I run into quite a few during my work day. 79-80: He had a bad car accident and is stuck around these years. You hear the same stories over and over but they’re fresh to him. I’m going to number his transformer 7980 when I get a chance. Angry Man: He yelled at us often. I asked him one day if he wanted a water. “NO!” Later on I broke the ice with him and now we’re sort of friends. I haven’t seen him near his group home in about 2 months. Uh oh. Leaf Guy: He was obsessed with cleaning up leaves. Really obsessed. I had a twenty in my work truck to give him but he disappeared and I never saw him again. There are quite a few others that I’ll post later. You can post yours too if you like.
I'm happy I'm not the only one. I have a few around here. The Lawn Ranger has moved away, but I'll never forget him. He would water, seed and fertilize in the middle of the night and had grass like carpet so soft and perfect you hated to walk on it. He grew it like that all the way to the road. (I let the county cut in from the road as far as their bush hog will reach, so we didn't have much to talk about) He'd wait until the grass was all brown in the fall and burn it so neatly that it looked like he'd spread black velvet all over the yard with cut-outs around the trees. Dark Man. Probably the slowest bicyclist I've ever seen. My problem with him is that he doesn't seem to want to be seen, and I've had many pedestrians killed on my road, even during the day. Dark Man is nocturnal. After nearly running him over one night I waited down the road in the shadow of a street lamp and stepped out as he approached. I presented him with the gift of light in the form on an LED light with multiple functions, including a flashing light that was visible from a great distance. I explained that it might help keep him alive in his late night travels. I've seen him since then. Not even a glow. Dark Man. Grumpy Old Man. "Don't tell me what kind of day to have." Some days this guy looks back at me in the mirror.
One homeless guy I knew a while back had been the head of automobile design for Chrysler in the early sixties. He must have been well past 80, resisted all forms of charity, and routinely sprinted like a teenager. He was developing a Universal Language Alphabet in his spare time. He was far too intelligent to ever be considered normal.
"He was developing a Universal Language Alphabet in his spare time." We sure as hell could use it...especially to replace English which is a simple language to learn to speak but forget reading and writing because nothing makes any damn sense! LOL!
Had a mentally challenged lady who rode her bike everywhere every day! She always wore a blue jacket that said Friends of all animals on the back in yellow letters Her name was Dixie, and she was totally insane! She seemed to stay within the same 16 block area of city streets, she would yell and swear at folks, even those trying to offer her a sammich or something to drink, and she took to carrying a length of chain and chasing folks around with it if she didn't like them! She didn't speak much, and you couldn't understand what she did speak! Turns out she lived in a house about 4 blocks away from ours, and her Dad was a drunk and was always in some sort of trouble! I enlisted and went off to boot camp and a year and a half later when I returned, I didn't ever see Dixie! Turns out some one murdered her and her dad in their home and the city came in and burned the home down instead of trying to sell it as a fixer upper! Sad, but Likely Dixie went after the wrong person and that person found out where she lived and took revenge on her, or the same with her dad, ether way, they both died! I never knew why, but the city wouldn't do anything about her ridding all over and causing trouble, she was nasty to every one, and it was a bad image for a growing city who was trying to look popular! The cops would leave her alone, likely not wanting to deal with her and her nastiness! In Beaverton, there is another young lady almost exactly the same, only this one is on foot with a golf club, and she dresses in the 50's style B-Bop, completely, and she is most assuredly insane! I would guess her age at about 30, and at one time she was a looker. Another who is lost and cannot get help, and no one will even try!
There's a guy, actually it's hundreds of guys, who I'll call Elmer. (As in Fudd) They show up at the range with rifles that they've "owned all my life", yet they can't lock the action open during a cease fire. They'll insist "It doesn't lock back." I try to sound as innocent as I can be (that's always a stretch) when I ask if I can have a look. As soon as I get the nod I lock their bolt back with the push of a button or lever so fast that they can't see what I had done. I've learned to go back and show them how to unlock the Marlin 60 and Ruger 10/22 after having "armorers" tear the rifles completely apart because the bolt was "stuck." These are the same guys who don't know the difference between #6 bird shot and #1 Buckshot, can't clear a handgun with it pointed down range, and are usually satisfied if their rifle will hit anywhere on the 20" square target backer. Sometimes they bring a date. Often I have to pretend the girl is a new shooter, even though I saw her shooting last month with another guy. I hear things like "See that black ring around the bullet holes? That's because the .270 is so fast it's actually burning the paper when it goes through." That was my favorite, but I've heard some really tall tales. Like the hole in the postage stamp that he put over the hole in a 78RPM record at 600 yards because his buddy didn't believe he'd shot right through the hole the first time. I always wondered if that postage stamp had burn marks around the hole. (and if he poked the hole before he went back to make the shot, or just before his buddy got back down to check the target?)
