Quirky characters leave impressions

Every town has its quirky characters, and our town had its own. These are the people whose images and antics come crawling across your mind late at night when you’re unable to sleep. A few of those I remembered last evening had quirky driving habits.

Dr. Cox’s old maid daughter was Miss Louise. He’d chased off her one and only love just before the Big War and the suitor was killed in Germany. Miss Louise never recovered from the trauma and townspeople said she was never the same again. She sequestered herself inside their house until each afternoon at 4:00.

She’d then load her aging mother inside the car and begin driving around the town’s big block. She was known to make at least 25 laps an afternoon. It was commonplace when asked, “What’s going on?” to reply, “Nothin’ moving but Miss Louise.”

Ms. Agnes was a hazard at times. Actually, she was a good driver, having driven a log truck for the mill. She did have a temper. Instead of writing Dr. Cox a scathing letter over a bill she felt was too high, she simply aimed her Ford toward his Plymouth on Main Street and ran him right through the Chrysler dealership’s plate glass window, barely missing a new De Soto. Daddy heard the good doctor paid for the window and adjusted her bill.

Now, we definitely had quirky characters at school. The West boys, Bill and Pete, were over 6’ tall by 7th grade and as skinny as they were tall. Dressed in bibbed overalls, they were quite a sight performing their favorite trick. With long legs locked behind their heads, they RAN down the halls on their knees. Whenever the principal heard the ruckus, he’d step out and admonish:

“Get off your knees, boys, and walk like human beings!”

Bobby Bond was just plain mean and he loved to torment the girls. He asked me to see-saw with him once and jumped off with me in mid-air. My brain bounced on its stem and that’s perhaps the reason I’m a bit quirky myself today. He got a whuppin.

Bobby’s favorite thing was to lie under the slide’s ladder to try to look up the girls’ skirts. He got a whuppin.

He cut a lock out of Janith Crowder’s hair and was moved to the front of the room before he got that whuppin.

Next, he brought a tarantula in a canning jar to chase Bonnie Jean all around the schoolyard after she told on him for cheating. She sobbed so loud the teacher had to give her a Myles’ Nervine Tablet. He got a BIG OLE whuppin.

Buddy Styles was another piece of work! At least his dietary habits were; besides arriving at school chewing tobacco, he ate pencil erasers, bitterweed, and spit wads. Vick’s Cough Drops were like candy to him. One day at recess he drank a whole bottle of Vanilla Flavoring he’d brought from home. He said he liked the way it smelled.