DId your town have THAT GUY?

support mental health like crazy, originally uploaded by daydream scream.

You know the one... he's got his own personal foible that is so distinctive it's become his moniker? Growing up in Redding, we had Plasticman.
This poor man wore his clear plastic raincoat yearround, to keep the "others" from beaming into his brain. Redding was a small enough town that everyone knew someone who had actually spoken to him and gotten his story. He refused motorized transportation, and would wear shorts, but not go without his plastic raincoat.

The town we live in now is just too big to know the backstory of every wanderer obviously moving to his own drummer. But there are two fellows I often wonder about.

There is an asian man, somewhere between twenty and forty, with flowing black hair and a long fu-manchu mustache. He walks EVERYWHERE, and has the most distinctive walk ever. It's sort of a bobbling march. He marches down the street with his long locks waving, and each step brings his knees up to at least waist height. But his other foot must bounce up on the balls of his feet to get the bob and sway he achieves. Maybe he's just very into fitness....He's always neat and clean and well kept. I just wonder about his story.

The other man is in his forties. He kind of looks like that guy who won American Idol. But he walks around barefoot all over town, with his slip on sandals in his hand. The only time I've ever seen him put his shoes on is when he has to walk on grass. It was one hundred and fourteen degrees last month, and there he went crossing the street in his bare feet. That HAS to have a story.

Do you have characters like that in your town?