The Barnyard

We use to have a guy who's name (if I remember correctly) was Charlie. He was probably about 5' 3" at best and probably weighed a buck 10 soaking wet. I have no earthly idea where Charlie lived. Every time I saw him he was walking around town with his little trash can on wheels. He collected all sorts of stuff. He wore whatever he could find and usually had newspapers tucked into his shoes and shirt. Charlie did little odd jobs for whomever wanted to pay him. He took whatever you offered as pay, and he thanked you like it was a million dollars. Charlie ate hot dogs and burgers from one of three little places around town and I remember a spot that I used to see him quick often. I'm assuming he slept somewhere nearby. He had no transportation, not even a bicycle. I saw him open his wallet one day at the hot dog stand and it was filled with a lot of torn up pieces of newspaper. I don't know what the significance was with each one.
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When Charlie died, I remember people talking about how, or who, was gonna pay to bury him, until someone from the bank came forward with the balance of Charlie's savings account. It turned out that Charlie had a real life and family at one point and had not always been who he was when he died. Charlie's bank balance of nearly $70,000 paid for his funeral. YEP. He had a savings account that he had continuously been depositing into for nearly three decades. The bank confirmed that he had not withdrawn money of any amount for more than 20 years. If you ever drive through Darlington, there is a mural painted on the side of a old department store depicting the Town Square in the early 70's.. Charlie is in the painting because he was such a identifiable figure in town for so long.

When I was at USC - and before that and after - there was this bearded fellow that always wore a dirty London Fog coat (think of flasher stereotype). He not only never asked for money, he would not take money or food - and he wouldn't talk. The urban legend was he had been a professor at USC and something happened, but he had all kinds of money. Can't remember what we called him, but I'm sure someone out there does.

In Marion, SC we've got a bunch of guys just wandering around, but three that I know names of are:

Socks - You can imagine. He never wears matching socks and they're always knee-high and really odd colors and designs
Pee Wee - Small guy who is slightly mentally challenged. He just walks into the place I used to work, a tire shop, back in high school and just cleans up the place and then we'd give him 5 dollars.
Earl - An old guy who has a really weird voice. When he was young he got hit in the head by and ax, don't know if on purpose or accident, and it shows.

One of the other guys walks superfast down the road with his hands straight down his side. They don't sway with his stride like most, but when a car drives by he THROWS that right arm up straight above his head in a wave. It is freaking hilarious. He's this old, tall, skinny white dude with grey hair, a trucker hat, and a Magnum P.I. mustache.

In Clover we had Chicken Brown. He was the town drunk and was always drinking Mad Dog 20/20. We would see him around town and pick him up to buy us beer. We would take him to the store and give him $20. We would say, "Get us a case of Budweiser and get something for yourself." He would always come back with the Bud and a Mad Dog. It was orange jubilee most of the time.

He would also hitch hike to the high school (which was 3 miles out of town) to come watch basketball games. We would always yell at him when he walked in the gym to come up and sit with us. He smelled like piss and was always drunk but he was a freakin hoot. When the cops would leave the gym to walk out around the bathrooms and concession stands we would give him quarters to stand up and crow like a chicken. As soon as the play on the court stopped he would stand up and crow, "COCK A DOODLE DOO!!!!!!!! COCK A DOODLE DOO!!! as loud as he could. One time he was even drunker than usual and we payed him $5 or so to go out on the court with the cheerleaders during halftime to dance. He got out next to them and started breaking it down and even the cheerleaders were laughing. The cops giggled for a few seconds and then went and got him.

But way back when, Chicken was a huge basketball star. Due to grades, he ended up at Allen University in Columbia. He didn't last long at Allen because at some point along the way he ended up hooked on codeine cough syrup. The cough syrup basically turned him into the homeless town drunk I knew.

Around town, everyone knew him and knew he wouldn't hurt a flea. I knew a guy that ran a roadside vegetable market in the summers and he said he would come in 2 or 3 days a week and Chicken would be asleep inside his shed. The weird thing was , when you would see him around town in the mornings when he was sober he was just a normal guy.

One day Chicken's sister woke up and found him dead in her front yard. He was basically homeless but he went by his sister's house a couple of times a week to sleep or get something to eat. The shocking thing was, half of the town pitched in to pay for his funeral. I didn't live in Clover past high school and I didn't know that for the past 30 years he was basically a day laborer around town and had helped build or renovate half of the things in Clover.

Apparently, when some big construction project would start in Clover Chicken would just show up and ask to work. They would just pay him as some sort of day laborer and he would do a lot of grunt work like cleaning up or hauling materials. When he died they were finishing up an old building they were making into the Clover YMCA and they put a bronze plaque inside with his name on it dedicating it to him and all of his hard work around town helping Clover become a better place. And I just thought he was the town drunk!

in bennettsville we had walkin john and at carolina we had barefoot hairy!!!!!!!!!!!

Freddie Fleebag in Spartanburg. Always wore headphones and played a 3 string guitar on an 85 bridge overpass.

One of the best posts I've read in awhile - it's nearly a Gomer Pyle "citizen's arrest" moment.

Thanks for the memories. Those were a couple of my favorite shows.

Everyone should be require to know CPR.

You guys are right. I feel empty inside without all your insightful, riveting and poignant political discussions.

You guys act like we had political correspondents from fox news, CNN and the BBC in here dropping nuggets. When in reality, it was members being to each other.

I highly doubt not having those 20 posts per day are going to sink this board.

My favorite new trend on the barnyard is folks coming over to say the board sucks and leave, without doing anything to improve it.

Further more, if you don't like the way this board is moderated, take it up with whittle.

Thanks, Jack.