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Odd People: Cranks, Eccentrics & Nutters

I Live in newyork so i often meet alot of weird people. This one sticks to my mind alot.

Me and my friends would always see this guy who wore army clothing with a tinfoil hat. He would walk as if he really was in the army. We would always Yell ATTENTION just to see him stop and march all the way down the street in a stiff army like fashion.

Then there was the guy who wore a bright orange vest with a construction helmet. He would go in the middle of busy traffic and pretend to be playing basketball with no ball...
 
The city I live in is full of wonderful weirdos. A recent favorite was a man dressed like a cowboy walking (well, more like dragging) two white ferrets on a leash.

The woman who lives next door wears gloves all the time. She has a huge variety. Latex, work gloves, white cotton gloves, furry winter gloves. We just came out of a nasty heatwave, yet the gloves were always present. I wonder if she sleeps with them on?
 
She might have something wrong with her hands where she prefers to keep them covered up when in public?
 
That may be... or she may just be a run-of-the-mill germophobe. I'm just always amazed at the variety of gloves she wears, I don't think I've seen the same pair twice.
 
She may be a burn victim.
I used to have a neighbor who I thought was quite daft, until I realized she had lived through her previous home burning down with her inside. All her scalp was burnt, so she wore the same wig every day, making it appear that she never changed her hairstyle, and almost always wore long sleeved blouses to hide her scars. I only saw her wear open toed shoes a couple of times because her toes were so badly mangled. She was dotty from various meds, and always good for 30 minutes of rambling conversation once I said 'hello'.
 
Insight into the glove woman?

I asked my better half if he'd ever seen the glove woman without gloves on- and he has! He tried to help her out with a problem she was having with her stove: all the while she was gloveless! He didn't notice anything odd about her hands (but I doubt he looked very closely). When he failed to repair the stove, she asked if we had the landlord's phone number. Of course we did, so he ran into our apartment and jotted the number down on a scrap of paper. When he went to hand her the paper she excused herself, left the room and returned with a pair of gloves on!

He also stressed that other than the gloves he felt there was an air of general weirdness about her. He felt very uncomfortable in her apartment. Of course, he feels pretty uncomfortable in most circumstances, so that may not mean much. :?
 
An odd encounter in the pub tonight. (This is perhaps more a sad tale, than strange folk.)

A man, perhaps 60ish, with a scots accent, came in. After a while he asked if I was local, had lived here all my life. I said no, only about 6 years.

A little later he asked if there was anyone in the bar who was local. I named a couple of regulars, and he went off to talk to them.

Then he returned, and said he was trying to find anyone who'd known his brother, who'd lived here a while, and died quite young, and was buried locally. (Neither of the locals could recall him.)

So I asked if he'd tried letters to the local paper (such letters are a regular occurance), and asked how long ago all this was. I think he said 1962, but then he became overcome with emotion and left the pub (leaving half of his pint undrunk).


I don't normally have this effect on people!
(Excluding ex-girlfriends, that is...)

Odd, and sad.
 
I wrote him off as a harmless eccentric, until one night walking home from work I saw him hiding in some bushes in a park in camouflage gear, he was well hidden, I only saw him after I nearly trod on him. At the time there had been a series of rapes in areas like that and I started to wonder if he was as harmless as I thought. I have no idea if he was responsible for the attacks or not, but still it makes think twice about how harmless some eccentrics might be.
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Maybe he was trying to catch the rapist?
 
Waaaay back on this thread someone mentioned there not being any local 'characters' in Milton Keynes. In fact, there are quite a few but you only really notice them if you work in the shopping centre.
One of the most frequently sighted is a man known affectionately as 'Throatgrabber'. He is partially sighted, seems to have a form of Tourettes and claims to be deaf. The deafness apparently means that in order for him to 'hear' what people are saying to him he needs to grip their throats with his hand. In order for him to hear really clearly, the shop assistant he targets needs to be young, pretty and female. He leaves handprints. Shop assistants turn pale at the mere mention of him. He also has no inner monologue and is often found at cash machines shouting out his pin number.

One of my favourite strange folk was a woman from York, which seems to have more than it's fair share of 'harmless nutters'. She was known by the rather unwieldly title of 'The John Denver Woman'. About 3 or 4 years ago I used to work in a record store in York and this woman would come in several times a week to listen to John Denver cds with her shoes off. In all outward appearances, the woman seemed entirely normal (whatever that is). She was well dressed, was perfectly capable of normal conversation and didn't rant or mutter or freak out. But, after a while you'd notice that she seemed to be talking and laughing to herself. And then you'd realise that actually, she was gesturing and having a conversation with some invisible person. And occasionally whilst listening to a cd she would take off the headphones and act as if she was positioning them over someone's invisible head. I used to see her on sunday mornings in Starbucks before work. She'd buy a small coffee for the invisible person and help herself to the free water, and read various articles of interest out loud to her invisible friend. The story is that the invisible person is her dead husband. I'm not sure what the John Denver thing's about mind you. Perhaps her husband was a fan.
About a year before I left York, she seemingly vanished. Shame really, she always seemed perfectly happy.
 
