Chambord on the Plains (Pt 2 of 2)

The next day, we arrived in the trailer park just before I completely lost feeling in my legs from having the computer riding on my lap. I had never been in a trailer park before or since and here’s why– It was like arriving in a village deep in the Amazon. As we pulled in, the villagers came out of their trailers with varying degrees of excitement. Some looked on from a distance with hesitation while others greeted us warmly.

Her parents beamed as they introduced us around the park. They were particularly proud of their golf cart. Everyone who was anyone had a souped-up golf cart to cruise around the trailer park. Ellen’s parents had one with zip up side panels of clear plastic, a small space heater on the floor and an AM radio in the front seat. Ellen and I cruised around the park for almost half an hour.

Later at the presentation of the gifts, Ellen explained that Vodka and Chambord made a blackened martini. The villagers watched with curiosity as she mixed the drinks. It was like we had invented the wheel. There were quite a few oohs and aaahs amongst the villagers. Ellen then proceeded to get completely tanked on this magic elixir and passed out.

With the booze gone the crowd thinned out, except for the newlyweds. Dale and Irma kept chatting me up, “Was I a Sooner fan?” and “Have you ever been to Tulsa?”. Only slightly buzzed I realized that I was alone in the dark at some picnic benches with Dale slurring his speech on my left and Irma twitching her good eye at right. They were slightly older than me and seemed quite keen to get me back to their trailer for more drinking. I declined their invitation… repeatedly.

Rodgers and Hammerstein never wrote songs about swingers in Oklahoma

Eventually I found my way back to Ma and Pa Kettle’s trailer. Ellen had been sleeping for a few hours but it was now after midnight and I was due back at work in a few hours. I slapped her a few times before she finally woke up. I told her about the couple getting a bit too friendly. She asked her mother if she knew that Dale and Irma were swingers. Her mother said she knew but, “oh, I don’t know what you girls are into these days.” We were soon back on the road home. All I kept thinking about was that someone else’s mom left me with some creepy swingers in some trailer park in the backwoods of Oklahoma because, hey, she didn’t want to assume I wasn’t into that.