" Village Idiots " and Other Eccentrics (well, neighbor, inherited)

[twinkletwinkle22]

I am from Delmarva with ancestors back to 1600's. There were 3 eccentrics (not idiots) I remember.

One in my small town fed the town cats daily and was known as the "Ambassador to France" because apparently he worked in some capacity there in his past. He wheeled a handcart of cat food cans around town, the cats and kittens looked forward to his arrival and he never let them down. Don't know what happened to him.

The other was "Crazy Eddy" who knew every baseball statistic possible. He belonged to a local family and also walked around town daily although I never met him in person, just saw him fairly often. His family owned property, clothes always looked clean (as did the Ambass to France).

The third was a black man who walked the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk in a fast stride yelling "REEEE-PENT!" every 10 seconds. His voice carried pretty far. He wore a clean white shirt and dark pants, no sign that I remember. He didn't interact with people (like the first 2 mentioned) just gave his message for several hours a day in summer, I think only in the morning hours.

Small towns accept eccentricity, don't call the cops. Out of towners caused many more problems, getting drunk and urinating in public or next to homes, spending the night in seasonal homes they did not own.

[Taz22]

When we lived in a small town in Texas, our next door neighbors were a typical family. Except for the wife that is. She had a trust fund, so she didn’t have to work and she was always dressed very provocatively with full makeup. She drove a sports car and had a lead foot, but despite being pulled over several times, she never got a ticket. When not working, I occasionally went over to visit, we’d end up drinking wine in the middle of the afternoon, although this was not my style. Thinking back, she was an original Real Housewife.

The second in that neighborhood was a teen who used to wonder around the neighborhood and there was no telling whose yard you’d see him in, day or night. We almost hit him with the car one night, when he was high and jumped in front of the car. His parents were nice, although they had no idea how to control him. When he graduated high school, they went to great lengths to get him in the army. They were so thankful to get him out of the house. Well, he got tired of the army, quit and came back home. He bought his girlfriend and their grandchild along with him.

[oldtrader]

Remember, there are a much higher number of what you call eccentrics in a big population big city, than you ever find in rural areas.

[NoMansLands]

Didn't have such a person in my Currier and Ives town growing up in Michigan, or I didn't know about them probably because I was young.
However everybody who went to Greek Town Detroit on a regular basis knew Stella...she'd talk to everybody a lot of incoherent jibberish, and sometimes carried a baseball bat. Here's a great article on her.

https://fornology.blogspot.com/2014/...la-iconic.html

[Sassybluesy]

We had a few 'ecentrics'. The first one that comes to mind is Razor. Razor always kind of reminded me of Charles Manson, in looks. Some people said Razor was mean, other people say that he was a nice guy who liked to go fishing, and if you happened to be fishing and he was fishing in the same area, he'd share whatever he had with you.


Razor liked to drink 20/20 Mad Dog. His mustache and beard always had purple stains in it. Rumor says that he fell out of a window (some say he was pushed) and died.


Another ecentric was a one-armed man, always dressed neat as a pin, who walked all over town, in a fast manner. Always looked like he had places to go and things to do. Rumor was, he was a veteran, on disability, who had a sister who tried her best to watch out for him. Once a month he'd get his disability check from the post office, cash it, and then he had a hiding spot behind a restaurant, that he would hide his cash.


Another one is a guy who was a couple of years younger than me, who got squashed in an elevator door. One arm was crippled, and one leg was crippled. I think it caused some brain damage as well. You'd seem him walking all over town.


All those guys are from my youth.


Currently, there's an apparently homeless lady, who always wears a leopard looking coat, no matter what time of year it is, and carries a suitcase with her. Her favorite spots seem to be the service roads leading to Hwy. 70. She talks to herself, and she yells at drivers as they drive by.


People try to stop and help her...offering rides or offering cash, or offering to take her to a shelter. She yells at them, cusses them out and tells them to go away.

[VTsnowbird]

when we moved into our small rural property in the 80's (<10 acres) we made the acquaintance of an older man I'll call "Dick." He lived down the street, with his sister and BIL. But he didn't get along with his BIL, so he mostly stayed in the garage, where he kept and fed many cats, or in a car out front, with an electric blanket in the winter. He used to fish on our property and every conversation eventually wound up with him telling us that there used to be a race track on our land.


After a while his BIL passed and he moved back into the house. Then his sister got a little Chihuahua named Lily, and you would see the two of them walking down the street. Dick was a big guy, and it always gave me a chuckle to see him doting on this tiny little pup.