I've seen a woman with black or brown sclera (the white stuff in your eye) so her eyes were completely dark
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This reminded me of a homeless guy in Glasgow whose eyes are milky, or clouded over (cataracts or something?). He lies down in the street and pretends to be dead. He'll cause a little fuss until the police arrive, give him a friendly kick and tell him to bugger off, at which point he gets up and wanders away (much to the surprise of onlookers).

Weird eyes or not, it must be pretty hard to produce this illusion of lifelessness - kudos to him!
 
He should shave his head, grow his moustache, and set himself up as some kind of philosopher (Grasshopper...). He might make some money, y'never know.
 
My candidate for possibly the strangest person I've ever encountered was the widowed neighbor lady who lived with her son in a two-story victorian-styled house next door to ours.

She resembled Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch from the Wizard Of Oz, sans green make-up), always, always wore the same clothes, and would occasionally pop in for visits with my mom. And I mean literally "pop in", as she would enter the house without asking, knocking on the door, or making her presence known.

You'd just turn around and she'd be standing there with a big goofy grin on her face. It got to the point where my mom would make certain the doors were all locked when she was at home alone. The woman was just incredibly creepy.

To add to the creep factor, her husband had been replacing roof tiles on their house several years previous, lost his footing, and plummeted to his death, breaking his neck on impact in the narrow space between her home and ours.

I always felt sorry for her son - I still remember his name - Oliver. He was roughly the same age as myself (about nine or so), had sandy blonde hair, a deathly pale palor to his skin, and apart from school, was not allowed to leave the house, not even to go to market, as his mom was a virtual shut-in and had the supermarket deliver her groceries. On the rare occasion when I would see him getting off the school bus, I would actively attempt to engage him in conversation, only to see his front door swing open, and hear his mom shriek "GET IN HERE, NOW!"

I would sometimes see him peering down from behind curtains on the second-floor whenever we went out.

I sometimes wonder whatever became of that kid. Not to mention his mother. What a friggin' childhood.
 
ignatiusII said:
I sometimes wonder whatever became of that kid. Not to mention his mother. What a friggin' childhood.
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Perhaps he went into the motel/motor inn business. :twisted:

I shouldn't make fun though. In high school, I (vaguely) knew a girl who lived alone but for her grandmother in much the same circumstances.

She wasn't allowed out of the house after school, had no telephone (though they didn't appear to be in poverty), was not permitted to watch television, etc.

She had that never-outdoors pallor about her, was painfully shy, spoke in a tiny tiny voice when she did speak, appeared to be unable to make eye contact with others, read all the time and just seemed generally miserable.

I always had the strange intuition, as if her enforce lifestyle wasn't bad enough, that she was somehow being physically, emotionally or sexually abused. I even mentioned it to the school guidance counselor once to which he mysteriously replied, "We're aware of her situation."

I've always wondered what, precisely, he meant by THAT. :shock:
 
I've worked on plenty of elderly medicine wards so I've seen my fair share of demetia/alzeimers related strangeness. The ones you meet outside the hospital, in their natural habitat are so much more interesting though. There have been several memorable characters over the years, in and around Leeds.

There was the youngish man who used to just stop and dance in the street in Leeds town centre in the early nineties. He didn't have any music, but he used to do some amazing body-popping (I think thats what it's called anyway) type moves, all the time with the most joyful beaming smile on his face. I used to see him around a lot back in those days. Sometimes he'd be walking down the street quite normally, then just seem to be unable to stop himself from breaking into a dance, sometimes incorporating it into his walking. I blame it on the boogie.

Then there was the older man in hyde park (Leeds, not London) at about the same time who used to repeatedly run backwards uphill, wearing quite smart clothes and a trilby style hat I think. He quite often used to accost me and told me he did it to keep fit. He usually walked around until he caught sight of an unaccompanied young woman (such as myself) and then do his little backwards jog in front of them, looking at them out of the corner of his eye.

Until a few years ago there was also a young (and slightly overweight) man who always went topless no matter what the weather. I've seen him walking around in snow and rain, with his small man-boobs bouncing around. He also always looked joyfully happy, beaming from ear to ear.

