There was the Blue Jay - whose name, I think, was Boyajian - who spent most of the day hanging out on the porch of his flat on the third floor of the triple decker across the street from my grandmother. All day, every day, leaning on the porch railing, staring out at the goings and comings of folks walking by on Main Street.
Blueberry Joe was a trash picker, who lived up in the woods that stretched out of our intensely urban yet rural in parts oddball area. From his name, I'm guessing he lived in the part of the woods where the wild blueberries grew, although I don't remember ever seeing him when we went blueberrying there each summer. Blueberry Joe could be seen roaming around pushing a wooden cart in which he collected junk.
Rollie was an intellectually challenged guy who was our afternoon paper boy. He lived in a shack somewhere up near the top of Wildwood Ave. where, he supposedly kept a stash of Playboys. For some reason, Rollie was very fond of my father. Probably because my father always treated Rollie with respect, as we all did. One time when she was in high school, my sister Trish was dropped off at our house by a friend's mother. When Mrs. D - who wasn't from our neighborhood - pulled up and saw Rollie, she was reluctant to let Trish out of the car. Trish assured her that it was just Rollie.
Elmer - not his real name - was the neighborhood boogey man who was either a shell-shocked war vet, or, like Rollie, intellectually challenged. He was terrifying to the neighborhood kids, especially the little girls, and the rumor was that he "did things" to little girls in the far reaches of Bennet Field. Who knows?
There was a genuine creepy guy who hung out in Hixon's Hollow, right next to Bennet Field, lurking in the bushes. One time, he came out and threw burrs at me and my friend Bernadette. (I guess he was less of an oddball and more of a perv...)
Vic the Blind Barber who closely resembled Mr. Magoo, commuted from wherever he lived (probably the Italian section) to his barber shop on the corner of Main and Henshaw in an ancient car from the 1930's, leaning forward and peering over the steering wheel. Because my parents felt bad for Vic, we were patrons. My brothers got their crew cuts there, and, because Vic couldn't see all that well, the "whitewalls" over their ears extended to the crown of their heads. My sister Kath and I got our bangs trimmed there, and came home with see-saw, lopsided bangs, every time. (My father, however, wouldn't go to Vic's. He was pretty bald, and didn't want to chance losing any of what little hair he had to Vic's ministrations.)
Mr. Downey, owner of Billy Direct, the fabled harness racing horse who had outpaced the fabled Dan Patch, who is mentioned in the song "Trouble in River City" in The Music Man, lived down the street from my grandmother. (We lived with Nanny until I was six, when we moved nearby.) One of the thrills of childhood was sneaking into Mr. Downey's barn - the barn where Billy Direct may or may not have been stabled - and pawing through Mr. Downey's old radios and other junk.
The Runner was an old coot who, everyday, ran from the Anna Maria Rest Home to downtown Worcester and back, wearing nothing but a pair of suit pants and a white dress shirt, whatever the weather.
Another local was Mr. Murphy who walked back and forth from upper Main South to downtown, only he always had on a suit, a topcoat, and a grey homburg. According to my grandmother, he pronounced his name Mur-FAY. He was, Nanny told us, a left-hander who had fallen away from the Catholic Church and felt that, if his name were Murphy, people would expect him to be a Catholic.
Were there any female oddballs in my 'hood?
I'm sure there were, but weirdness in that time and place was pretty much the province of men.
The above is just a smattering of the eccentrics that populated my childhood, and I can't recall any of them turning out to be secret millionaires.
Unlike Geoffrey Holt of Hinsdale, NH, who died last June at the age of 82, leaving his community nearly four million bucks.
Which is an awful lot of money for anyone to be leaving, let alone a fellow who lived in shambling, decaying trailer in the mobile home park he managed.
Holt "lived a simple, but curious life."
By anyone's standards, Holt was plenty eccentric, but especially so, given his background and education.Residents would see Holt around town in threadbare clothes — riding his lawn mower, headed to the convenience store, parked along the main road reading a newspaper or watching cars pass.
He did odd jobs for others, but rarely left town. Despite having taught driver’s ed to high schoolers, Holt had given up driving a car. He opted for a bicycle instead and finally the mower. His mobile home in the park was mostly empty of furniture -- no TV and no computer, either. The legs of the bed went through the floor. (Source: Boston Globe)
The son of a literature professor at American International College (AIC) in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the grandson of a Shakespearean scholar, Holt - despise a learning disability: dyslexia, which was especially dire back in the days (1940's and 1950's) when it generally went undiagnosed - graduated from Marlboro College in VT and earned a master's at AIC.
Now defunct, tiny Marlboro College was an excellent choice for an eccentric in the making: you could design your own degree.
Holt went on to teach social studies and driver's ed before taking a job as a production manager at a grain mill. When the mill closed, he went on the manage the trailer park, where he lived frugally but contented, spending time on his:
...varied interests, like collecting hundreds of model cars and train sets that filled his rooms, covered the couch and extended into a shed. He also collected books about history, with Henry Ford and World War II among his favorite topics. Holt had an extensive record collection too, including Handel and Mozart.
Holt wasn't a loner, either. He'd been married and divorced earlier in his life, and, until her death in 2017, lived for a while with a girlfriend he met at the trailer park.
And he also had time to see to the investments that, for the town of Hinsdale, are paying off handsomely. The town now has a nice little slush fund to play around with.
Let's hear it for such harmless eccentrics! The world could use more of them.
