Our First And Only Motor Home; The Peddler Wagon

I am now seventy-five years old and find myself reminiscing much more than I used to. Some of the "good old days" weren't so pretty good as far as finances were concerned, but oh we had so much fun being poor.
This is Memorial Day weekend of and of course, it is raining. It seems like rain on Memorial Day weekend is a given.
My husband at the time of this story was the father of my children. At the time of this story my children were 3+ and over a year old. Just a perfect age to teach them the joy of camping.
Wally was a body technician. His shop was small and he did the majority of the work including painting. He found a real deal on a Hiland Potato Chip van. He paid three hundred dollars for that wonderful soon- to- be- a- motor home. (As I am writing this I wonder where in the world he got that kind of money. He and his brothers often did odd jobs for extra spending money. Maybe that is what he did.)
After he ate his supper and on weekends he sanded it all down and then painted it. He painted it red and white. It looked like a VW on steroids. The top was white and the bottom was red. It came to a V in the front.
Wally was a very good artist. He painted the Ace of Hearts, the Ace of Spades, The Ace of Clubs and the Ace of Diamonds on each side. He painted them so they were fanned out like the winning hand in a poker game.
The inside of course, was gutted. It was all metal on the inside. It had a driver's seat and that was it. Wally kept reminding me that the motor sounded really good. That also would be soon put to the test.
 So my imagination was running wild. I was so excited. I loved to go camping, but with the children being so small, it seemed like too  much work.
I had less than a shoestring budget to work with. Wally found an old camper stove and put in a little closet. We found a little port-a potty to go in there too. There was no water tank. We had no cupboards. We had boxes for dishes and pots and pans for our first trip. We had coolers for our cold food and drinks and adult beverages, and probably something for silverware. I couldn't afford paper and plastic in those days, so I just took out extra from the house to outfit my new doll house.
I knew that the inside walls had to have something done with them. I didn't want my little ones to touch cold walls during the night. So I went to the carpet store and bought $20 a yard carpet. It was a rust color. It cost me just over a dollar because it was a poor cut remnant. So of course, it had to be glued on. Wally got the glue but I was the instrument to hold it up to the wall with my back as well as my feet. That was a really hard job!
When that job was done, I reminded him that I had no where to put all of the utensils. We planned on doing mostly grilling. So he immediately found a piece of pegboard and screwed that on the wall above the stove. Then he put some S hooks on it. There was my utensil cupboard! That little addition gave birth to our motor home's nickname: The peddler wagon. You see those spatulas and big spoons and can openers and what have you would clink and clang as we drove down the street. They acted like wind chimes only in the key of "Noise flat."
We didn't care we loved it. He made a king size bed in the back of it and two little hanging bunk beds for the children. We were finally set to go. Oh I couldn't wait for the next day to arrive. I had the kids so  psyched up they were wired and ready and were hurrying their father in combo, "Hurry daddy, hurry. Let's go camping." Of course, they had no clue what camping was.
Then the first crack of thunder sounded accompanied by buckets of rain, dark skies and the dismal fact that there was not going to be any camping that day. If you have ever attempted to calm down two youngsters that were gung- ho on an outing you probably realize the problems we were having.
Wally's brother lived just one block away from our house. I called them and said, "What am I going to do with these kids, they are out of control." They were going to go to the lake with us that day too. Then my sister-in-law said, "Well, why don't you just come on down in the camper. You can park it in the driveway. The kids will think they are camping. We can play cards while it rains."
That's exactly what we did. We had BLT sandwiches and had a ball.
The following week the fan belt broke on the way to the lake. Yes, another story because as you know there were no cell phones in those days, but once again Wally's family was following us.
Oh how I wish I still had pictures of that old potato chip van. We had such fun in it.
 Aww the memories...