Local Legends Of Your Area

[Mr. DS]

Not referring to ghost legends or superstitions, rather the people in your local community who are famous for doing certain things or nothing at all.  For example, where I live there is this guy who walks everywhere for miles and miles and miles in any weather.  His appearance/manner is very distinct; straggly white bear, bald head, and he always seems to be talking to himself while fidgeting.  Someone actually made a FB page in his honor that I doubt he knows about.   It’s been kind of a challenge on the page to get a picture with him which some actually have. 

Back in my hometown we had an old lady that traveled everywhere in wind/sleet/rain on an old school three wheeled bicycle.  She was a tough old bird and didn’t really seem to care if she was holding up traffic for miles.  Matter of fact she’d often be seen at intersections yelling at cars who wouldn’t let her go. 

[Hammock Rider]

  We have a homeless guy in the area who is a Viet Nam vet. You see him around town at least every few days. He wears his hair down to his waist and it's knotted and snarled. People call him Shaggy Man. A few times the locals have tried to help him out by getting him a place to live and in one case a guy offered him a job but he wasn't interested. He never causes trouble, he just seems to like to roam around and talk to people.

  There's also this  guy who is rumored to be in the Mafia.  On a few occassions I've seen a semi-truck stop in front of his house and the driver drops a pallet of cargo off in the guy's driveway. Once it was a pallet of sneakers. A few days later sneakers of the same brand were for sale in his brother's resale shop. He seems to not only know eveyone but to know about everyone, he never gets hassled by police or inspectors of any kind and no one really knows what he does for a living. His only daughter is prety cute and she was interested in my brother for awhile but he was actually afraid to date her for fear that he might get pulled into the Family.

[Trevor]

In Pretoria, South Africa, there is this guy who brags about never having changed nor cleaned his underpants since he put them on not so long ago.........................ermmm... actually 1980. 

Seriously, in Pretoria Central, there is a tramp who calls himself 'the King of South Africa' ~ he wears filthy flowing robes and has a long beard tied in a knot below his chin. His hair: YIKES ~ I would not want to touch it as it is clogged and sticky with filth but yet if you talk to him, he can speak on any subject you care to name, except personal hygiene, that is. 

[Trevor]

Once it was a pallet of sneakers.

Could you steal me a pair, please HR? US size 9, thanks. 

[Hammock Rider]

Once it was a pallet of sneakers.

Could you steal me a pair, please HR? US size 9, thanks. 

    Sorry Trev, I've seen too many movies to know what happens when you steal from the Mob. However, if you'd like to Marry into the Mob, I'd be happy to introduce you to his daughter. Just do us both a favor and treat her right.

[Flick James]

Not too much to report in Phoenix, Arizona. Everyone stays indoors six months out of the year in their A/C.

However, I'm a baseball fan and support my local Diamondbacks (even though they've sucked for three years now). There is a lady who attends every game known as The Flag Lady. She is sometimes shown on the local game broadcasts, but she's there in the upper decks every game, with an assortment of large flags that she has made herself, dancing and waving them about. She's in her early 60's, and is a dental assistant by day. Here's a article about her:

http://www.phoenixmag.com/lifestyle/200804/from-the-mouth-of----the-d-backs-flag-lady/

[Mr. DS]

We have a homeless guy in the area who is a Viet Nam vet. You see him around town at least every few days. He wears his hair down to his waist and it's knotted and snarled. People call him Shaggy Man. A few times the locals have tried to help him out by getting him a place to live and in one case a guy offered him a job but he wasn't interested. He never causes trouble, he just seems to like to roam around and talk to people.

I think many people think all homeless are belligerent and unintelligent which isn't always true.  I recall my neighbor telling me about this homeless fellow who would wander around the area he worked.  In his workplace they had a potted plant that was dying and no one could figure it out.  This guy happened to be walking by and walked in.  After assuring them not to judge a book by it's cover, the fellow gave them the correct instructions and the plant revived. I guess in a later conversation the guy revealed to him he used to be a high end employee of some firm.  He said he just got sick of the stress one day and decided to live a simpler life.  