There's another man - not exactly a strange man, just unusual, who I still see in Leeds. He's a black man with dreadlocks, and he's always dressed like I'd imagine african royalty to dress - he wears a headdress, with a small cape that covers his head and neck, and usually has some kind of badly made robes in gold or silver or very bright colours. They look home-made by someone who can't sew - no hems or proper stitching, all frayed edges and uneven cuts. He's another one who always looks unfeasibly happy.
 
mindalai said:
He's another one who always looks unfeasibly happy.
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Only the most disturbed or stupid people in the world is happy all the time. They are so lucky.
 
There's a chap in these parts who obviously has some mental problem, and he goes around talking to himself all the time.

But I saw him the other day, and he wasn't talking to himself

- which I thought was strange! :confused:
 
Maybe he'd had a falling out with himself, or he just ran out of things to say? I hear that happens when you've been having conversations with the same person for years.
 
There's a greek bloke who rides the subway all day in Stockholm dressed only in sandals, white socks, khaki shorts and a walkman. He has dreadlocks too and swings them around as he vogues. Yes, he actually vogues all day long. Everyone has seen him and he sometimes dances down the main shopping street here in mid-winter, topless as usual even though it can be as low as -20 degrees celcius. He seems very happy too but he must spend a fortune in batteries.
 
There's a fellow at one of the local shopping strips people call The Announcer. he stands in the middle of the path with an imaginary microphone making imaginary announcements. Probaby another one from the local group house.
Also what I do find strange is people who carry around fake infringement notices. Some years back, in pain from a bad back, I had to take a daughter to the library for assignment information. I parked away next to a small triangular piece that was not a parking space as I wanted enough room to get in and out. Came back to find a car parked so close I had great difficulty getting in and then saw the notice under the wipers. Got the daughter to get it as she had lots of room that side and found it was an abusive fake one. Why on earth would you be so odd as to park so close in a small space when there were lots of other spaces, and why would you carry fake notices just in case?
 
I've posted here before about the Walking Man.

I've only ever seen him walking briskly along the local streets, as if hurrying to some appointment. I've never seen him in a shop, or a pub, or standing on a corner talking to someone - he always seems to be walking, striding along with great purpose.

Until yesterday...

...when I saw him running!

Things are obviously getting more urgent in the Walking Man's life!


Talking of running, I was on a bus recently when a man ran across the (busy) road diagonally, forcing the bus to brake to avoid running him over. The man then went into the local Police Station - perhaps to report himself for nearly causing an accident?

He wasn't being chased by anyone I could see, and if he was a plain clothes cop he'd have surely had a radio or phone to contact his colleagues if necessary, so WTF was going on?

I suppose I'll never know... :?
 
mindalai said
"There's another man - he's always dressed like I'd imagine african royalty to dress - he wears a headdress, with a small cape that covers his head and neck, and usually has some kind of badly made robes in gold or silver or very bright colours."

This has totally reminded me of a black woman I used to see in Bedford, perhaps she's still around. She had a hat and a cape in bright red with contrasting edging, and she carried a staff? perhaps with a cross on it, or like a crozier? I always imagined it must be something to do with her religious beliefs..
 
Man wearing pink bunny ears

For the last year a man in his 40s with a shaven head has been going about his business in Paignton, Devon wearing a pair of pink upright bunny ears.
He looks quite stern and is a rather tough looking man so I've resisted asking him as I imagine the response to be "What f*****g ears" followed by a bashing.
They were getting quite grubby by November but got a wash or a new pair dispelling the idea he somehow was not aware of them due too some kind of mental illness.
He's still wearing them now well into the new year dispelling the "bet you wont wear them till the end of the year" pub bet idea.
Any ideas.
:wtf:
 
Maybe he sees a dominatrix (or his wife dominates him), and this is one of the humiliating things he must do in public...
 
In downtown Atlanta now, we have a Prancing Fake Cop Wearing A Tutu who, using a large baton, walks through traffic, spinning and whistling like a one-man band.
 
Good heavens, he'd be hard to miss. Have there been any local news stories about him, or any tales about who he is? Can you get a pic?
 
Found an article about the guy, though I've only ever seen him as a cop in a black tutu:

LINK
'Baton Bob' gives Midtown something to smile about
He livens up streets with eye-catching costumes, mirth

By H.M. CAULEY

City dwellers accustomed to seeing all sorts of odd sights on the streets of Atlanta have found it hard not to pause and take a second look at Bob Jamerson.

Though most who cross the Midtown resident's path don't know his real name, they do know "Baton Bob," the guy dressed in eye-popping outfits while expertly twirling a baton on the sidewalk.

