I was born when my folks lived in a tiny one bedroom house on 30th Street in Boise. It still stands a block north of the baseball backstop of Lowell Grade School. My folks had build the house in the early 1940s when WWII was introducing rationing and finding materials was getting more difficult by the day. 

Dad bought a four-wheel John Deere trailer that featured articulated front tires that turned into corners. It also boasted all-wheel breaks that used a sliding feature on the tongue to sense when the weight of the trailer was pushing on the that was towing it. As the trailer pushed against the towing vehicle the harder the tongue pulled on wires that applied the brakes.  A few years later he bought a second one.

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Some fifty years later I piled one of those trailers piled high with firewood and was stunned as I pulling that large load over the Lucy Peak grade to Idaho City. The brakes were so smooth I forgot there was a load behind me — until every time I wanted to check out the rear view mirror and saw only the  front end of a large trailer!

My dad bought that trailer with the turning wheels and all-wheel brakes so he could drive to the sawmill in Horseshoe Bend and enjoy wholesale prices on the lumber to build our little house. Anyone remembering the precipitous and winding 1940s Horseshoe Bend Grade knows how important those steerable wheels and brakes figured into putting a roof over our heads. 

It wasn’t long before one and then another neighbor came knocking on our door asking if they could rent that trailer. When folks from across town started showing up wanting to rent it my folks looked into renting a vacant lot across the alley so they could park more trailers that served different needs, like hauling a couple of cows or a load of coal. Worbois Rentals was launched before it had a letterhead. 

Or at least I think it was. Being an infant at the time my memory is rather blurry on the details.