[claws]

We had quite a few in our town. Funny enough they all sort of disappeared in the early 90s.

There was a young well dressed guy, known as "The Walker" because he would walk all day and seemingly all night, the streets of our town. He did that for a couple of years and people thought he was nuts. According to legend he had a high IQ and would carry a normal conversation when talked too. He was the only child of divorced parents and lived with his mother in another town until she died. His father remarried and got divorced again and also died. Apparently dad left behind a huge fortune nobody knew excisted, including three houses with one in Spain.
Some say "The Walker" temporarily snapped after the reading of the will and was trying to cope with being rich, thus the reason he walked endlessly through town.
One day he disappeared. This was 20 years ago and nobody knows his whereabouts. He is probably living the high life in Spain for all I know.

-

Some unfortunate woman of easy virtue slightly mentally disabled. She was known as "Boobs-Emma" because of her big assets. Emma was also an alcoholic and had sex with anybody as long as she got some beer. A few friends of mine had sex with her, even in our public park with people standing around watching.
Emma also got pregnant quite often with authorities taking away her kids on a regular basis. You would think they'd suggest her to get 'fixed' but nope.
Other than that she was harmless but not exactly blessed with beauty. Once the 90s came around Emma disappeared though.

-

Some 30-something dude who loved taking pictures of accidents, car crashes and whatever. You could see him riding his bike all day listening to the police radio with a camera hanging around his neck. Occasionally he would show pictures of dead car crash victims and trying to sell them. The guy wasn't very much liked and ironically got hit and killed by a car on his way to another accident.

[Jack]

Back in my hometown we had an old lady that traveled everywhere in wind/sleet/rain on an old school three wheeled bicycle. 

We had an old lady here who rode around on a three wheeled bicycle, piled high with all her possessions.  She was en ex-nun who got kicked out of the convent because she was getting the bishop's empty whiskey bottles out of the dumpster and making a big stink about it or something.  I don't know too many specifics, this all happened when I was in elementary school.  You'd always see her around town with her grievances written on the signs that were displayed all over her three wheeler.  I guess she died a few years ago, there was an article about her in the newspaper.

[Newt]

We have a neighbour who travels around - slowly - on one of those three-wheeler bikes.  Known only by his first name to all. He's handicapped and puts in a phenomenal number of miles per day.  He regularly holds up traffic, but he's a local feature so he gets a lot of tolerance.

When we moved here, the place across the road was known to all as "The Barn People Place" - it is a landmark of sorts and yes: they lived in the barn.  A big, old, full-of-holes and sided with many materials and colours hip-roofed barn.  With holes in the roof.  Nobody seemed to know them: they were just "The Barn People".  Could have made for a good horror movie premise...made me a tad nervous when me first lived here.  I was told by someone who had hired them to do some work that the couple were highly-skilled cabinet-makers who did beautiful kitchen renovations.  So of course one imagines the interior of the barn to be gorgeous...but the outside was (and is) delapitated.  Someone bought the property recently and built a real house on it.  The barn is still there, though.  It's still "The Barn People Place".

We have a local woman who is known as "The Pony Lady" - at her instigation (NO DarkSider, she is not that kind of pony person! She buys and sells ponies.) Even non-horsey people know and refer to her by that name.

There is also "The Mountain Man" - who dresses, talks and acts the part (cammo hunting gear, squint, beard, hat, drawl, chews tobacco - or something, slouches and shuffles and talks about eating squirrel and 'possum...) and has a sort of critter-catching business (a la Billy the Exterminator) among other ventures.

I am sure there are many more I do not know about.

