Carson City, Nevada, isn’t as tiny as our compatriots in southern Nevada (Read: Vegas) like to make us out to be. It’s a decent-sized town, although naturally not as metropolitan as Vegas itself, nor even Reno. We’ve got two super Wal-Marts, several McDonalds, and more Starbucks’ than any town really ever needs. Fuck you, Starbucks.
There is, however, one thing that really marks us down as a remnant of the Old West: Our love of quirkiness. We love weird shit. It’s just how we roll. We’re independent by nature, and when one is out on their own being independent for too long, one develops a strange sense of humor (I am a prime example).
When I say weird shit, I don’t mean that one family on the block that thinks a wrought iron statue of Santa Claus is a fine decoration year-round. I mean, we love weird people. The weirder and quirkier, the better. We feature them in our newspaper.
Take, for instance, the Dancing Black Guy.
We first noticed him before he got his bike. He used to just walk around town dancing to whatever music was playing on his CD player. He’d smile, dance, sing, and wave at people. Basically, he was just having a blast. And of course, he was black.
My family called him the Dancing Black Guy because if you said those three words, everyone in Carson City knew immediately who you were talking about.
A few years back, the Dancing Black Guy got himself an adult tricycle. Holy shit. That news made the rounds like you would not believe: I actually got a call from my sister who, very excited, told me, “Dude, the Dancing Black Guy got a trike!”
The Dancing Black Guy was kind of Carson City’s unofficial mascot. He was a cheerful, friendly type of guy, and strangely, he wanted no publicity. He was content to just walk around being awesome. He refused several chances to be interviewed by our newspaper.
Sadly, the Dancing Black Guy moved to the Bay Area and got himself shot in a KFC in Oakland. His name, it turns out, was Darnell Foster. He was finally featured in the newspaper when he died. There’s even a Facebook group dedicated to his awesome. That’s how Carson City rolls.
Next, lets discuss Willow Bill. When I say Willow Bill, I mean, that’s what the fucking guy goes by. He makes things. Out of willow. All the mother fucking time.
Carson City loves Willow Bill. He’s weird in a non-creepy, “Not a child molester” sort of way. He’s goofy. He makes things that are tacky as all hell and yet somehow artistic. Willow bill has been featured in the newspaper more than I could ever hope to look for: Seriously, go to that website and search “Willow bill.” Like four hundred articles come up. He’s a local fucking hero, and all he does is make weird shit out of willow withes.
The motherfucker teaches classes on how to make shit out of willow, and people go to them and study seriously and the only jokes I ever heard made at his expense were from out-of-towners. Willow Bill is serious fucking business in Carson City.
And now I’ll make a piss-poor segue to Glenn Lucky. Glenn is technically a Douglas County resident and not a Carson City resident, but we view it as a sort of shared custody situation, because he’s up here all the damn time and we fucking love him.
Glenn Lucky was not very lucky. He was born with Cerebral Palsy. That’s pretty un-fucking-lucky. But he’s just about the most tenacious motherfucker on the planet. The dude rides around on an adult trike (Carson City has a thing for trikes) with advertisements strapped to the back. It’s good exercise for his palsy, and the adverts are part of how he pays his bills. He is a local hero. Everyone loves Glenn Lucky. If they don’t know his name, they say “That guy on the adult trike with the fucked up legs and arms.” Everyone instantly knows exactly who you are talking about, and if they are unaware of Mr. Lucky’s advertisements being his means of living, they will wonder aloud until a less-recent transplant informs them of it. I’m not sure how everyone came to know about the adverts and the role they play in his life – to my knowledge that information has never been in the paper – but everyone does.
Carson City loves Glenn Lucky so much they bought him a new bike. Not a joke. Carson City (and a few other counties helped, but fuck them because Carson City loves him more than those other counties) bought the motherfucker a new adult trike because his old one was falling to shit and we love him that goddamn much.
Carson City is my hometown. As you can see, I am used to quirkiness and outright oddity. I do not bat an eye when it comes to weirdos walking my streets. I see people talking to themselves. Hell, up in Reno the other day I saw a busker – playing a bagpipe, not a guitar. It was amazing, but it didn’t phase me.
(Someone must remember to remind me – I got video of the bagpipe busker. I just switched to a new computer, so once I get some decent video editing software up on this bad boy, I’ll plop that up on youtube and post it here.)
So when I make posts about the woman standing in her lawn chopping it up with a pickaxe, you’re hearing about the weirdest of the town that loves weirdos. The things that seem normal at first but then you do a double-take and realize it’s the weirdest fucking thing you’ve seen all week, and in Carson City, that’s fucking something.
The whole point of this was to discuss something that happened to me this evening.
Today was a good day. My mom and dad drove myself and my dog, Ziva, up to Janesville, California, to pick up my husband, who has been out of town the last week on a job up in Oregon. Kenny was back and I was fairly happy, and he came back with damn near twelve hundred dollars for five days work, which meant I could get a new computer because my old one was about to die. The rest of the money, sadly enough, has to go toward bills, not anything fun.
We were, in fact, on our way to pick up said computer from Wal-Mart (I’m too broke to buy it anywhere else), when I saw something that made me double-take so badly that I nearly crashed our car.
There was a gentleman, maybe a few years older than me (for the record, I’m 25). He was walking along the southern end of Saliman Road, right near where it intersects with Colorado Street (trust me, it was in the last mile and a half of the southern portion of that road). This is a fairly busy street, as a lot of residential streets come off of it at this point.
This gentleman looked normal. As far as I could tell, there was no mental handicap going on there (granted, I’m no mental handicap expert, but as far as I can tell, he did not have Downs syndrome, nor any of the related syndromes that cause brain issues and facial distortions). He was not a child, as I have stated before.
He had a cape on. That alone wasn’t enough to make me double-take, because I’ve walked down the street with a cape on while drunk at four in the afternoon. These things happen, and I of all people understand that.
No, what made me double-take was that he was also wearing a Batman mask/cowl. It covered the whole top of his head, just like the real deal in the first of the Batman movies. It looked pretty sturdy. Before I actually registered what it was, I wondered what it was made of, and if he had made it himself, because it looked pretty nice.
Then I realized that I had just passed a dude in a half-assed Batman costume (The mask/cowl thing was very nice, but the rest of his costume was lame. Except for the cape, because capes are awesome in any situation, except maybe funerals). A half-assed Batman costume…in the middle of July. For absolutely no discernible reason.
I stopped, looked again, then turned to Kenny.
“Did I just -” I began.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Was that a Batman-”
“Yes, it was.”
I paused and reflected on how much I love my husband.
“I am so glad you’re here. Last week I saw a woman hacking at her lawn with a pickaxe and no one was here to make sure I wasn’t going crazy.”