In our second rural property, we had as neighbors an older couple. Apparently he was a disabled vet and somehow she got money for taking care of him, along with the money he got. Their home and all outbuildings were painted an ungodly shade of bright blue, and they had dozens of lawn ornaments, from Santa to a lighthouse to a windmill to the proverbial concrete donkey cart. Great landmark to give directions by. They were quite litigious and annoyed many people but we always got along fine with them.

[Riley.]

Originally Posted by Ghengis

Most distressed areas tend to be down in hollers and dim witted people wander down into them because of gravity and are unable to find their way back up and out

That is darn funny!!!! thank you for the laugh!

[Riley.]

We had a older guy down the road a bit who had a ramshackle garage tiled with license plates on the outside. He used to rebuild old tractors and - we think - sell them. I never saw him up and about but he was always out sitting on his porch and I always used to honk and wave on my way past his house. He was a fixture. A friend of ours told us that one time, the friend needed a bolt or something to repair his own tractor and he went to see this guy. Guy took him into the license plate garage, chock a block full of junk and parts and all manner of what not willy nilly. The older guy went right over to some shelf and picked up the exact bolt that my friend needed. I love this story. This old guy died but I still beep and wave when I go by his house. I miss him and I didn't even know him.

[TheShadow]

Living in the country takes a certain degree of resourcefulness and ability to take care of oneself. The idiots I see most often are of the sort raised in a city who've never had to figure out how to do anything for themselves. I'm talking about people who I talked to often back in my customer service days with the electric company in a large city and suburbs. Some of the idiotic things I had people tell me:

1) "You don't read my meter, I have a dog. You just average how much the neighbors use and bill that to me."

2) (After being told SEVERAL TIMES that his power outage was caused by a downed power line nearby, and crews were on the way) "I want you to turn my power on right now. I know you can do it!" (Screaming at me) "You have to turn my power on right now, I need to shower!" (I had to explain that water doesn't run on electricity). "I can't shower because the bathroom's too dark!" (I suggested leaving the door open since it was light outside and he slammed the phone down)

3) "I'd like you to turn the power on in my house I just rented, but I don't know the address." (I had to tell them to go outside and look at the house numbers on the wall)

4) Various reasons why they think we have to turn the power back on after we turned them off for not paying their electric bill for 2-4 months:

a) "I have children and I can't feed them without power!" (uuum...sandwiches? cereal?)
b) "I have tropical fish costing hundreds and hundreds of dollars!" (Maybe paying the bill would have been a better use for that money.)
c) "I just paid hundreds of dollars for a side of beef in my freezer!" (see above)
d) "I'm a city police officer and you have to turn it on." (I have no clue what one has to do with the other)

5) "Main breaker? I don't have a main breaker." (then after being told it was in her electrical panel box) "I don't have an electrical panel box. Wait, what's an electrical panel box?"

6) "Electrical humming is coming from the pole out back". (It turned out to be
bullfrogs croaking in a pond)

7) "There's electricity in my tree in the backyard." (in an area of underground lines, it
turned out to be cicadas in the tree)

9) My all-time favorite..."I'm going to sue you guys because I smell gas outside by my
meter!" (We were the electric company, NOT the gas company, which she was told
repeatedly during the call, and she was referring to her gas meter. She actually did file a lawsuit which was immediately dismissed)

Not one of these idiots lived in a rural area.

[Mrs. Skeffington]

There's an older guy in our community who cuts lawns and delivers the local newspaper. Pretty harmless, but very annoying. The house on the adjoining property to ours sat vacant for many years, and he was hired to cut the grass on the two acres of lawn once a month. This wrinkled, toothless old guy would see me if I happened to be working in the garden, and always come over and start the conversation with, "What do you think of our (N word) President?" (meaning Obama). I'd tell him not to use that word around me (even though I didn't like Obama either). Then he'd ask me out for a drink. I told him I don't drink (actually, a lie, but no way did I want to go for a drink with him). Then he'd ask me out for coffee. Every time I saw him he'd ask me out for coffee, but he thankfully stopped mentioning the "(N word) President". Whenever I saw him unloading the riding mower from the back of his truck, I'd hide in the house.

Once I was in the process of taking down the laundry when I saw him parking his truck. I ran inside and asked then-teenaged youngest DD to bring the rest of the clothes in. She did, but left...in full sight...a pair of my lacy red panties on the line. I asked her why in heaven's name she did that! She said she wanted to see if he could drive his mower with one hand. She also said that he came over and asked, "Where's your mom?"