So it doesn't matter (much) if he has very little, or that he's about to be uprooted to his married daughter's, because his valuables are completely portable and ever-present.
But what if he loses a place to park his trailer?
I have this sad image of Ennis shuffled off into an apartment complex in some small suburb. No horse trailer in the wind, because there isn't a place for the horses, and he can't afford to board them.
Yeah, he doesn't need or want much from life. But what if the new landowners put in development with a covenant that bans run-down trailers?
See: Jackson Hole.
I'm interested in the same themes that get Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry going. But I think that Ennis is a particularly interesting character, because he's so appealing compared to Proulx's other characters. (Though I've only read a page of
Postcards.) And there's this really sad irony, that there's this liberalization that comes to mountain towns with development. (Guess which towns in Colorado voted "no" on the anti-gay-marriage amendment? Guess which communities in Wyoming vote Democrat? And guess what the relative costs of housing are in those places compared to more conservative communities?) And it ought to benefit Ennis... but would it?
Would Ennis's daughters have taken him to see BBM?