30 Years in a Housetruck

Page Three: New Friends

When I previously mentioned that I had been evicted from my home due to the landlord's son wanting to move in, things turned out well in the end.

After searching for a small rental house that I could afford (and that the owner would rent to a single young man), I came up empty handed, in spite of looking at at least a hundred properties, leads all supplied by several rental agencies. Since I steadfastly refused to move into an apartment, I realized with sad resignation that I would have to move back in with my mother, who was living in a trailer park after her divorce from my father. At age 55, and after 22 years of marriage, the divorce, and having to sell the family home in the settlement, her attitude was less than inspiring. It was also a blow to my ego to have to return home after three years of being on my own and having never asked for or been given any assistance. (This was some time before I hatched the housetruck plan).

The day that I was to have vacated the property, I was carrying a box of possessions out the front door of my rear house and looked over to the rear house across the fence, next door, to see my neighbor doing the same. A few minutes later, I had arranged with the house's owner to be the new tenant. It became a simple matter to move next door, saving me from a life (or not) in a trailer park. The rent was comparable, and the house a little nicer than the one I moved out of.

The previous landlord's son did move into my old house, but was never friendly to me, in spite of my attempts to show that I didn't regard him as a jerk like his father. He only lived there for three months or so, then moved out. For this I got evicted?

The new tenants in my old house were a young married couple, Ken and Anne, with whom I developed an immediate friendly relationship. They were both students at Cal State Dominguez, and Anne was working part time to support them both. Between classes, Ken and I spent much time together, as we shared common interests and values. On days off, we would frequently ride bicycles to Hermosa Beach and hang around the strand or go surfing (I should say that I *tried* to surf).

Some time shortly after I bought my moving van and was busy making plans for it's conversion to a housetruck, Ken's wife left him. Without a steady means of income, it looked like he was going to lose the house. Before his money ran out, he made the decision to also build a housetruck, purchasing an International step-van from a laundry company in Long Beach. Once he had the van, and minimal facilities were installed, he let the rental house go and moved in with me, sleeping in the van and showering at school. We shared meals, music, and spent many hours planning our trucks together. We attended trailer and motor home exhibitions, toured RV sales lots, and went to yacht and sailboat shows. We learned a lot more from the nautical side of those attendances.

It became obvious that some of the materials that we would need would have to be purchased new. Shopping for RV/trailer supplies revealed that the prices were geared towards people who had a lot more disposable income than us. At some point I came into possession of a Rogers Supply Co. catalog, kind of a Sears catalog for recreational vehicle parts and supplies. Calls to the warehouse confirmed that they were a wholesale-only outfit, and did not make sales to end users. No problem, time to become a manufacturer.

The first step was to create some nice, safe aliases for ourselves. I fell into using the name George Huxley (it's a whole 'nother story in itself), and Ken became Herb Woodley. If that name seems familiar, it's because that's the name of Dagwood Bumstead's next door neighbor in the comic strip Blondie. Hey, he used to live next door...

Next we needed a business checking account. Calls to the bank allowed us to create a "club" account, with no minimum balance, no service charge, and checks imprinted with the "club's" name. So was born Huxwood Associates, an amalgam of our respective aliases. We had letterhead printed up: Huxwood Associates / Mobile Environment Systems (ie, motorhomes). We even had a rubber stamp, I've probably still got it around here somewhere.

Rogers supply was more than happy to sell us anything we wanted from the catalog on a cash-and-carry basis under these terms, and didn't even charge us California sales tax on the purchases because they were supposedly being resold to end users who then would be paying the tax.

My home recording studio had a "phone patch" which allowed recorded audio to by played back down the phone line. I had also rigged up a hold switch on one of my phones. If we knew that Rogers would be calling to confirm an order, I'd be ready with a recording of saws and pounding to play over the conversation. "Just a minute" I'd shout into the phone, "I'm going to put you on hold and go into the office where it's not so noisy". Then I'd put the caller on hold while cutting off the recording, wait a few seconds and pick up the phone again, resuming the conversation in the quiet of the "office". It was a great farce!

When we would go to pick up the order, we would wear blue work shirts from the swap meet with name tags like "Joe" or "Bill" sewn above the pocket. If the will-call counter help started asking any questions, we'd act stupid and tell them that we were just the runner, if they had any questions, to call the "office".

Anyhow, this is how we ended up getting a lot of brand-new gear such as gas/electric water heaters, stainless steel sinks, plumbing parts, RV-sized cook tops, table hardware, roof vents, and a lot more for less than 50% of the retail price.

Of course, we took to calling each other by our aliases, I was "George" and Ken was "Woodley". Mine fell by the wayside rather quickly, but Woodley fit Ken to a 'T', as he was an accomplished woodworker. His name stuck, and to this day, he is known as Reverend Woodley to his friends, family, and parishioners.

"Huxwood" ended up being an all-purpose code word. If uttered out of context, it meant that something was wrong, or that the situation was dangerous, or that one or the other of us should clam up until we both understood what was going on. It probably saved our asses more than a few dollars on RV parts.