Strange people in your college town...

[Kevin]

Every college town has one or two of these. In Edmond, we have a fella that I like to call "Pogo Stick".

This is a fella with long blonde hair who usually is wearing a stocking cap -- even in the Summer. He dances or alternatively hops (thus his name) through busy intersections all through the day. He can always be seen around town doing very strange things -- I saw him walking down a busy street the other day carrying a tennis racket in one hand and a basketball in the other.

There are plenty of urban legends about his fella including that he's a graduate of an area high school who is of course nutty as hell, but lives off of a massive trust fund.

[Optimist Prime]

We have Bruce.

We have Waldo. We don't know if he's homeless or what, but he looks very unkempt and I don't think he's bathed in the past decade.

Still, for some reason he spends all his days at Hamilton Library in the Government Documents section and he never causes a problem with the other patrons. He keeps to himself. I doubt he's even a student, but he's always there.

At night when the library closes early, he's at Magoo's taking advantage of the $1.25 beer pitchers and yummy food. No one knows where he gets his income.

[APhiRattlerGal]

Well..Austin isnt MY college town but i grew up there. Theres this guy named Leslie. He's infamous for wearing heals, lipstick and the like while standing next to his shopping cart w/ different sayings written in permanent marker on cardbord. He's a nice guy...kinda strange though. He's kinda like a landmark lol

[raiderchic482]

There's this guy that hangs around the depot district, and dresses like Elvis... he claims he's Elvis's illigitimate child or something... I've only seen him once, he had his hair slicked back like Elvis, and was walking around with a brief case.. .the manager's from Bleacher's said not to make sure he didn't get into the bbq thing that was going on ( I was volunteering at it), well someone let him in and he was walking around in there. I just thought he was creepy looking, I'm not sure if he's nice or not... maybe someone else can add on this.

[PM_Mama00]

We have this guy we call Blaine Copperfield. He's always walking around campus with a guitar and playing and singing. I think he's trying to show off but everyone just kinda is like "yeah hwtever". Sometimes he'll do magic tricks, sometimes he'll juggle, sometimes he has these numchucks (those ninja things). He's sooooo weird.

[ILLINIgirl]

Well, we have a guy that rides a unicycle around campus...I dunno if we have a name for him tho?

We also have this funny taxi driver (Henry)--he's an interesting guy...not that weird tho. He's our taxi driver of choice in the winter when it's too cold (even for the beer blanket) to walk home from the bars. He gives us the "senic/historical tour of Champaign" on the ride home...I think he's lived there for way too long. It's histarical because he's just talking to everyone in the car and he knows everyone in his taxi is plastered...makes for interesting convo.

[tinydancer]

In Austin, we had Indian Princess, who was sort of a bag lady who pushed a bicycle around campus and all around town. It was said that she could put the "evil eye" on people. She was around when I was a little girl, and was still around when i was going to UT. By then, she had lost the bicycle and hobbled around on crutches. She is even pictured on a mural of the campus that is on a side street off the Drag (Guadalupe, for those of you familiar with the campus.) She must be dead by now - she was real old when I was in school.

[lifesaver]

We had "The Dancing Guy". He was actually a student.

The UTSA campus is pretty compact. 26,000 students, but theres only 10 buildings, theyre big buildings, but theres only 10 of 'em.

The largest buiding is where a lot of the lecture hall classes are. The lecture halls seat from 150-500 people, so there are a lot of people in the building at any one time.

The campus is out in the middle of nowhere. (I dont mean in a bad part of town, I mean 15 minutes out in the woods.) Its 15 minutes to anything except a gas station, hotel and a McDonalds/Subway. Since it is a hella walk to your car and then a drive to get anything to eat, most people would just hang out on campus if they had a break. The way classes are scheduled, most people would try to schedule stuff to stay there for a 5 hour time block with an hour or two break built in. The point is that you'd always have lots of people hanging out for hours on end. Some people would schedule all their classes on MWF or Tu-Th. so they would be there all day. This one dude was always hanging out. He was probably 40 or so and ALWAYS had earphones on and would hang out on the catwalks (the elevated walkways connecting the different sides of the galleria in the main building) and would dance. I dont mean just moving a little. I mean getting his freak ON. Think a Brittany Spears dance video routine without the rest of the dancers. Kinda looks silly with one person doing it.

