Hunter gatherer diet and trailer trash

We were invited to attend a costume party last night whose theme was "white trash or trailer trash." I was at a loss about what to wear, what a trailer trash costume would look like. I was raised in poverty, no lights, no indoor running water or plumbing for much of my childhood, but I never lived in a trailer. My sister, before she died at the age of 26, lived in a single wide trailer in Gallup New Mexico. And when I was in the army we lived off-post in Lampassas Texas where almost all dwellings and most of the businesses and government offices were in some sort of trailer. We lived in one of the few duplexes in town: a roach infested, stifling hot one bedroom that in hindsight might have been considered upper-class! I'd come a long way from our waterless, utility free houses on the ranch that didn't have roaches and were kept clean to a rodent infested upper-class abode in Texas. (Maybe they should secede from the union)  It was the first time I had ever been upper-class. The Post Office, Social Security, City Mayor, and even the police station (including the jail) were in some sort of trailer.

Some of the lifelong residents built porches on the sides of their trailers and some even put a pitched roof over the entire mess. Those more affluent citizens, presumably the Mayor, Chief of Police, the woman who ran the XXX movie business, all lived in trailers plopped rather haphazardly on a plot of land. (the XXX movie house was a trailer with an extension built towards the back to cover--presumably--the screen) Most, residents however, lived in trailer parks. Each trailer was parked within a few feet of its neighbor. There was enough room between trailers to park a vehicle, usually a pickup truck. Most had a small patch of lawn--less that 100 sq. ft.--and all had some sort of plastic lawn gnome, flamingo, or wishing well in the center of the lawn. The towing frame stuck out of the front of each of them and many had not bothered to skirt the trailer. Dogs and cats, children used the undersides as play areas with trails worn around and behind the tires and axles that had never been removed after the trailer was "installed."  An occasional rattlesnake or copperhead would crawl out of the thickets of brush surrounding the parks and shade-up in the cool and dark undersides of those trailers. At night centipedes as long as the span of a large hand and scorpions stalked crickets and roaches that took refuge in piles of trash stockpiled under the trailers. Layered habitat.

I looked up trailer trash on Wikipedia but other than stereotypes it wasn't helpful.  When I looked up white trash it was more helpful. It even included a reference from Harriet Beechers Stowe's work. The term came into common usage in the south in the 1830's as a term used by black slaves to describe white servants and share croppers. It's hard to imagine that there would be a perceived social order below slaves but apparently "white trash" fit that bill.

So what to wear? I thought about a relative who had purchased my sisters trailer that had been standing empty for several years after her death. My relative and his wife lived in it for a two or three years. When they got the trailer it was in good shape, well tended both inside and out. At the end of three years the trailer was trashed. Holes had been punched in walls, the floor around the toilets was rotting, windows were broken and patched with plastic, none of the interior doors would open and close. Trailer trash? White trash? I suppose even though he had all of his teeth and dressed in clean clothing.

So where to turn for costume guidance  for the trailer trash themed party? I'm missing a couple of teeth that a horse kicked loose and that a very expensive oral surgeon extracted but they are/were at the rear of my jaw, not strategically and stereotypically missing in the front. How could I get a gap in my front teeth? Finally I wore the jeans that I usually mow the lawn in, the pants that I wear when I'm plumbing, or doing dirty chores around the house or farm. They have both knees ripped out and have dried plumbing glue and paint stuck permanently all over. And I wore a torn work shirt, a ball cap, and a pair of work shoes that my new pup has chewed from lace-ups into clogs.

When we got to the party it turned out it wasn't as much a costume party as it was a come-as-you-are. Many of the guests hadn't changed clothing for several days. They weren't faking! They didn't have to pretend.
 Almost all of them came with a well worn beer-can sleeve (a invention that wraps your beer can in foam to keep it cool), cigarettes, ball caps. Most of the beer-can sleeves were preloaded with a beer already being kept cool when they arrived.The host had cases of cold beer in coolers and beer on tap from a keg housed inside of a refrigerator. "Wow, wheredjewgitthet fridge? someone asked?  "We need one of them for our back yard," the man told his wife. Both had tooth gaps. I was jealous. "I madeit," the host said.

What does this have to do with the hunter-gatherer diet? I will discuss the diet in depth in a later posting but basically some s__t-for-brains has decided that paleolithic man ate mostly protein at a ration of 2:1 protein over carbohydrates. Because most at the party were drinking lite beer their carb consumption was down. All dove into the beeny-weeny hors d'oeuvres, and other fried meats like a pack of hyenas. There was even some under-the-breath growling. Nothing was wasted except the salad we brought. I went back into the kitchen after and all of the food bowls (except the salad bowl) looked like they had been licked clean. A few party goers hung around the table wiping out smudges of grease with a finger, licking it clean, wiping any residue on their finger on their jeans or shorts, and then chasing the snack with a slug of beer."Them beeny-weenies was suregood," someone said.

When the host and guests started jumping into the pool it was time to leave. The lemming-like plunge was started by someone bellowing: "geterdun!" Non swimmers were dragged out and left flopping on the lawn. Other "dippers" were comparing the chilled nipple effect in what could have been suggestive of the scientific method.

I forgot to mention that the party was at a home (not a trailer within ten miles), in an upper-class neighborhood funded by old Utah money which suggests (scientifically) that being trailer trash is not necessarily based on an economic scale.  Indeed the "evidence" suggests that trailer trash behavior may be genetic.