Miscelanous

Phyllis Diller

DC Coliseum, P1

DC Coliseum, P2

Kings

T-Wide Heaven

Christmas

Triple-Wide Heaven

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My friend Dana has been passing this combination junkyard/trailer triplex on the I-85 bypass around Greensboro for years. On a recent trip with him, we shot the pictures, below. Remember that "Redneck Neighbor" site that was out there for years—which showed the antics of his neighbor, referred to as "John Doe #8?" If not, check this out. I don't think this is the original site, but an exact copy of it hosted on someone else's site. Anyway. We both feel that while John Doe #8 may be one of the most prominent rednecks in the USA, his house pales in comparison to Triple-Wide Heaven. Enjoy the pictures, and our comments, below.


Dana: The drive-by shot. This is the first glimpse I ever had of Triple-Wide Heaven. Sometimes the vehicles have moved or there's different amounts of stuff on the freestanding deck but the mess remains. My guess is this property was developed prior to the construction of I-85 bypass.

Pat: As we approached Triple-Wide Heaven, Dana kept telling me "You've got to see this place" and preparing me for what I'd see. In spite of this, as we went around the corner and I saw it my first thought was "OMG! WTF????" I then sort of halfway expected to start hearing "Dueling Banjos" by Eric Weissberg playing in the background. Of course you can see all the various vehicles. What's that wooden thing shaped like the Greek letter Pi way over to the left? A clothesline? A grape arbor? The place you hang up the deer while you gut him out? A gallows for any trespassers, Godless liberals or "Revenooers" that have the misfortune of happening onto the property????


Dana: The panorama shot. What a variety of vehicles! If this property gets annexed, it'll be a poster property for the junk car ordinance. Or maybe they can just haul all the junkers in Greensboro here since he already has such a collection.

Pat: In this shot, over to the right, you can see that in addition to all the passenger vehicles on the property, he also has him a flatbed truck. Is this used for hauling more junky cars in? Also, to the far right, there's another smaller trailer. Is this used for vacations? Maybe that's where his mother-in-law has to stay when she visits. Or maybe that's there as a security measure—if Triple-Wide Heaven ever fills up with junk, they can move in to the other one.


Dana: The centerpiece of this photo expose is this close-up of the trailer triplex. The patchwork roof was cobbled together with whatever roofing materials he could find. Evidently, he had more roof to cover than roofing materials on hand as evident from the inclusion of a hillbilly skylight at the left. The wreath of the ajar door of trailer #1 sure adds some holiday cheer. Trailer #3 is underpinned with firewood.

Pat: Also note that on Trailer #1, instead of real underpinning he just wrapped what appears to be canvas around the bottom—except for one sheet of plywood under the second window from the right. Also, note that the windows directly above this are also plywooded over. WTF? It couldn’t have been a fire because one fire will consume an entire trailer in about 43 seconds. Makes me wonder if that’s the shitter and this is to keep the pipes from freezing???

Then, moving back to Trailer #2, we see an air conditioner that is precariously dangling from the window at an angle that makes me think it’s about to fall out. Now, note the smoking stove pipe that protrudes from the right side of the end of Trailer #3. The way it looks, it makes me wonder if he’s smoking barbecued pork back there.

And out in front you can see what we call the "Fun Platform." This is a deck which sits about thirty feet in front of Trailer #1, at a height of about three feet above the ground. Again, WTF? Does he go out on Saturdays and host Square Dancing contests here? Or maybe they built it so they could sit there in lawn chairs and watch the construction of the I-85 Bypass. You know how rednecks just love big loud machines. Speaking of the lawn chairs, that may be what's left of one in the yard to the left of the "platform".

But that's not all! In front of the wood pile, that looks like some sort of a little cement animal statue. It's hard to tell from this angle if it's on the "Fun Platform" or just free-standing in the yard. Either way, yes, this guy looks like the kind of guy who would decorate his yard with a cement statue of a cat (or whatever it is) in the yard. Crosby, Stills & Nash: "Our house is a very very very fine house. With a cement cat in the yard..."


Dana: Three trailers were positioned side by side and kludged together with 2x4s and tarpaper, some real alcoholic carpentry. I count 12 vehicles on the property.and a truck trailer.

Pat: This shot gives a very good view of what appears to be the trailer section of a Semi / Tractor Trailer, about thirty feet to the right of the main Triple-Wide Heaven complex. And since "trailer" seems to be the theme of this development, this just fits right in, doesn't it? I wonder what's in there? Junk? More old beat-up cars? Maybe more relatives? This shot also gives a good view of the red car in front of Trailer #1. My guess is that this is the car that he currently drives. The "Car of Honor" as it were. It figures that it's red, in a symbolic sort of way.

And what's this? Look between Trailer #3 and the Semi trailer and there's what appears to be ANOTHER flat bed truck parked there. I think the figure of 12 vehicles is conservative. In all these shots, I can count at least 13 different vehicles. And there are more. You can't see them in these pictures but definitely can when riding by there.


Dana: This shot gives you a view of the way the trailers are positioned relative to each other. Trailer #3 is quite a bit higher than trailer #2. There's a sloped section of roof between trailer #3 and trailer #2. A particularly gratifying shot, Pat snapped it while we were in motion. Check out the freestanding deck to the left of trailer #1, the perfect place to "drank lakker 'n play some Lanerd Skanerd."

Pat: My first thought upon seeing the way the trailers are positioned relative to each other was, "This looks like a section of the concentric rings of offices that make up the U.S. Pentagon." We assume that they've built some sort of connecting hallways or walkways between them. The one between Trailer #2 and Trailer #3 would need to be at about a 30-degree slope.

Yes, another view of the freestanding deck, a.k.a. the "Fun Platform" and what appears to be another old lawnchair to its right. And what's in that little shed? Moving right we see a genuine redneck "former oil drum turned heating unit" that's likely used for warmth on chilly days, or garbage disposal (or both). Also a good view of the smashed up white car and the red SUV. And what's this? ANOTHER flatbed truck to the right of Trailer #3.

And to its right, it's A BASKETBALL GOAL! How much do you want to bet that if we could get closer, we'd see DUKE UNIVERSITY stickers on all the cars? Have you ever noticed how, amongst the white trash of North Carolina, the more poor they appear to be, the more they appear to just LOVE the Duke Basketball team? I'd bet that most of these people could sell all of their earthly belongings and still couldn't afford to pay what it costs to get into a Duke University pay toilet to take a shit.



And that completes our tour of Triple-Wide Heaven. Note that we pulled off of I-85 and rode around back roads for a while hoping to see the other side of this place but weren't able to find it. We concluded that it was only accessible by going down one of several long gravel driveways that we saw. And we weren't about to drive down there. We didn't want to be the next people to be hung on the "gallows" (mentioned in Photo #1). But you never know. Maybe they'd have all come out and said "Sit a spell. Take your shoes off. Y'all come back now, y'hear?" Then all stood out front waving at us as we drove away, like Jethro, Granny, Ellie May and Jed at the end of the Beverly Hillbillies.