[Paquita]

There’s a guy in our neighborhood that walks dogs.  He walks all over and very loudly sings and talks to himself, his dogs, strangers, anyone, all the time.  I think he may be a little mentally handicapped, or perhaps has some form of a developmental disorder, but I’m not a doctor, so maybe he’s just eccentric. Either way, he’s certainly making himself a local legend having either befriended, embarrassed, or p**sed off everyone in the neighborhood at least once.  He’s shouted random observations like “Nice shoe!” to me, or hailed me like an old buddy while we’re driving past him, and a couple times he just yelled at me, but he’s so loud and enthusiastic and sudden about it that it always startles me.  I don’t know his story or his name, I’m not sure if he gets paid to walk dogs, or if they’re his own, but he almost always has a different dog with him.  He seems pretty harmless, but I’ve heard people shouting back at him fighting a few times.

There used to be a guy in the neighborhood known as the “Coat Guy” because he wore a really big long puffy coat with the hood up all year round, even on the hottest days of summer.  I haven’t seen him in about 8 years, and he just kind of dwindled away.. when I was young we’d see him almost every day and then it was just a few times a month, until it was just a couple times a year and then I never saw him again.  I never really saw his face, but in the few partial shadowy glimpses I got, he looked pretty normal aside from some scraggily facial hair, I would say he was in his 20s or 30s in the 90s, so he couldn’t be that old.  Maybe he moved to Alaska and grew an afro mullet.. I don’t know..


Newt - ! I want to move into your neighborhood! It sounds like the funnest most magical place in the world!

[Flick James]

In the neighborhood in which I grew up, there was a house that was a local legend, not a person. Walking home from school, all of us kids used to have various theories about a house that was surrounded almost entirely by trees and bushes and vines, which was unusual for Southern California. It was such that you couldn't really make out the features or style of the house, it was that concealed. Nobody ever saw any activity inside the house, although it was clear that somebody lived there. So, naturally, being kids, there were fantastic stories about who lived there and what went on, although most of it was probably bulls**t, such is the way with local legends. As I got a little older and more distanced from the wonder that invades a child's mind up to the age of about 12, I heard someone say it was just some old lady who was a bit of a hermit who lived there, as was probably the case, but I always preferred to hold on to the mystery.

Years later, when visiting the old neighborhood, I walked by the mystery house, only to see the landscape had been almost completely stripped and you could see that it was just your standard tract house built in the 60's and completely unremarkable. A part of me died that day.

[Paquita]

Ooh houses!  There’s a house in the neighborhood that isn’t a local legend yet, but I could see it becoming one in the next few years.  Apparently, someone started building a giant castle-like home on a corner overlooking the expressway.  It’s really a very unfortunate project because it seems the person had grand ideas, but didn’t have enough money to complete it about halfway through construction.  I believe a realty company just hastily finished it well enough to try to sell it, so there’s two whole sides of the house without windows, while the other two sides are covered with very nice windows (the sides facing the highway, of course), and beautiful ornate front doors about 10 feet from the ground with no stairs going to them.  My husband also pointed out that there’s a driveway and garage angled out into the street, but it’s a one-way street, so it would be easy to get out, but kind of awkward to drive into.  It’s selling for about $2mil, but I don’t know anyone that would want to pay that much for an unfinished castle, overlooking a dirty highway, with no yard (unless there’s potential for a rooftop garden), no stairs, and an awkward driveway.  It’s probably going to be vacant and overgrown with weeds for years and sprout many rumors of being haunted or cursed among the kids around here.. I think I may even start some of them!

[venomx]

Oh hell yeah! I'm in WEIRD NJ, man.

Sorry, I only have ghost legends and superstitions tho, is that cool Dark?

Places I have visited in NJ.
Gravity Hill, Cry Baby's Bridge and deep in the Pine Barrens (at night) of southern New Jersey. (Jersey Devil)

Some places I want to go...
CREMATORY HILL (I need more info on it though, it's hard to find) and THE DEVIL'S TOWER.

http://www.weirdnj.com/ Click "READ STORIES" for other Legends and haunted places.

http://www.weirdnj.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=66&Itemid=28
THE DEVIL'S TOWER info.

[El Misfit]

Down here, there's this guy who goes around town in a fruit truck that has one of the most awesomest  themes:
I have Pineapple
I have Coconut
I have Apples
etc....