I said I'd give 2 examples of the "scram" psychology, so here's the 2nd one:
When I got into this hobby, in about 1976, at 14 yrs. old, it was d/t a Jr. high school chum, who was already into it . His older brothers had been md'ing since the mid 1960s. One day in about 1976, this friend and I were getting a ride from his dad to go fishing in a lake, that is near a city 30 miles from our city. On the way there, we passed through this neighboring town, my Jr. high school chum pointed at an elementary school and said "they don't allow detecting anywhere in this city". And "it's illegal", etc...
Since this guy was my mentor, I had no reason to question him (what did I know? I was just a dumb kid, haha).
Fast forward to now I'm a senior in High school, in 1980. By now a club had been formed in our town, and I had made many new friends detecting. A couple of these adults I hung around with, one day, started coming into the club meetings with nice silver coins. All they would say is that it was from a "certain park", but they weren't gonna say where
But I badgered them and bugged them, till they finally relented and invited me along.
Turned out the park was in the city that my earlier friend had said was "off-limits". I didn't say anything (despite recollecting my earlier friend's statement). I just tagged along, since they were already hunting there, and hadn't had any issues. But in the back of my mind, I sometimes wondered. And I began to detect other parks & schools in that city too. Since I now had a driver's license and could borrow mom's car to go detecting at various places.
Then one day in the late 1980s, I bumped into my old Jr. high school friend. I asked him "who told you such & such city is off-limits?" At first he didn't even know what I was talking about. I had to remind him, jog his memory, etc... Then he mused that his older brother told him that.
Then one day in the early 1990s, I was hunting with his older brother. I remember about that city, so I told him: "hey, your younger brother says you told him that such & such city is off-limits. Where did you get that information?" He too didn't know what I was talking about. But with a little memory jogging and prodding, he finally remembered the incident (which was, by now 20+ yrs. in arrears). He said that he got his information from the oldest brother of the clan (who was nearly 20 yrs. older than my jr. high school chum).
So I asked the next "follow-the-trail question" : "ok then, where did your guys's oldest brother get that information from?" The best that the guy could recall, the way he remembered it, was that that oldest brother was detecting there in the 1960s at a school in that town. Some janitor came out to shoo him away. The conversation had gone something like this:
Janitor: "you can do that".
MD'r: "oh, I'm sorry, then I'll leave. And how about the school down the street, can I go there then?"
Janitor: "No. Not there either"
MD'r: "Really ? Wow. Hmmm, ok, how about the high school across town?"
Janitor (growing peeved): "no, not at any school here in XYZ city"
MD'r: "oh gosh, wow
Well how about at the city park then?"
Janitor (growing impatient at the cross-questioning): "No, not an any public land in the entire city. It's not allowed."
Thus the md'r tucked his tail between his legs, glad that he had only gotten a warning (versus something serious like a ticket or something). He went home & dutifully warned his brother. And that brother dutifully warned the younger brother at some later time. And that youngest brother dutifully warned a school chum (me) at some later time. And I probably went and warned others over the years back then (hey, that's what friends are for afterall). And perhaps people I warned, likewise went and warned others (like this post has done for penngrove park, for instance). And before long, it's just taken as gospel fact. Especially so when something like this happens in the lightening fast info age of the internet.
But when you take a step back, 20, 30, and 40 years later, you start asking "who says?" and "since when?" and "where is this written?". And you begin to wonder if it's not just a case of a random fluke "scram" that went viral. Or someone who went into a city hall somewhere, asked "can I?" and got a "no" . Ie.: a safe answer from someone who just didn't want to be bothered. Yet the info gets bandied about, spread, found by key-word searches, and "presto, a rule or law is born in people's minds".
