Buellride's school experience (except for the being booted by security part) reminded me of one of the formative experiences in my md'ing, that cemented my callouses. To the issues involving demolition sites . So here's the true story:
One of several deal-breaker callous-causing experiences for me is an occurrence in the very early 1990s:
The local news paper ran a blurb about how the oldest high school in our city (blt. 1919) was slated to undergo renovations. The article mentioned how a part of the plans called for the inner court grassy quad to get an all-new layout.
As I read the article, dollar signs popped into my head. I knew this inner court grass quad. area was spongy thick crab-grass . Thus had never had any md'ing pressure. And for 70+ yrs: hundreds of kids a day sat to eat their lunches. Hence obviously, if tractors scraped off 6 or 8" off, it would be "Christmas come early", eh ?
At our next club meeting ......... sure enough ...... someone else brought in the article. Several others had seen the same article. So the focus of the club meeting , among the 25-or-so attendees , was that this could be a good hunt spot. But then ......... sure as heck, someone
else is sure to bring up the logical question: "How are we going to get in?" (seeing as how it would probably have obligatory fences).
So the club strategized that we would send a nice letter to the School district offices. Asking for group permission. We put it on nice club letterhead. And detailed how our club has liability insurance, helps the police dept. , will donate any item of historical interest, etc....
Then we sat back and waited for the reply. This was in the era before email. So as club secretary at the time, I would check our club's P.O. Box prior to the next month's meeting. By the time of the next meeting : No reply.
But not to worry, since the project hadn't even broken ground yet. By the time of the NEXT meeting, STILL no answer.
So I volunteered to go personally to the district offices. To track down the person to whom our request had gone, and seek to get the ball rolling.
I went there the next day, and was shunted desk to desk. Till eventually, I found myself standing at the desk of the district person to whom our request letter had landed on. He recalled the letter. And said that it was "pending review @ the board of directors" or "their legal counsel" or some such answer like that. I thanked him, peppered him with more assurances of our liability insurance, good-will for the community, would go at a time as-not-to-interfere (like a Saturday when they're not working), blah blah. And told him we anxiously await their decision.
By the time of the next meeting, STILL no answer.
I'm starting to get a bad feeling about all this. Because the demolition wrecking ball had now arrived. The job has started ! The ground turf scrape portion might not be too far away. I let the club know that the school district is pending/considering our request. And .... it's just a matter of waiting for the answer. Then I left a reminder voice-mail to the school person: "We're still looking forward to your reply" blah blah.
Each night, on my way home from work, I'd drive RIGHT BY the demolition site. Craning my eyes to see if the turf scraping had started or not. And every few days, checking our P.O. Box for an answer letter.
Then about 3 days before the next montly club meeting, I was driving by the demolition site, and .... from the street, in the distance, I could see a man swinging a detector! But he was too far away to tell who it was. So I parked, went to the cyclone fence, un-did the bailing wire that held the gate panels shut, and walked out into the site. When I got close, I recognized who it was : A local md'r, who had not recently been at club meetings (d/t conflicts in his work schedule).
I approached him and and said: "John, what you doing in here ?". To which he he said "
what does it look like ?" doh!
I then said "how'd you get in here". Again, looking at me like I'm from outer space, he says
"The same way you did. I walked right in ". Doh
So I spelled out the story of how the club has pending permission to have a group hunt. And we're waiting for the reply, blah blah. To which he said : "This is a public school last I checked". Then opened his apron and showed me all the silver coins he was finding. My heart sunk . I was green with envy. As we stood there shop-talking about md'ing, a janitor came out of one of the unaffected buildings and started chatting with John. Asking what John's latest night's finds were. Apparently these 2 had been conversing on prior nights, and John had been showing him the nightly finds.
That was all I could take! I couldn't stand it anymore. I went to my truck, grabbed my machine, and joined in ! For the next few days we got lots of silver coins, wheaties, etc... Even a silver dollar, a 2 cent piece, etc...
We were in full-view of Main st. traffic, in full view of after-hours school employees, etc... It was obvious that it was a non-issue. I phoned another hunting buddy that night, who also joined in the fray the next night with us.
Then , a few nights later, I stopped at our club's post office box to pick up the mail on the way to the meeting. I could see a letter with the school district's return address on it ! I reached the club meeting, opened it and read it aloud:
"We are sorry to inform you that we can not grant you permission. Thankyou for your inquiry. Sincerely yours, blah blah".
There was dead silence in the room. Everyone was bummed. But .... by then ... word had leaked out that "Tom & another club member has been in there". Murmurs arose. The obvious question on people's minds was: "If the school said "no", then why are you going ?" To which I tried to tell them how I'd seen another guy, and no one cared. But .... that went over like a fart in church
I could see how our club had been the victim of "no one cared till you asked" psychology.
From then on, I said screw it. I will never again subject myself to the obligatory "safe" answer. When in fact, no one might have cared less. I suppose I've even become more brazen since then. (there are endless degrees of type-sites). But that is just an example of how I began to develop callouses on the subject. Ie.: the bee-in-my-bonnet subject was born out of these type hard-knocks experiences. I could choose to be relegated to sand boxes, or I could grow a set.