There were all kinds of urban legends, like he had been a bomb technician in the army, or that someone slipped LSD in his food in the dorms, so the school had to give him a free education and he was now working on his PhD, yada yada. He was an icon tho. Fraternities would invite him out to parties. No one ever really talked to him. He was kinda freaky, but an icon none the less. I dotn think anyone ever had a class with him. With the exception of the occasional fraternity party, I never saw him anywhere else, but dancing on those catwalks, 35 feet it the air, grooving up against the rail looking down on everyone else.

Freaky indeed.

[A Random DphiE]

We don't have a name for our guy, but EVERYONE knows of him...

he only appears at night, and cruises around campus riding his bicycle while singing (and i mean BELTING out) spanish love songs...

he weaves in and out of building, trees, people, (it's almost as if he's oblivious to it all) and sings the night away...

you could be coming out of the library at 2AM or heading to your weekly meeting at 9PM and STILL cross paths with him...

[KellyB369]

In my home town (which has several colleges so it counts ) we have this woman who we call Whoppi because she looks like her. We also call her the bicycle woman. She pushes or rides her bicycle (a pink kid's bike) all over town. Supposedly people have taken her bicycle while she was sleeping and tried to give her a nicer one but she always gets the pink one back. She won't accept any money and there is a rumor that she actually has a lot of $ but she choses to live like that.

[lonestaradpi]

Originally posted by APhiRattlerGal
Well..Austin isnt MY college town but i grew up there. Theres this guy named Leslie. He's infamous for wearing heals, lipstick and the like while standing next to his shopping cart w/ different sayings written in permanent marker on cardbord. He's a nice guy...kinda strange though. He's kinda like a landmark lol

I have heard of Leslie! Did you know that he ran for mayor a few years back? Gotta love Austin!

When I was in San Marcos, we have the Green Man. He always wore all green and rode a bike everywhere. There was a rumor that before my time, he once helped a drunk sister when she came home late on night. He was always nice, but strange.

Makes you wonder why so many college towns have so many strange people.

[chideltjen]

I feel like I am going to hell for posting this but it's the truth.

There is a guy that hangs around Sac State that isn't all there. I don't know if he didn't develop completely mentally, but he looks like he is in his late 20s but acts like he's 10. He carries a backpack but I don't think he actually goes to classes on campus. But he hangs out when ever there is a big event on campus. During Greek Week we would see him and his claim to fame is that he gives everyone hugs. He doesn't say anything and doesn't discriminate. If you are in his path, he will probably hug you, or give you a high five, or pats you on the shoulder. Some go along with it... others almost run away. And I feel bad cuz he probably doesn't know any better, but it's a little scary.

[sueali]

A couple of years ago we had a guy in his 40's that would wonder around campus with his shirt off, carrying a little radio. he would sing loudly any pop song that was popular. He isn't here anymore though, don't know what happened to him.

There is a lady that hangs out on the corner by campus ( not actually on campus) and talks to her self. she also reads the paper upside down and we've seen her just pull her pants down and pee in the gutter. If some one trys to give rher money or food she yells at them.

There's another guy who walks around campus carrying a bag from our book store. He has a long beard and uses rope to hold his pants up. I think he's actually going to school. You can take some classes for free if your over 65.

Finally there is this guy that looks like he his homeless that comes to every single basketball game and has been coming for years. He has really good seats and carries a bag that apparently has autographs of all of the players and coaches dating back along time. No one knows how he affords the seats he sits in.

Looking back it looks like our campus has a lot of crazy people.

[OleMissGlitter]

In Oxford, MS we have had a few characters come through...William Faulkner would be the most famous...there is a guy who sits on the Oxford Square and writes in his notebook all night long. He usually is wearing a brown cowboy hat with a feather in it and jeans and a white shirt. He sits puffing away on a pipe or a cigarette and sometimes he will just stare off into space. If you try to talk to him or smile it is like you don't exist...he also will have a cane with him sometimes. I did get to talk to him once, he was with his college-aged son one night at the bar. He told me how he was writing a ghost-murder-love-mystery that took place in New Orleans. Oh, and he wear big work boots, you know like ones you would see on a farmer...