I used to do masonry work I make the mud put on mud boards for the block Mason's one would say it was to soupy the other would say it was to stiff same mud so I would put gravel in it and they would have to spend there time getting the blocks level and stop yelling at me or they would get hot and start yelling and I would tell them hey I am just as hot as yall are well maybe hotter because I don't have a problem picking up the ladys
This has been years ago, late 60s, early 70s , we had on older fella that lived in the upper class side of town . Every now and then , when my parents were driving thru there , there was an intersection where 2 , 4 lane roads intersected . Well , this older fella would be out there in the middle of the intersection with either a wine bottle , or a 5th of liquor , just out there directing traffic , I guess he didn't like the way the stoplights were doing it . We always heard he was born into an upper class family , was a little off in the head , and would get about drunk and go direct traffic . They said the cops would show up , pick him up and take him home . He'd be back out a few day's later , doing the same thing , and the cops would do the same thing . The fella died some years later , and to this day , there's a statue of that guy in the median of that intersection with his arm extended out holding his hat . I guess the city didn't want to show him holding up a liquor bottle .
Unless you live a boring life you'll impact somebody along the way that will tell your story. "I knew this crazy old guy... "
One of my life ambitions as a young man was to become an eccentric....it was an ambition effortlessly achieved.
I worked with a Marine Gunner who lots of folks think is quite mad. The fact that he looks and sounds like a tall bridge troll certainly helps with this first impression. After spending almost 40 years on firing lines myself, I'm certain that he's just more comfortable there with his Marines than crazy. (I was gently reminded one day that I work with civilians now, who may not see my good humored ribbing as a laughing matter. "You do realize, they have guns.") I'm cautiously comfortable on the line, but I've never pulled stunts like this. The Gunner has been known to walk down the FRONT of a firing line, during live fire, trusting that the Marines on the line would check fire as he walked in front of their muzzle. Sounds absolutely insane, but no finer point can be put on the need for situational awareness on the battle field. Marines may be forward of your position, and you MUST always be aware of it. He's one of the finest pistol marksmen I've ever known. He's quick to say this is because Uncle Sam allowed him to practice with a 1911 so much that if he'd shot it all at once "I'd be up to my ass in brass." He's a bullseye shooting machine, but also one of the finest instructors I've had the pleasure to work with. He taught me not to watch the target, but the pistol. "Bullseyes will come, but only when everything else is perfect." He has a technique for helping reinforce this that starts with the shooter aiming in... "Now, keep your sights perfectly aligned on the target, but don't pull the trigger." Once he sees the muzzle go still he will reach out and press their finger back to pull the trigger. The look of shock at the surprise shot is immediately overcome by a look of amazement when they see the dead center bullseye, exactly where they were holding the sights. Crazy like a fox.
There’s another newer guy yet to be nicknamed. I’ve been giving him water and Squenchers occasionally. One day I saw him talking to some people on a rooftop through lunch. When I left I peeked up to see them but you guessed it.......Nobody up there. He did ask me if I believed in Jesus one day. I said “I’m not sure.” I still got the bro hug.
We had a oil change guy who showed up for work on his first day in blue overalls. I don't know what he did in the Marine Corps, or before, but it's likely he worked in shops with dirt floors. When he was told to drain the oil on the first car he had on the lift he got his nickname. Blueberry. He pulled the drain plug and drained five quarts of hot dirty oil all over the floor. He just stood to the side watching, like that was how it was supposed to work. Tony, an old Marine veteran looked at the mess and said "Put a Marine in a boxcar with a BB and he'll break it or steal it." So BB-Boy became Blueberry. His legacy ended when he did some work with a cutting torch on aluminum engine parts.
Aeons ago, I worked for a GeoEx company while on break from college... . One of the clients was an Economic Geologist that went by "The Tuscarora Tuffie" - one day we were working a long way off the pavement when one of the crew spotted a cloud of dust approaching. BTW - Tuscarora is a semi-ghost town in central Nv. It was none other that this same fellow - driving a Fury III - a rental, of course. Claimed it had as good a ground clearance as our Power Wagon. Can't say if he was right or not, but he made it back out to the hardtop and we didn't pass him on the way back to Fallon. Back then, the mining industry was full of colorful types...
