Blog Posting # 856; Copyright 29 August 2025. EducateMHC
Know this! HUD-Code manufactured housing (‘MH’) is federally-regulated, performance-based, affordable-attainable, factory-built housing (a.k.a. one of four types of offsite construction), routinely paired with traditional stick-built housing (a.k.a. onsite construction). And land lease communities (a.k.a. manufactured home communities & ‘mobile home parks’) comprise the commercial real estate (‘CRE’) component of MH. A variety of housing finance types (e.g. chattel or ‘home only’ loans, & real estate-secured mortgages) constitutes post-production MH.
EducateMHC is the official MH historian, trade term & trend tracker, as well as perennial MH information source. Contact EducateMHC via (317) 881-3815; email gfa7156@aol.com, and www.educatemhc.com to purchase Community Management in the Manufactured Housing Industry (This book belongs in every land lease community nationwide!), and SWAN SONG – History of land lease communities & official record of annual MH production totals since 1955.
My autobiography, From SmittyAlpha5 to MHMaven, describes personal combat adventures in Vietnam as a USMC lieutenant, a 45 year entrepreneur business career in MH & community ownership, as well as freelance consulting and authoring of 20 nonfiction texts.
George Allen is the sole emeritus member of the Manufactured Housing Institute (‘MHI’), a founding board member of MHI’s National Communities Council (‘NCC’) division, RV/MH Hall of Fame enshrinee, Allen Legacy columnist & editor at large for the popular MHInsider magazine.
A CHANGE IN PACE…
Yes I know, no blog posting from me last week. That’s because I spent the first three days of the week in Elkhart, IN., at the RV/MH Hall of Fame museum and library. Monday night, hundreds of us enjoyed the annual Hall of Fame induction banquet, where we celebrated to lives and careers of ten MH & RV industry pioneers. Monday, 100 of us participated in the IMHA/RVIC’s annual two days FactoryTour program, also at the Hall of Fame facility. Plus, I spent time, while there, working on the RV/MH Hall of Fame history project. This initiative has been in play now for two years, and I estimate another two years work and writing before we publish a comprehensive, year-by-year history of this important MH & RV museum and library. Now for this week’s ‘change in pace’.
A longtime friend sent me several short stories describing historical origins of several common day terms we use during conversations and in writing. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
During WWII, U.S. airplanes were armed with belts of bullets which they’d shoot during dogfights and on strafing runs. These belts were folded into wing compartments until fed into their machine guns. These belts measured 27 feet in length and contained hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Often, pilots would return from combat missions, having expended all their bullets on various targets. They would say, “I gave them the whole nine yards’, meaning they used up all their ammunition.
In George Washington’s days, there were no cameras. One’s image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with one arm behind his back, while others showed both legs and arms. Prices charged by painters back then were not based on how many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were to be painted. Arms and legs are ‘limbs’, therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the expression, “Okay, but it’ll cost you an arm and a leg.” (Artists know hands and arms are more difficult to paint).
As incredible as it sounds, men and women took baths only twice a year, usually in May and October. Women kept their hair covered, while men shaved their heads, due to lice and bugs, and wore wigs. Wealthy men could afford good wigs made from wool. They couldn’t wash the wigs, so to clean them they would carve a large hole in a loaf of bread, put the wig in the shell, and bake it for 30 minutes. The heat would make the wig big and fluffy, hence the term ‘big wig’. Today we often hear the term ‘Here comes the Big Wig’ because someone appears to be or is powerful and wealthy.
In the late 1700s, many houses consisted of a large room with only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from the wall, and was used for dining. The ‘head of the household’ always sat in the chair, while everyone else ate sitting on the floor. Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be invited to sit in this chair during the meal. To sit in the chair meant you were important and in charge. They called the one sitting in the chair the ‘chair man’. Today in business, we use the expression or title ‘Chairman’ or ‘Chairman of the Board.”
Ladies wore corsets, which lace up I the front. A proper and dignified woman, as in ‘straight laced’ wore a tightly-tied lace.
Common entertainment included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards, but only applicable to the ‘Ace of Spades’. To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren’t ‘playing with a full deck’. Hmm, that sounds a little dubious, but ‘who knows’?
At local taverns, pubs, and bars, people drank from pint and quart-sized containers. A bar maid’s job was to keep an eye on the customers and keep the drinks coming. She had to pay close attention and remember who was drinking in ‘pints’ and who was drinking ‘in pints & quarts’, hence the phrase, ‘minding your Ps & Qs’.
Now, this final tale is a bit complicated to follow. Bet you didn’t know that, in the heyday of sailing ships, all warships and many freighters carried iron cannons. Those cannons fired round iron cannon balls. It was necessary to keep a good supply near the cannon. However, how to prevent them from rolling about the deck. The best storage method devised was a square-based pyramid with one ball on top, resting on four resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area next to the cannon. There was a problem…how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding or rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate called a ‘Monkey’, with 16 round indentations. If this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to use ‘Brass Monkeys’. Now, brass contracts in size much more and faster than iron when chilled. Hence, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannonballs would come right of the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, ‘Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.’ Now you know…
OK, where’s the MH application in all this? Well, back in the 70s (1970, not 1870), there was a Midwestern MH-related social organization known as the Hitchball Social Club. This IMHA/RVIC (Indiana) group partied regularly, even had its’ own unique lapel membership pin, featuring a MH hitchball in its’ center. I wear the pin, from time-to-time, to various state and national MH events. Ask to see it sometime….
George Allen