Denton Tall Tale #22

Anyone who grew up in Denton during the eighties will remember Weird Harold. He was always walking around downtown Denton and was always at every little league game.

Weird Harold was probably about 70 years old, always wore a baseball cap, was normally pretty jolly, and was very retarded. A lot of kids made fun of him by playing keep away or knocking his hat off. I felt sorry for him more than once.
The best thing about weird Harold, and probably the most memorable, was that he thought he was a cop. He had a plastic badge that he liked to show people. He would stop you on the street for jaywalking or riding your bicycle on the sidewalk, you would yell out, “Fuck you weird Harold!!!”, and he would shake his fist at you. It was a fun game. He also always carried around post it notes and would pretend to write tickets. It was pretty common to come out of the grocery store and see a post-it note, with scribbles all over it, attached to your windshield. “Oh Weird Harold…..He’s struck again”

Weird Harold died about 10 years ago. I like to think a small part of all Dentonians died that day. I’m sure most people were just glad to not have post-it notes on their windshields anymore.