Many years ago, back in the late eighties or early nineties, we used to get irregular visitations from a large band of honest to goodness gypsies. Dozens of them.
When one of their “upper members” needed healthcare, they came to the hospital I worked at.
This was long enough ago where our cafeteria still used metal utensils (forks, knives, spoons) and they would take all of them. Literally vacuum them all up.
The last time they came, the “King of The Gypsies” (as he was referred to) was near death, and he ended up in the ICU where my wife was working.
She said there were large groups of them huddled outside the ICU entrance, 24 hours a day, because it was said (don’t know if this is true) that the first Gypsy to see the dead king’s eyes after death would become the next King of The Gypsies”!
I recall seeing marauding bands of them around the hospital. They stopped coming to our hospital at some point, but us old-timers remembered them.
It was very strange. And they looked like Gypsies, too. Dark complexions, dark eyes, dark hair, huddled together in various places around the facility.
I don’t recall what country they came over from, but it definitely wasn’t the USA. I think it might have been France or Spain. They didn’t speak English that I recall.
They don’t have a ‘country’. They have wandered all over the world since the fall of Rome...........
Wow, what US state was this?
I remember a story some years ago about a Pennsylvania town that welcomed a group of gypsies. They came to regret it, because the gypsies were running around pooping in the streets.