One Of Our Town Crazies Just Died

rastahomie

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Mar 5, 2010
When you live in a small town, everybody knows everybody. And when you're crazy, you can't really keep that mess to yourself, and you become known as a town crazy.

Our town just lost one of ours. Joseph Bickell, who legally changed his name to - and I swear I'm not making this up - Chief Wana Dubie, died of stomach cancer yesterday.

I met the Chief a year or so ago. At the time, he was running for Missouri's US Senate seat against, and again, I swear I'm not making this up, Roy Blunt. I even wrote an article about it: "Dubie vs. Blunt: The Missouri U.S. Senate Race Has Gone To Pot." I'm still waiting on that phone call from the Pulitzer Committee. You can guess what Dubie's platform was.

Missouri has a few state treasures, and we lost one yesterday.

EDITED TO ADD: Technically, Mr. Dubie was the town crazy in a town 25 miles from me. But he was well-known and well-loved all over this part of the Show-Me State, so from where I sit, my town lost one of its crazies.
 
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Small town crazies are pretty interesting as long as they're not dangerous to anyone. Stomach cancer has to be one of the worst ways to go, hopefully the Chief had plenty of herbal relief available to him in his final days. Sometimes you can discover some secrets about guys like the Chief when they pass, but if he ran for senate there was probably quite a bit of info out there already. Do you think there could be a story there???
 
Small town crazies are pretty interesting as long as they're not dangerous to anyone. Stomach cancer has to be one of the worst ways to go, hopefully the Chief had plenty of herbal relief available to him in his final days. Sometimes you can discover some secrets about guys like the Chief when they pass, but if he ran for senate there was probably quite a bit of info out there already. Do you think there could be a story there???

Not that would get any interest on the publication I write for.

Besides that, the Chief was an open book. When I interviewed him, he told me everything, warts and all.

http://www.inquisitr.com/2356164/dubie-vs-blunt-missouris-u-s-senate-race-has-gone-to-pot/
 
When I was growing up, we lived in a suburb that had been kind of rural but was being developed pretty quickly. In fact, we lived in a farmhouse that had been moved from its original location to make way for a strip mall. Anyway, around the corner from us was one of the original settlers of the area, Uncle Herbie. He was a funny old man who still had a little mini farm and kept chickens.

One night we were awakened but big booms and then lots of flashing lights and Police Officers everywhere. Apparently, Uncle Herbie found raccoons in his coop and took after them with a shotgun. The police had to patiently explain to him that randomly shooting at things with a shotgun in a suburb filled with houses was not a smart idea!

I believe the police confiscated his shotgun and he died a couple of years later but his legend lives on with anyone who grew up in our neighborhood!
 




We have a few town crazies! The most recent ones antics had him put away somewhere for mental help. The house he lived in was falling apart, he and his one legged mother used to sleep in the car in the driveway with the dog- well mom died and he couldn't bear to part with her so she was in a big Rubbermaid type container in the house- he told police he would kiss her goodnight every night. Eventually the neighbors were like "hey we haven't seen the old lady around" and called the police for a wellness check- well they found her in there. Now the house is boarded up and waiting to be torn down. The roof was so bad at one point the neighbor who is a roofer bought all the shingles and plywood and just went there and reroofed the house. The son smelled SO bad that when he was in the supermarket no one would be on line behind him because they couldn't take the smell. The town sent over people to try to help them but the son kept refusing- you can't MAKE someone accept help so they had to leave them be.
 
When you live in a small town, everybody knows everybody. And when you're crazy, you can't really keep that mess to yourself, and you become known as a town crazy.

Our town just lost one of ours. Joseph Bickell, who legally changed his name to - and I swear I'm not making this up - Chief Wana Dubie, died of stomach cancer yesterday.

I met the Chief a year or so ago. At the time, he was running for Missouri's US Senate seat against, and again, I swear I'm not making this up, Roy Blunt. I even wrote an article about it: "Dubie vs. Blunt: The Missouri U.S. Senate Race Has Gone To Pot." I'm still waiting on that phone call from the Pulitzer Committee. You can guess what Dubie's platform was.

Missouri has a few state treasures, and we lost one yesterday.

EDITED TO ADD: Technically, Mr. Dubie was the town crazy in a town 25 miles from me. But he was well-known and well-loved all over this part of the Show-Me State, so from where I sit, my town lost one of its crazies.
just outed yourself lol! I'm from this area too and I remember that article! As soon as I saw the thread title I was coming here to post about this guy :flower1:
Gonna miss seeing his name on the ballot- think he might have had a chance next election cycle:rolleyes1
 
The town sent over people to try to help them but the son kept refusing- you can't MAKE someone accept help so they had to leave them be.

Years ago I worked at a Catholic nursing home. One of my clients was this 65-ish year-old man named "Don."

Don had lived with his mother in a crumbling house in Nowhere, Illinois. Being developmentally disabled (but only just), he depended on her for his care. When she died, he couldn't take care of himself. He lived in squalor, got by on spending his Social Security check on biscuits & gravy at Hardees. And when his SS check ran out, he'd steal candy from the gas station. The sheriff would chew him out, get him a bag of groceries from the Baptist church, lather rinse repeat.

Well, a neighbor, who had been a friend of the mom's, was not going to tolerate that. She convinced some good ole boy Christian County judge to name her as his guardian, and first thing she did was stick him in a Catholic nursing home. It didn't go well. He beat the hell out of other residents. He called black workers the n-word. He threw his food across the room when it wasn't biscuits & gravy.

I went round & round with the nursing home's management over this. Don did not deserve to be locked up in a Catholic nursing home, and his guardian had no right to tell him how to live. The guy was 65, for Pete's sake. If he wanted to get fat on biscuits & gravy and live in squalor, it was his right to do so. Morally and legally. I raised hell about it time and time again until the manager finally realized that keeping him there was a mistake. Last I heard, he was in a less-restrictive group home, but still not on his own. He's probably died by now.
 
Sorry to hear of your loss!

Our street eccentric passed a few years ago. She was a nice lady in general, but could say & yell out some of the strangest things at times. Our street interpreter of what the wholly worms, squirrels, & cotton trees had to say has gone to the big blue nature preserve in the sky.
 
When you live in a small town, everybody knows everybody. And when you're crazy, you can't really keep that mess to yourself, and you become known as a town crazy.

Our town just lost one of ours. Joseph Bickell, who legally changed his name to - and I swear I'm not making this up - Chief Wana Dubie, died of stomach cancer yesterday.

I met the Chief a year or so ago. At the time, he was running for Missouri's US Senate seat against, and again, I swear I'm not making this up, Roy Blunt. I even wrote an article about it: "Dubie vs. Blunt: The Missouri U.S. Senate Race Has Gone To Pot." I'm still waiting on that phone call from the Pulitzer Committee. You can guess what Dubie's platform was.

Missouri has a few state treasures, and we lost one yesterday.

EDITED TO ADD: Technically, Mr. Dubie was the town crazy in a town 25 miles from me. But he was well-known and well-loved all over this part of the Show-Me State, so from where I sit, my town lost one of its crazies.

OMG, I remember him. I remember going over the ballot for our area and for the people that I don't know I usually google them to see what they are all about. I could not believe that was on the ballot for Missouri. lmao!
 

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