Wonderful weirdos

 Many years ago, when dinosaurs and hippies still walked the earth, I was a student at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky.  Small campus though it was, we had our share of weirdos and whackos.  One of them was Henry Faulkner.  Henry was a local eccentric, said to be an artist, who lived more or less around the corner.  With his pet goat.

Henry was gay, unabashedly so.  Occasionally, he'd come walking by the men's dormitory, trailed by his goat, a few dogs, sometimes a chicken or two.  And he'd sing to us.  Obscenely lyrical, trolling for the beautiful boys to come out and play.  He had a remarkable blues singing voice.

"Won't you come out and f___ me?" he'd sing.  And we'd hang out our windows, laughing and yelling, "Hiya, Henry!  How's your goat?"  

And he'd smile and pat the goat.  I have no idea if he ever got lucky.  I can only recall one guy at the college who ever came out of the closet, and he waited until the final semester of our senior year.

As Tom Lehrer's song puts it "And we passed -- and were forgotten with the rest."  Years later, in 1981, while I was News Editor at a national magazine, I picked up the New York Times, and there was an obituary for Henry Faulkner.

A full half-page obituary in the frigging New York Times!

Turns out he was an artist.  An artist being compared to Gustuv Klimpt!  And he had been friends with --and perhaps lover of-- playwright Tennessee Williams!

His art, which I'd never thought to try to see when he lived around the goddamn corner was fascinating.  Such as "The Politician," below.

And this one's my favorite, for obvious reasons:

Years later, I found out that another of our neighbors was Dr. Cornelia Wilbur.  And her patient/roommate:

Sybil Dorsett.

Tell us about the weirdos in your past!

AlextheKay used to think his life was normal.