STRANGER THAN FICTION: TOWN NUTS CAN MADE KFOR GREAT ENTERTAINMENT

Editor's note: Columnist Heidi Nieland is taking a monthlong writing sabbatical. During her break, the Southeast Missourian is publishing favorite past columns. This column originally ran Feb. 18, 1995.

I've lived in cities as big as Philadelphia and as small as Piedmont, and discovered that they all have something in common: town eccentrics made legendary by neighborhood gossip.

At this point, mental health professionals' jaws are dropping to the floor due to my insensitivity. But everyone has to admit that these people exist, and for whatever reason, they want to keep on doing what they're doing.

In Woodlyn, a suburb of Philadelphia, our eccentric was the man in Apartment 2B. He was weird when my mother was a kid, and he was weird when I was a 9-year-old selling scented candles for a school trip.

Mom warned me to stay out of that apartment. She told me Mr. What's His Face -- I forget the exact name now -- would invite me inside to talk, but DON'T GO IN. Just offer him the lousy candles and take his order.

My fear of knocking on the door of Apartment 2B was only outweighed by a desire to be the Top Seller in Class and win a cheap T-shirt. So I knocked.

The alleged lunatic came to the door in a wheelchair, minus his legs. Today, as an open-minded adult, that would be just fine. Back then, I could only stare open-mouthed.

"Whatcha selling?" he barked with Philadelphian tact.

"C-c-c-candles," I said.

"Well, come in," he said.

I went in.

You might remember how my mother said DON'T GO INTO Mr. What's His Name's apartment. Mother was always right.

There was little furniture in the apartment, leaving its resident plenty of room to roll around wildly while telling me stories about how he lost his legs. Every time I got up to leave, he rolled against the door.

Finally, I bolted. The guy didn't even order a candle.

In Piedmont, the legendary eccentric was Scooter, so named for his habit of riding a bicycle without ever touching the pedals. He just used his feet, Fred Flintstone-like.

Scooter made his living mowing lawns with the mower he dragged along behind his bicycle. That is, until he disappeared without a trace.

My neighbor-lady said it was because of her niece. Apparently some area teens convinced Scooter the niece really liked him, so he just ambled into her mobile home unannounced and wearing a shirt. And nothing else.

Ends up she didn't really like him and called the police, resulting in Scooter's all-expense-paid trip to a mental hospital somewhere.

At least that's what the neighbor-lady said.

Now, reading an article that ran in Thursday's Southeast Missourian, I see Poplar Bluff has its town eccentrics, too.

Apparently April Lynn and Louis Orville Bostic, a husband-and-wife team, liked to make whoopie in front of their unobstructed windows.

Did I mention they lived across from a church? And traffic was backed up in the neighborhood due to the number of people aware of the Fabulous Bostics? And teen-agers were invited into the home for private shows?

That takes the eccentric cake. Apparently Mrs. Bostic REALLY enjoyed performing because she even did solo acts, if you don't count the "common household objects," a police investigator noted.

Hmmm. Can opener? Cuisinart? Microwave? There's no telling.

So the Bostics, who were booked on a total of 28 counts of indecent exposure, win the 1995 Town Eccentric Award. Congratulations!

I know there have to be a few living legends here in Cape Girardeau, too, but I'm new in town.

They're probably the ones who send me hate mail.

~Heidi Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff member who lives in Pensacola, Fla.