In Open Your Heart With Singing, Jules Kennedy talks about having songs stay with you. I’ve got one that’s with me all day: Tonight, from West Side Story.
No: I’m not seeing my love tonight; I’m co-hosting Bread & Roses IV – the fourth triannual (triannual? three times a year? is that the word?) geo-event at the Shaskeen in Manchester, New Hampshire.
If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by for a beer!
As we do for every event, we’ll be announcing some new caches going live. I’ll do my Patented Two Minutes of History and talk about Manchester’s native peoples beginnings. We have some really, really terrific gifts to raffle off from Groundspeak and Backcountry.com.
And then there’s the Guinness….
I’m pretty sure that I know one of the topics that will accompany the Guinness tonight: the day before yesterday, the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, began to actively discourage geocaching:
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. Portsmouth (New Hampshire) police aren’t fans of a pastime involving a high tech navigation device.
The department is sending out a message against G-P-S scavenger hunts after two reports of suspicious packages turned out to be prizes left for game participants.
The most recent incident was yesterday, when police went to a supermarket to examine a suspicious package attached to an outdoor electrical panel. The metallic case duct taped to the panel turned out to be a prize for players in a G-P-S scavenger hunt.
In November, police responded to a similar call when someone spotted a suspicious package stuck to the base of the Piscataqua River bridge. It also turned out to be a G-P-S hunt prize.
Police say this activity causes public alarm and can be punished as trespassing, disorderly conduct and worse if it triggers a building evacuation.
Is this an example of living in a police state? Hardly. As with nearly every area in life, common sense is sometimes sadly lacking in the hobby. Why on earth would you place a cache in such a place, especially now?
Perhaps it’s time for Groundspeak to – well, speak up. If this sort of cache were to be disallowed, then the hobby could avoid incidents such as this one.
Posted by: — jcezanne
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