G.B. Lee Barker

It’s a long trailer. Too long to be completely contained by Clive’s Shop on the east side. The longest trailer ever built at Doubledavy’s Hot Melt Glue Gun Welding, Inc.

The most memorable products from Clive’s never made it to production, and that’s unfortunate. People of his brand of creativity are rare, and we’re lucky to live in Redmond where we can appreciate his working prototypes, many of which remain in his back lot. Ask to see them.

First, though, you have to scratch gently behind the ears of Petey2, Clive’s Labrador retriever. Petey2, and his father, PeteyMore, and his father, Petey, were all born in Schefferville, Quebec, Canada which — being less than two miles from Labrador proper — allowed Clive to get their purebred papers to read as if they came from Labrador. Provided he not use a capital L. Bottom line, the dogs have never cared.

Clive was in a creative groove in the ‘70s. Playground equipment. These projects hit all the piquant notes on his weldophone. Take the Figure 8 Slide, for instance. The name seemed perfectly appropriate from a distance, but up closer the intent observer would note that it was a lazy 8, as they say in cattle (and, sometimes, nutria) branding. Even closer, it was an infinity sign.

In a sense, it was a success, but the first ten kids that tried it have never been seen since.

Clive was not happy about this, but continued to go to work and do what he does best. Some wanted him to torch his career; Clive kept the torch and blasted more gas.

Next was the CetriFrug, a rotating platform driven by four kids in harnesses. Using his never-quite-patented reverse gearing, Clive made the platform spin inverse to the pushing of the kids. The harder they heaved, the slower it went. When the four tuckered out, the thing was spinning so fast that five dancing couples were thrown into the back yard two houses over. Clive apologized about that. You can still see the CentriFrug out by the side chain link fence, rusting in the dew.

That’s when he started the trailer, and boy howdy is it long.

But he kept at his bread and butter items, like trailer hitches, and four-step collapsible ladders to facilitate entry into jacked-up pickups with tires whose diameter rivaled that of Crater Lake.

Still, between paying jobs, working on that long trailer, sometimes into the evening until the current Petey nudged him home and leaned against the cabinet door where the kibble was kept.

It’s really long, that trailer.

Too long to license, the lady at the D Em and Vee told him, when he brought in pictures to inquire about the legal requirements to get it on the road. It was all part of his dream. In his crystalline imagination, he would be pulling that trailer from its home base in Redmond out to Union, and Olex, and Lena; Basque and Wagontire. out where kids will never know the thrill of wearing slippery flat-soled shoes that other people have worn; the puzzlement of an orb so small it could never be sold as a Hermiston melon and has three mysterious holes in it. The plunk of the ball hitting the maple flooring and rolling toward those ten stalwart soldiers in an effort to blast them to pieces, only to have the victims hauled off as if by medics and the remainders left to face the tyranny of the noseless orb intent on sparing none (or all, depends on your point of view).

Clive Doubledavy’s Rolling Bowling Alley. A very long trailer. Hauled at night, quietly, to various Redmond food-and-beer courts. Where cornhole no longer matters.