"I've seen him dressed as a bride, Little Red Riding Hood, an Indian chief, Spiderman and a majorette," said Summer Howard, manager of the Flying Biscuit restaurant at 1001 Piedmont Ave., where Bob often shows up to entertain the sidewalk diners. "People recognize him now on the street and look forward to seeing him."

Jamerson, a freelance floral designer by trade, calls his street character the "Ambassador of Mirth." As his alter persona, he's become a sight on Midtown streets and in Piedmont Park since moving to Atlanta last fall. Adorned in colorful costumes, he takes to the streets almost every day to dispense smiles, waves and greetings to anyone in his path.

"I'm usually out for two to three hours a day, seven days a week," Jamerson said. "I may go down 10th Street to Peachtree [Street], then down Peachtree for eight or 10 blocks. I also stop near the [High] art museum or Ansley Mall, but 14th and Peachtree is my 'main stage.' "

Early love for twirling

Jamerson's bedroom doubles as his costume closet and it's packed with pieces he picks up at vintage and thrift stores. In addition, he owns several batons, including one that glows.

"I fell in love with baton twirling at an early age, growing up in Virginia," Jamerson said. "I asked my grandmother if she'd buy me one but instead she cut off one of her old broomsticks and gave it to me. On most Saturday afternoons, I'd watch college football games to see the majorettes do these intricate twirling routines at halftime. I taught myself by watching them."

During his junior year in high school, Jamerson was the band drum major. A year later, he left the band to become something rather unusual for 1970s rural Virginia — the only male twirler on the dance team.

"I bought white pants, borrowed a cheering sweater, wore white tennis shoes and went out to upstage the majorettes," he said with a laugh. "They hated me because I was their competition."

Jamerson went on to be a flight attendant, but after Sept. 11, 2001, he found himself laid off in St. Louis.

To work out, he started taking his baton to the park and was soon drawing a crowd. The idea of adding a costume to make people laugh came to him, and the response was immediately positive.

"The first time I went out in a black velvet skirt and a tutu, two policemen stopped me and wanted me to pose with them for a picture," Jamerson said. "Then I started going by a children's hospital and a cancer research center. I started getting e-mails from the doctors, nurses and patients about how I made their day. It finally occurred to me that I had tapped into something that was taking the drudgery out of people's lives."

Abuse prompts move

At one point, downtown merchants in St. Louis paid Jamerson to draw folks to their business district. But the love affair started to sour when Jamerson, in a wedding dress, was arrested at a rally for John Kerry and John Edwards. As the welcome mat began to curl up, he decided to head to Atlanta, where he'd lived several years ago.

"I was getting abuse from police officers in St. Louis and it was affecting the spirit of the character," he said. "I still had friends in Atlanta, so I decided to bring my mission here. So far, most people who see the character are amazed."

Jamerson usually gets a warm greeting from diners and the staff at Einstein's on Juniper Street, where he frequently parades by in full costume, baton in hand.

"He always has a different outfit, as well as hats and tiaras," said Einstein's server Danny Walker. "He doesn't really talk to anyone unless they talk to him first, but he's very intelligent and cheerful. He'll always pose for pictures. Everyone on the patio usually claps and cheers when he comes by. You can see he's having fun with it."

The ambassador agrees.

"I'm on a humanitarian mission," Jamerson said. "This is my unconditional gift back to humanity."
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THIS is his web home...
The Ambassador of Mirth, otherwise known as Baton Bob, after becoming a fixture in the Central West End of St. Louis, moved to Atlanta. There he has become an even bigger hit. This group is for his admirers, his detractors and those who just want to know what's going on with him...... The AMBASSADOR'S common MISSION is to: LIFT PEOPLE'S SPIRITS and put a simple SMILE,... on people's FACES;...during the DRUGERY they are experiencing, during their DAILY routine; called LIFE!.....So, hopefully the next time YOU encounter the Ambassador, YOU will have a better UNDERSTANDING of where he is coming from; and his PURPOSE for his DAILY TREKS!!!
Anyone may send a message to be posted, but only members will be able to access messages, photos, etc.......
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Go Bob! Love the pictures. :)

Btw, MrRING, you've got a space after "groups" in the beginning of the link; might wanna fix that. :)
 
Nice zoo at Paignton :)

It's always makes me chuckle to see this sort of thing. People like this man bring a much-needed touch of surreality to the day.
 
We have a midnight skater - an old chap who skates about the pedestrianised town centre of Ormskirk at what used to be kicking out time. To be fair to him, he skates well, and livens things up, but he is a bafflement to all.
 
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