If you've lived on or near Milwaukee's East Side for any amount of time, there are a few colorful kooks that are always walking (or shuffling or staggering or rolling) around. Sure, we all know "pepperoni, cannoli!" Frank Pecoraro, but here are a few seemingly ubiquitous folks who are a bit more obscure.

My all-time favorite Milwaukee enigma is Jim. Jim is an older gent with a slender build and silver hair who has looked the same since the early '90s -- at least from the curb. However, it's not Jim's astonishing anti-aging abilities that make him a city classic, rather it's the fact he rides a bike from Bayshore Mall to The Shops of Grand Avenue many days of the year. (I usually see him on Hampton or Oakland) I have chatted with Jim a few times, and he always tells the same story: that he likes to ride from mall to mall. Although his story is always the same, his bike has changed a few times in the past 20 years or so. I am not sure where or how he gets these rides, but he always has a bell fastened to the handlebars. Every time I see Jim, even if I'm in the car and have to roll down the window, I yell, "Hey, Jim!" and he always dings his bell and smiles.

Ray is another local gem who I remember from UWM, where he would vigilantly collect newspapers. I managed the 8th Note Coffehouse, and he would sweep through the place a few times a day to collect discarded papers. I think he ran for public office a few times, too.

Another UWM dweller is that creepy guy known as "the wheelchair pervert." Who knows if the rumors about him being a peeper in the campus ladies' rooms are true or not, but I know firsthand that he is somewhat of a stalker. He always addresses me by my first and last name, and brings up random stuff about my life -- like when and where I graduated from high school. Once, he referenced a poem I wrote, which I know he probably saw online, but it's unsettling to think he might have actually googled me.

Sadly, there are a couple of other likable nuts who I used to see regularly, but have disappeared. Although he could get loud and scary, Pierre -- the Army jacket-wearing drunken dude who hung out on Brady Street and always called you "brother" whether you were male or female -- was one of a kind.

Also, I was quite fond of this woman who carried a small white dog and wore a white wooden crucifix around her neck. I once saw her sitting on a curb on the corner of Pleasant and Humboldt swallowing a huge pile of string.

I love this town.