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You Might Be White Trash if….. By Paige Scott

Small Town, Texas circa 1985

It was Ashley’s 16^th birthday……… a rite of passage for her…… time to get her driver’s license issued by the state of Texas  (never mind that she grew up on a farm and had been driving her daddy’s pickup truck since she was old enough to see over the steering wheel.)  But hey, here we were two teenagers ready to go cruising on our own in our small town.  With the Go-Go’s singing “We Got the Beat,” we sprayed enough Aqua Net on our teased up hair to kill all the whales in the Atlantic Ocean and jumped in the Heavy Half for our first night out without parents taking us there.

Now before we go on, you might be asking “What is a Heavy Half?”  (I know I would be asking that.) A Heavy Half was a pickup truck that was made sometime in the late 70s by either Chevy or GMC.  In case you are interested in knowing this, it had 5’ lug wheels, a semi-floating rear axle, a carburated engine, “Heavy Half” written down each side of the truck AND dual gas tanks.  Dual gas tanks were for “if you run out of gas……….wah lah………. flip this switch and you now have gas!”  Pretty nifty, huh?  But here is the best part………… the Heavy Half had an antenna on the back of it that was attached to the (I’m not sure what it was attached to) and it was just about as tall as the Washington Monument.  I REALLY wish I had a picture to prove all of this to you. 

Are you ready to hear what a night out on the town in Small Town, Texas consisted of?  Get ready, this is good stuff…………..  we had a 0ne mile strip called Frazier Street right in the middle of town that everyone would cruise up and down and “hang out” for kicks!  Oh, what fun!  

So Ashley and I headed out on our first night out on the town in the Heavy Half and we cruised down the strip looking for boys once…………………… then twice………………………. okay, three times a charm, right?  WHERE WERE THE BOYS??????????  WHERE WAS ANYBODY???

The good thing about the strip was that you could get to the end and easily turn around and cruise back the opposite way…………………. oh, let’s say…………….. as many times as you wanted.  So that’s exactly what Ashley and I did.  We cruised up and down the strip (in the really INCONSPICUOS Heavy Half) at least a dozen times or more………….. I really lost count at about 2 dozen.  Where were all the boys??  Where were all the friends?? Where WAS everyone?   

Ashley and I turned into a parking lot and decided to pull over to use the pay phone to try to figure out where everyone was (hey, we didn’t have cell phones OR texting back then, remember?!?!?)  As we started touchtone dialing at the pay phone, we heard some music…………………. some really loud music.  What is that………………. Where is that coming from???

As we turned around, we realized that everyone……………………and I mean EVERYONE………..had been right across the street THE WHOLE TIME.  Not only had we made fools of ourselves, EVERYONE IN SMALL TOWN, TEXAS HAD ALSO SEEN US IN THE HEAVY HALF DRIVE UP AND DOWN THE STRIP A THOUSAND TIMES………………………… boy, were we ever losers (white trash losers!)

A few years later, when Ashley decided to go to boarding school and eventually marry Matt, all of those white trash memories were long gone!  She had a swanky wedding filled with high society glamour and even a PIG ROAST!   Yes, an authentic pig roast.  (For those of you unfamiliar with a pig roast, it’s where you roast a pig and you put an apple in its mouth.)  Weird, I know…………… but nonetheless considered by some to be really fancy! 

Now, here we are in the year 2009 in the midst of a recession where Chris and I had to put all of our house projects to a dead stop.  I swear I cannot stop flashing back to my white trash days.   I live in a nice house (in a gated community) with a bunch of kids………………… and every day I pray that our neighbors will not call the community association and turn us in.   Here we have it all complete with:

Not one but TWO swimming pools and some crappy plastic toys!

No need to spend money on an expensive bathing suit!

Or you might prefer this look!

Can you tell I paid for the “value” net?

WOW!  This says it ALL!

Nice “custom” playhouse.

At least these aren’t in the front yard!

And yes, this was OUTside.

 Hey, ain’t we fancy!