Posted on 11/19/2008 7:19:18 AM PST by Daffynition
CARLISLE — There's little undisputed in this story, the tale of the tipped trailer.
Frances Barton's single-wide, the one she had fully paid $5,000 for and was hoping to move to a little piece of land she was buying on a $250-a-month land contract, is now literally in pieces on Jim Gaunce's front lawn.
And, everyone agrees, that leaves some 12 people — four adults and eight children ranging from 3 months to 12 years — facing Thanksgiving with no place to live.
How, exactly, the mobile home came to this odd resting place is where the story gets complicated. On Friday, Barton hired a guy to put her house on a trailer and move it up U.S. 68 in Nicholas County. When the trailer broke down and the house blocked the highway for hours on end, the sheriff got involved.
Barton, and the extended web of friends and family who lived with her, claim authorities didn't give them time to clear out a house full of furniture, much less clothing and the things that can't be replaced such as pictures, favorite toys and baseball card collections.
Barton's boyfriend, Alan Gaunce, no relation to Jim, said somebody — he's not sure who — told him he'd be shot if he didn't get out of the trailer before it was toppled. Barton, a grandma at 35 with gold streaks in red hair, tearfully contends that Nicholas County Sheriff Dick Garrett "showed no respect for my home" when he ultimately ordered two tractors to ram the thing and set it on its side.
On the other hand, Garrett, a wiry chain-smoker who ran for re-election with the slogan of "More 'Dick' in 2006," maintains that anybody who thinks it's a fine plan to pay somebody $200 to move their 25-year-old home, all their belongings, and a passel of pets with a farm tractor can't exactly complain when things go wrong.
"I know I wouldn't pay somebody $200 to move my house and everything in it," said Garrett, noting that the group didn't have a required permit or escort. Basically, he said, he could have arrested the lot of them: Barton, her brood and the hauler. The charge, he said: "being ignorant."
To be fair, the partial closing of U.S. 68 for some nine hours on a Friday night is pretty major in Nicholas County, where Garrett Tuesday was reviewing a Mayberry-like constituent call concerning a thwarted attempt to snatch a fresh cherry pie from a kitchen.
He said he did all he could think of to salvage the mobile home, but had to get the road clear. "It's a federal highway," said Garrett, who stood in the rain from roughly 4:30 p.m. Friday until 2 a.m. directing traffic with the rest of his force, a single deputy.
"I'm sorry it happened," he said, "I really am."
But, asked what he would have done differently, Garrett said, "I'd have knocked it over sooner."
Barton spent more than an hour Tuesday standing and crying next to a 10-foot-high pile of wooden walls and pink insulation, sometimes cradling her daughter's doll, one starting to show signs of black mildew after sitting in the damp remnants of the house. Over and over, she said, "Everything is gone. I've lost everything. It's all I had."
Barton, who helps manage the mobile park where she lived, paid for her home with a settlement from an automobile accident. It's the first home she's owned by herself.
She said she thought the man she hired to move her home knew what he was doing. Chris "Pancake" Meyers told her, she said, that he had more than 13 years' experience in hauling things and that he had the proper permits and insurance for the move. (She didn't ask to see proof of insurance or a permit, she said. Meyers could not be reached for comment Tuesday by the Herald-Leader.)
About 1½ miles into the move, the tires popped off. Sheriff Garrett said he's heard that somebody warned the group the tires would be loose and they should stop the move. He said Barton insisted on going ahead.
And soon found herself in front of Jim Gaunce's house on U.S. 68. Garrett said over the course of the evening, he did everything he could think of to get the house unstuck so it could be salvaged. But, he said, several of the well-intentioned efforts did significant damage to the house. For example, trying to push with one truck from behind while pulling from the front resulted in the hitch coming off and Barton's blue-walled bedroom being crushed.
Lee Roberts, owner of Roberts Heavy-Duty Towing in Lexington, said his company was called in to help. "We tried to pull the trailer back on the road but couldn't without tearing it to pieces."
When asked to push it off the road to clear the traffic flow, Roberts said he declined to do so.
That's when, Garrett said, he called on Meyers and another farmer with a tractor to tip the trailer.
He said he gave Barton and her friends and family at least two hours to get out what they needed and asked more than once if they had everything they wanted before he issued the order to push. Garrett said he didn't know how badly damaged the trailer might be, but thought he had no other choice.
Barton said she collapsed before the final destruction and was taken away by a friend, but Alan Gaunce said Garrett told him the cleanup was "all up to you, baby."
