SUPER SKUNKS

Plenty of people in diverse organizations have been rude and obnoxious, and blocked adults and kids from learning about the environment with me, but the ones below are much worse. They're the most awful organizations and individuals I've encountered since 1981 — spiteful, dishonest, and malicious:

1. ALLEY POND ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER, https://www.alleypond.org/ 229-10 Northern Blvd., Douglaston, NY 11362(718) 229-4000

After over 45 years of working with hundreds of environmental organizations as a well-known expert on edible/medicinal wild plants and mushrooms, and a 5-time author, this is was one of the worst I've ever encountered.

In 1981, APEC official Kim Estes invited me to lead a public foraging tour in the park. I did this free of charge. Everyone liked it so much they had me lead a second free tour.

But when I began leading my own tours in the park, or came to study and collect the mushrooms (which are renewable, as you don't harm the fungus that produces the mushrooms when you pick the mushrooms) close to the center, the director, Aline Euler, would emerge screaming at me, called the police, and induced the Parks Dept. to have their rangers hunt me down.

I ran into Estes at a health fair in the early 1980s, and she politely told me she'd do everything in her power to oppose my work. Then she promptly left APEC, but I'll continue looking over my shoulder for her in the next life!

In 1986, I began teaching foraging through the NYC Parks Dept. We had an office in the APEC  building, where I parked my bicycle. A foraging tour I led there that was supposed to end at 4 PM ran over and ended at 4:01 PM, so they gleefully locked their door, wouldn't let me retrieve my bicycle, and complained bitterly to the Parks Dept. that I left my bike in their empty building overnight. I had to spend 90 minutes on public transportation to get home, and another 90 minutes the next day to get my bike back.

After I left the Parks Dept. in 1990, they wouldn't let my participants park in their parking lot for my tours, even when it was empty. This continues into the present, and I'm sure it will even hold true after I'm dead!

Their school tours are all hands-off. Kids march in and out of the park in straight lines, with no contact with nature, a big turn-off. 

They also have small animals confined in tiny cages, to attract kids—very cruel to the animals. And they remain vehemently opposed to the science of mycology (mushrooms).

I strongly urge you to avoid having anything to do with these reprehensible, self-serving people!

2. NEW YORK MYCOLOGICAL SOCIETYhttps://www.newyorkmyc.org/

I've had good experiences with the LI, CT, and NJ mycological societies, but this is one of the worst groups I've ever experienced in over 4 decades.

When I was trying to first learn mushrooms in 1981, I joined and attended their tours. Most of the members where over-privileged, selfish snobs. I learned next to nothing. Someone found a chicken mushroom on a tour I attended, something I'd read about but never seen before. I had to run as quickly as I could to get a glimpse of it before it disappeared into the finder's bag, never ever to emerge into the light of day again! No one provided any info for beginners.

On another tour, I was stung by a yellow jacket and began to develop a severe allergic reaction, with prominent hives all over my body. This was before 911 and cell phones.

I begged the members to have someone drive me to a hospital, lest the reaction progress to the point where it would stop me from breathing. They all ignored me, walked off, and left me to die in the woods.

Fortunately, the reaction didn't get any worse, and I was able to hitchhike to a hospital, where I got 2 shots of adrenalin, after which I was able to get home alive via public transportation.

They have good evening lectures from outsiders in Manhattan, but most of the members are awful people, and their forays are useless for beginners.

3. STICKS AND STONES FARM, https://www.sticksandstonesfarm.com/ 201 Huntingtown Road, (203) 816-8242

These people are crooks. I led public tours on the grounds from 2008 to 2019, which everyone loved. Then a new event director, Celine Currier, took over. Without any knowledge of wild plants, she arbitrarily directed me to lead my tour on shady trails, where edible species, which need sunlight, are sparce. My then 13-year-old foraging expert daughter, Violet Brill, scouted out the shady trails in advance and verified this.

Feeling responsible to the participants, I led the tour in sunny places, near the farm's fields, where we found plenty of wild plants, despite Currier's arbitrary and wrong-headed objections.

Nevertheless, Currier hired me and my daughter to lead a mushroom weekend in 2017. She signed a contract, including a statement that if she canceled the event, we'd be paid in full.

Then, when it was way too late for me to schedule other events, she pulled the rug out from under us, canceled our event, and hired someone else to do the mushroom weekend, despite the signed contract, causing us to lose a much-needed weekend of work.

When I tried to contact her dad, Tim Currier, the owner, with whom I'd been acquainted since 2008, he showed his true colors and ghosted me.

Through a laborious process, I took the farm to Small Claims Court. The trial was held remotely during the Covid lock-down. No one from the farm showed. I won, and they had to pay me after all.

Avoid these people. They'll skunk you if they can get away with it!

4. EVELYN DEAN, https://www.evelyndeanart.com/home, (207) 656-2621, Richmond Maine, 04357

Evelyn Dean and I co-authored "Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not-So-Wild) Places", published by William Morrow Publishers (now Harper-Collins) in 1996.

After 6 months, the cheap publisher stopped paying for review copies for press members that could publicize the book, very important before the advent of the Internet. Subsequently, I had to buy review copies and send them out to potential reviewers. Dean and I had agreed to split the expense, since we were both getting equal royalties.

When we parted company, Dean owed me $625.00 for her share of this expense. There was no dispute about this, and she agreed to pay it. She never paid a penny of it, but keeps collecting half the royalties.

Feel free to contact the crook and tell her to stop being dishonest and pay what she owes me. Thank you!

5. Matt Schultz and Gwen McKay

In 2010, app developer Matt Schultz and his then-girlfriend Gwen McKay attended one of my Central Park foraging tours, just when I was looking for an app developer. Shultz and I agreed that he'd create my app, Foraging with the Wildman, and we'd split the profits.

A few years later, he unilaterally decided that McKay would help with development, and they'd split 2/3 of the income. There were major changes that needed to be made. They dragged their feet, and didn't make the necessary changes. Then Schutz withdrew, refused to release the source code, and let McKay take over development for 9 months before everything would be turned over to me.

McKay did nothing, finally admitting that she knew nothing about programming. She wouldn't release the source code, and subsequently ghosted me, as did Shultz.

I had to re-write every word and add every picture over again when I finally found new, honest developers. Schultz and McKay are crooks. Avoid doing business with them.

6. Web.com https://www.web.com/, now Network Solutions, https://www.networksolutions.com/

After my credit card changed, web.com took over my site from Dotster, which had made my site available on the Internet. Web.com's emails that looked like scams appeared in my inbox. I'd never heard of Web.com, so I didn't reply or pay them.

They removed my site from the Internet. I called them, gave them my new credit card #, and took out a subscription, but they wouldn't restore my site. I spent hours on the phone with them, day after day, filling out their forms and doing everything they asked, to no avail.

I hired a professional web designer, and it took her over a month to wrest the rights to my site out of their clutches. They adhere to the 4 D's: Delay, Delete, Deny, and Deceive. They're one of the worst organizations I've ever suffered in my 76 years on this planet. 

Don't ever do business with them, or you'll probably encounter more of the same.