One of the first things you notice when you come to Vashon Island — especially if you’re tailing behind some native in the traffic crawling up the long hill from the ferry — is the car decal that warns: “Keep Vashon weird.”

Just four syllables long, this terse admonishment is a masterpiece of both concision…and confusion. Let me explain: The subject of the sentence is “Vashon.” No problem there. The word “weird” is an adjective which purports to describe or characterize Vashon. And the verb “keep” calls us to action against an apparent but unspecified threat.

It’s only taken me two years to realize this whole notion is arguable — which is good, since it gives me something new to argue with Bad Michael about in the morning at the Burton Coffee Stand (not that there ever seems to be a shortage of subjects).

For example: Who says Vashon is weird in the first place? What’s that even mean? My Webster’s Unabridged offers two choices. Halloween notwithstanding, I think we can skip the first definition (“suggestive of ghosts, evil spirits, or other supernatural things”) and go with number two: “queer; unusual; startlingly odd.”

Bad Michael is certainly “startlingly odd,” but I doubt that he alone could tip the scales of Vashon’s alleged weirdness. I’ve heard rumors that Vashon was seriously weird back in the mid-’70s, but I suspect that was largely a perceptual, rather than literal, characterization fostered in large part by the ingestion or inhalation of certain non-indigenous plant products I gather were common here then.

So where’s the evidence that today’s Vashon is weird?

I mean, let’s face it: There must be hundreds of places in America where red bicycles grow out of trees. Of course there are.

OK, I’ll grant that on a per capita basis there are probably way more aging VW buses and Beetles on this Island than even in Germany. That’s weird.

I’ll throw in the pretty odd fact that we have a lovely beach above which sit a half dozen or so brightly painted exercycles: “Peddle Beach.” That’s weird, too.

And it’s weird to me that we have a charming annual Strawberry Festival where no local strawberries are served because the berry farms died decades ago. That’s like the former Soviet Union having a festive annual Czar-Day Parade.

Come to think of it, I think it is seriously weird that everyone who works at the Thriftway smiles. Constantly. Have you noticed? It’s eerie and unnatural, if you ask me. Maybe even supernatural. You go anywhere else in this great country of ours and supermarket employees snarl at you, if they acknowledge you at all. But not at our Thriftway. Oh no: It’s full-on, radiant eye contact and “Hey, how’d that lobotomy go last week? Will that be all today?” Big smile.

And I personally think it’s really, truly weird that there is a small patch of this Island, only a few hundred acres, that’s for sale for something like $125 million smackers. In America these days, what with bank bailouts and Ponzi schemers, it’s easy to lose track of how much real, live, green money this is. But here’s a hint: $125 million is more than the entire GDP of at least six nations of the world. Okay, they’re small nations, but still: they’re whole countries, with citizens and industry and shops and taxis and criminals and even legislatures (not that I’m suggesting a connection between the last two). What’s more, for half that amount, you can buy an entire island in the Caribbean, complete with resort, golf course, casino and staff. For a quarter, you could be Clint Eastwood’s neighbor, in Carmel, Calif., (hint: really nice weather) on a ranch 10 times as big, with a fabulous mansion and guest houses and actual cattle, which is more than we can say for Misty Isle Farm, where cow pies are a distant memory.

Let’s go back to that bumper sticker: “Keep Vashon Weird.” The second arguable notion about it stems from that pesky, hortatory verb, “Keep.” Let’s say we suspend disbelief and accept, tentatively, that it is actually, genuinely weird here. Who says this alleged weirdness is in peril, like some endangered species, and needs our vigilant protection? Are there forces of normalcy massing ominously on the distant shore? Or is it quite the opposite?

I’m reminded of the castles in Wales (stay with me here). This tiny mountainous hunk of the United Kingdom is ringed with medieval castles built by the English not to protect the Welsh from foreign invaders, but to keep the poor rebellious devils penned in. Maybe that’s what those silly Coast Guard Zodiacs racing along next to the ferries with their machine guns like eagles’ beaks are all about: They’re not there to protect us, but to keep too many of us from escaping and weirding out the mainland.

But who cares? Most of us hate going there anyway…

And let’s face it, that’s what’s weird: the mainland. It’s scary over there.

— Will North is a Vashon novelist. His next novel, which is weird, is set on the Island.