Garret said he has given Barton 10 days to clean up the mess. He's already talked to the county attorney about charges if the debris hasn't been removed. Even as looky-loos slowed while driving by the wrecked house and an increasing number of clumps of insulation littered Jim Gaunce's yard, Garrett said it's not the responsibility of the county to do the demolition or removal.
Without money, Barton said, she's relying on friends to dismantle and move the trash. At least two of the men working Tuesday said they took off time from their jobs on horse farms to help and are working with hammers, a sledge hammer and a chain saw. The Red Cross paid for a hotel room for a few days, but now Barton is on her own. The family, a mishmash of real kin and unofficially adopted kids, teens and young adults, are crammed into a smaller trailer while Barton tries to sort through it all.
Jim Gaunce, an amiable great-grandfather, watched most of it unfold from his rocker in a sunny living room with windows so spotless birds frequently thud into the glass while trying to fly through.
He's sympathetic to both sides and willing, he said, to be patient as the mess is cleaned up. He worries that the insulation might blow into nearby farms, get eaten by cattle and do some major internal organ damage, putting a dent in someone's livelihood.
But he knows one thing for sure. "Somebody," he said, sitting calmly as a chain saw roared, "is going to have to clean that thing up."
I bet she wishes she had paid $250.00 to a real professional mover
Or Goomer.
I don’t think so. I don’t see any neo triple X signs.
Why are you posting a pic of the Clinton Presidential Library?
So do you blame the passengers that die in an airplane because they didn’t check to see if the pilot was intoxicated before they took off?
I don’t see obummers logo symbol in there?
If they didn't have life insurance before they flew, then I would blame the inability of their survivors to collect life insurance benefits on the flyer.
No matter how much a pilot drinks he can't drink away your insurance premiums or his airline's.
I'm also unaware of any fatal commercial plane crash in which pilot intoxication was given as the cause of the crash.
This is Kentucky, not Arkansas ...LOL
Can you just imagine the brouhaha over the Obama library ... his birth certificate will be a big draw.
Growing up in a true redneck family we have several similiar stories- though we usually accomplished what we set out to do it could get interesting. We called them “monkey wrastlings” from the get go- we knew what we were doing was a potential disaster in the making. Hubby is a lot more thoughtful and not as redneck as my family was but we still from time to time do things in this fashion- we just gave it a new name- now we call them “great adventures.”
One of my best examples of redneckdom was my brother who bought 10 city buses- got a great deal on them; they did not run. He found out what it costs to tow buses after he got his great deal at the auction. Never fear- he decided to tow them with his pickup. He towed them one at a time from Phoenix to Tucson with his pickup and a towbar he made. He was totally successful, no wrecks and no encounters with police- doing this 10 times. One time a highway patrol officer that was standing by the roadside doing a traffic stop stared at him as he went by but did not pursue him. I think the officer could not believe what he was seeing.
I must say this “adventure” in this article tops anything we have ever done- but as my mother used to say- “poor folks have poor ways” usually it is a matter of not having the money to do things the right way. I am sorry these folks lost their house- I am sure they couldn’t afford to lose it. They are trying to get by the best they can, and usually people like this take care of their own and do not ask for government hand outs so maybe we should cut them some slack on their methods.
I hope someone sets up a fund to help these people get another house- I will donate money to help them get another trailer and household goods.
A neighbor woke us up in the wee hours one time- he was in a mess; he had taken a brand new 4x4 pickup that belonged to his boss (didn’t ask- his boss was passed out drunk) to “borrow” firewood from behind an empty house. He went in the back way so no one would see him and the truck fell into an old cesspool. He wanted hubby to help him or loan him our truck to get the other truck he “borrowed” out of the ground before his boss came to. Hubby was not very nice to him when telling him NO. I did make the remark that at least he asked and didn’t just take it.
In a single wide trailer??????
“...“poor folks have poor ways” ... your mom was spot on.
It is at the feet of our elders that we learn so much.
What did your brother end up doing with his bus collection?
Note to self: Check Angieslist.com before hiring somebody named "pancake" Meyers
Shouldn’t you remove stuff from the trailer before you move - especially if you’re counting on a tractor to pull it?
He resold most of the buses as they were, but he rebuilt two of them into nice motorhomes and sold one to an attorney and the other to guy trying to become a rock star. Before he did this he had successfully restored many old classic cars and sold them- this was his only adventure in redoing buses. He doesn’t talk about it- I know he made money but I think it was a bigger pain than it was worth.
Good question KK but as Tammy8 said above ...”poor people have poor ways.”
All she had to say was that she was moving next door to the Kennedy compound........Everybody here would have started writing checks.
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