Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Who remembers Gypsies in your neighborhood ??

How does it compare to Carnivale (the HBO show from a number of years back)?

BGG, I do not know as I did not see Carnivale.

L.W.

I remember seeing them in the mid 1960s with their horse drawn wagons in the Chicago suburbs. My mother hid her kids away.

Not around here, have ran into a bunch of them in italy

In England in the 60’s the rag and bone men were gypsies, clip-clopping slowly down the street on a flatbed cart with car wheels, drawn by a single horse. They would pick up junk and recyclables calling out “all ye ragbone”.

We were on the coast and the town was a holiday resort, the donkey rides on the beach were run by gypsies, probly since shut down by the animal welfare people.

2016 riding a bicycle I came across some tethered gypsy horses grazing alongside a rural intersection, I didn’t stop to take photos.

Thought they were s hit

My grandmother told us when she was growing up during the Great Depression in PENN, that Gypsies would come through and usually they would go around at night and stop at a farm and ask for directions etc
Many a farmer would find stuff missing from his barn the next day, grain, oats, etc She would also tell us that the Gypsies would take us if we were not good.

Search gypsies and Spiro ok. They are still there. Bunch of big houses east of town, all with big campers in front during off season. Still running the paving scam.

The one ethnicity which is primarily comprised of roaming thieves and con artists. They are human parasites. These romanis are not to be confused with travelers.

Had plenty of them when I lived in England back in the early to mid 60s... 63 to 66.

If it wasn't nailed down they'd swipe it.

Yep I remember people being in an uproar in sw ohio where I grew up, uproar over them stealing.

Two came to our door when I was about 6-7 years old, asked my Mom if she wanted the grass trimmed up close to the house. She agreed to hire them. This was about 1966-67 well before the days of powered trimmers. They had a hand shear, we got a similar shear not long after.
Anyway I looked out the window and they were just standing around beside the side of the house, they had did the front and came told my Mom they were finished right after I told her they were just standing at the side of the house. She went and checked and jumped their ass pretty good about trying to cheat her, she made them do it perfect and found other places that needed trimming. My Mom didn't take no schitt.
Only remember them that one time.

Pretty sure gypsies are what happens when middle easterners started breeding with Russians.

My late mother grew up on a dairy farm. She used to tell me that her father allowed gypsies to set up camp in a back pasture along a creek and stay for the summer. This would have been in the late 1920's - early 30's.

Their farm is a county park today. The creek is still there.

I remember my Mom and Dad talking about them when I was young. I don't remember ever seeing any, but there is a Gypsy Baby that is buried in the same Cemetery as all of my family. According to a man, now in his 90's, that was overseer of the Cemetery before me, and lived very near it as a young man, the baby was buried in the far back corner. We have taken in more land since so it is kinda in the middle now. Grave is marked by a small rock, with no name. miles

They were around Slummy.

They hit the big towns doing the same crap as mentioned here.
St.Pete, Tampa, Miami.
They painted tile roofs and re-sealed driveways.
They'd offer a discount if you could get a few of your neighbors to do their places at the same time.
They worked dirt cheap and would typically be doing a few homes close together along the same streets due to the discounts they'd offer.

The products they'd use was so watered down you'd only get a few months out of it. People would complain a little but I think most knew they got what they paid for.

Don't recall any related thievery going on.

I liked the produce guy that had the back of his pickup set up like a produce market, he cruzed the streets in our neighborhood and of course the ice cream man was always special..

I don't think those guys were gypsies though.

I really never heard about them until I lived in Texas.

Not many of them in rural ND when I grew up.

I don't even think I've ever met or seen a gypsy in real life. Hippies used to show up and pass through where I lived in deepest, darkest Appalachia.

This brings back memories I'd forgot about. They would stay at a campground close to my house growing up in southwest Virginia. I was maybe 10 and cruised all over the area on my Honda XR 75. As soon as they would show up at the campground with their paving equipment dad would tell me to stay away from the campground, woop me good if I didn't listen. I got gas money for my bike from picking up pop bottles. Seems there weren't any bottles when the gypsies were around.

Travelers come thru our rural area (that ain’t so rural anymore) about once every five years and hustle everyone to paint their barn roofs. They actually do a decent job, and I let them paint our tallest one because I hate climbing up there. You just have to make sure they cover the areas and equipment surrounding the barns with tarps to catch the overspray. They won’t if you don’t stand right there and watch them, and everyone around here keeps a close eye out for several days after they leave.

When a buddy first told me who they were after I noticed they were unusual, I expected them to be broken down rag-tags. Heck, they all had pretty nice brand new trucks and equipment. Kinda surprised me.

I think they are part of the bunch from the Carolinas.

There are a few in Western Mass., Springfield area. They are a little more settled, women reading palms, men buying and selling. When I worked at the RV dealership they would come around buying up the old junk trailers we wouldn't put on the lot.They were pretty sharp, packaging 3 or 4 units, averaging the total then trying to take the best one at the low price. Some were pretty good customers, tax numbers, wholesale licence, and always paid cash. The most common last name was "Mitchell", they would all talk among themselves in that Rom language. There were some shady ones we had to watch, and a couple times we were close to a 911 call but they wanted nothing to do with the law and split. There is a hierarchies among them.
They would fix up these junkers and sell them cheap off the front yard of these two and three family houses where they lived. People would buy them from "Tony" but they were stuck for any problems as "Tony" could never be found again.