Tom_in_CA
Gold Member
- Mar 23, 2007
- 13,804
- 10,336
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- Detector(s) used
- Explorer II, Compass 77b, Tesoro shadow X2
I put this story on T'net long ago, but it bears repeating:
There is a certain md'ing forum specific to just my state. And a lot of the participants in a certain part of our state, would make sport of going to a certain large city, which has oodles of old turfed parks, to detect.
One day, a new person came on the forum and introduced himself. He was from this particular large city. After the usual "welcomes" to the new person, he posted something interesting: He posted to the effect how how he was happy he had permission, and had gotten the "ok", from this particular city's parks dept. So he was ready and rearing to get out and join the others who hunt this particular city.\
Now while I am not an advocate of asking (in places where there is no specific rule that forbids it), yet I noticed that in this particular person's place, he had received an express "yes" . This was good because, as it turns out, sometimes some of us would receive flack over the years. But it was random and rare. And you could usually just use a little common sense, avoid busy-bodies, don't parade yourself in front of landscapers, etc... So to all of ours knowledge, there was no prohibitions. Yet of course, you *could* run afoul of someone who tries to claim you're violating some ancillary verbage (the old "disturbing" or "digging" type verbage). But other than a few rumored run-ins, the city was, and is, considered fair game in the parks.
Anyhow, now we had this new fellow telling how he'd received his permission. So we asked him to give us the name and title of this person, because this might come in handy, if ever needing to deflect busy-body city people. (I mean, you can't argue with a yes afterall straight from headquarters! woohoo!). But when we posed this question to the new fellow, it turns out that he had not gotten the persons name at the park's dept. front desk, that he'd spoken to. But he assured us that it was not a problem to get. Because he commutes by this area of the city each week, and would simply stop back in, to get that persons name. And then he would post it for the rest of us to "carry in our wallets" as well
About 10 days later, the newbie came on with a new post. He had stopped by the same office and gone in. But this time, a different person was manning the desk. So he asked the attendant on duty, what the name of the fellow who fits a certain description, and manned this desk the previous week on such & such day. However, the current person on duty, .... try-as-he-may .... couldn't figure out which personell it was. Because it's a large city, with multiple staffers, and multiple persons who might be manning the desk, on any given day. But eventually, the current person on duty simply asked the md'r: "What is it that you wanted to know?"
So the md'r figures he'll simply re-ask the same question, to this new person, and get THEIR NAME, to accomplish the same ends. After stating his question, the current desk person says: "sure, you can detect! You just can't dig". Hmm, an answer with an entirely different twist. An issue that was left un-addressed (and better left that way) by the first person he'd talked to.
So the md'r reports his new-found information. Which, of course, as you can well imagine, simply spells the death-knell for md'ing (unless you intend to only hunt for targets on top of the ground).
So this story just goes to show, that you can often time get totally different answers, depending on the person's mental images of your question, their mood, the way you phrase the question, etc... Thus better to just look things up yourself. If there's nothing specifically saying "no detecting", then presto, it's not prohibited.
Oh, and by the way, that was 8+ yrs. ago. And to this day, you can still go to this city and hunt any of the parks. Oh sure, you need to have the presence of mind (as with ANYWHERE), to not be in the middle of deep retrievals when busy-bodies are around.
There is a certain md'ing forum specific to just my state. And a lot of the participants in a certain part of our state, would make sport of going to a certain large city, which has oodles of old turfed parks, to detect.
One day, a new person came on the forum and introduced himself. He was from this particular large city. After the usual "welcomes" to the new person, he posted something interesting: He posted to the effect how how he was happy he had permission, and had gotten the "ok", from this particular city's parks dept. So he was ready and rearing to get out and join the others who hunt this particular city.\
Now while I am not an advocate of asking (in places where there is no specific rule that forbids it), yet I noticed that in this particular person's place, he had received an express "yes" . This was good because, as it turns out, sometimes some of us would receive flack over the years. But it was random and rare. And you could usually just use a little common sense, avoid busy-bodies, don't parade yourself in front of landscapers, etc... So to all of ours knowledge, there was no prohibitions. Yet of course, you *could* run afoul of someone who tries to claim you're violating some ancillary verbage (the old "disturbing" or "digging" type verbage). But other than a few rumored run-ins, the city was, and is, considered fair game in the parks.
Anyhow, now we had this new fellow telling how he'd received his permission. So we asked him to give us the name and title of this person, because this might come in handy, if ever needing to deflect busy-body city people. (I mean, you can't argue with a yes afterall straight from headquarters! woohoo!). But when we posed this question to the new fellow, it turns out that he had not gotten the persons name at the park's dept. front desk, that he'd spoken to. But he assured us that it was not a problem to get. Because he commutes by this area of the city each week, and would simply stop back in, to get that persons name. And then he would post it for the rest of us to "carry in our wallets" as well
About 10 days later, the newbie came on with a new post. He had stopped by the same office and gone in. But this time, a different person was manning the desk. So he asked the attendant on duty, what the name of the fellow who fits a certain description, and manned this desk the previous week on such & such day. However, the current person on duty, .... try-as-he-may .... couldn't figure out which personell it was. Because it's a large city, with multiple staffers, and multiple persons who might be manning the desk, on any given day. But eventually, the current person on duty simply asked the md'r: "What is it that you wanted to know?"
So the md'r figures he'll simply re-ask the same question, to this new person, and get THEIR NAME, to accomplish the same ends. After stating his question, the current desk person says: "sure, you can detect! You just can't dig". Hmm, an answer with an entirely different twist. An issue that was left un-addressed (and better left that way) by the first person he'd talked to.
So the md'r reports his new-found information. Which, of course, as you can well imagine, simply spells the death-knell for md'ing (unless you intend to only hunt for targets on top of the ground).
So this story just goes to show, that you can often time get totally different answers, depending on the person's mental images of your question, their mood, the way you phrase the question, etc... Thus better to just look things up yourself. If there's nothing specifically saying "no detecting", then presto, it's not prohibited.
Oh, and by the way, that was 8+ yrs. ago. And to this day, you can still go to this city and hunt any of the parks. Oh sure, you need to have the presence of mind (as with ANYWHERE), to not be in the middle of deep retrievals when busy-bodies are around.
