Off Topic - Gear gone to Heaven

In a time long ago, I was a Key Grip. Pretty much a second rung guy, but still a medium sized fish in a medium sized pond. Out of all the gear I owned, my prized possession was my trailer. A 45ft moving trailer that I lovingly restored, added more belly bins to and was the talk of the town for a number of years. The photo is from the ad from which I found it. It was at the start of the move from rental house owned 5 & 10 ton trucks to personally owned trailers. Personal gear packages where and still are nowhere to be found, as no one has been able to compete with rental house prices & inventory, but trailers were one way one could make some money.

I took out my first loan (even prior to first house purchase) to purchase and outfit this trailer and was able to pay back the loan pretty quickly. That trailer was my workshop & my home away from home with a comfy office and bed for my lunch time naps. I always preferred to have a place to change into rain gear or cold weather gear without having to empty the truck first and maybe even a cold beverage at the end of the day.

As a grip, losing gear is frowned upon. It does happen - loaning your c-wrench to a locations PA to deal with propane heater tanks and never see him or the wrench ever again, or your personally painted pony clips showing up on electrician's belts all over town.

Fast forward a number of years later; the industry has taken a turn & times are tough. I've got a family & home. I'm forced to sell the trailer to a rental house who will give me the best bang for the buck. I keep an ear as to where and what the trailer is doing - it does one feature, then sits for the next year, which is not great for a trailer, so the rental house ditches it from it's inventory. I lost track of the trailer there.

Until over the weekend.

Five years later, I trip across my trailer! It's part of a traveling mall carnival. It's in pretty good shape. I couldn't get right in and see what condition was in, but it seemed to be more than road worthy.

Nice to see it's getting good use and in a "happy" place! My trailer had run off and joined the circus.