box "17" is because he owns the trailer, or because he owns the mailbox!  

[chowhound]

Hey CH:

Agreed on all points. You, being a certified expert on the timeline   probably know when Annie actually wrote the story - I don't. But I do know it was first published in the New Yorker in October '97, so writing was probably, whut, '96 or so? Makin' Ennis 52 or so (assumin' a 1944 DOB). So this is 'bout 13 years after Jack died. 'Course Annie could have been projecting into the future, there's nuthin' to say she ain't, but doesn't seem like her style. Grey belly hair seems plausible at 52 and certainly provides the imagination with a wonderful fantasy scene.

Seems the studio felt a little grey (maybe salt+pepper) wouldn't hurt here in the sideburns when Ennis was 39 or 40.


Didn't even think about Ennis not actually owning the ranch trailer, very good observation.

Not to belabor a point, but a trailer with a sink (i.e. plumbing) would almost certainly include a commode which would generally be considered a more critical piece of equipment. Pissin' in the sink seems more common among old single men than one might think, Garrison Keillor (Prairie Home Companion) has even commented on it in regards to something done by Norwegian bachelor farmers in Lake Wobegon.

Wonder if the pride Ennis shows after carefully numbering the mail box "17" is because he owns the trailer, or because he owns the mailbox!  

Hi there Jackster,
     I've just noticed that, in the brief description of the trailer in the opening sentence, it doesn't just have a door but an "aluminum door". Do you happen to know if aluminum was only used in trailer construction for a certain period before being replaced by more modern materials or is it still used to day? (What strange areas of inquiry BbM can get us into!). In other words could the fact that the trailer Ennis is living in has an "aluminum door" be  a way of very roughly dating it?
    I don't know how long Annie was occupied in writing the short story before its publication though I remember reading somewhere that she said it took her a long time. So 95-97 would be my approximate estimate. I agree that she is probably thinking of Ennis in her present time which, as you point out, would make him somewhere in his early fifties.

[jackster]

Well, I do happen to know a bit about aluminum use in construction - it came into widespread use after WWII partially as a result of its wide use during the war in aircraft manufacture. The equipment was at hand to extrude all kinds of stuff and so a market was "invented". This was especially true of trailers of all kinds, where not only did the aesthetic style of a machine made creation permit this use (a cross between a car and a house), but the weight saving properties of AL were also of significant benefit during transit. So, as soon as trailers began to be built in the postwar years AL was used, and is still used today, though in more recent times has been somewhat replaced by polymers (vinyl, etc.). The pictured trailers here are all AL. So long and short of it - "wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames", naw doesn't help much, coulda' been built any time between 1948 and 1988.

BTW - completely OT here, (and maybe [probably] it's just my perverted mind) but I find AP to have an amazingly subtle way of infusing sexual innuendo and/or imagery into the story with the most remarkable combination of words and word usage. For instance in this opening paragraph she mentions scratching pubic hair, urinating in the sink, the curved length, and of course dreamin' of Jack. This evokes wonderful fantasy visions, huh?