Gathering mistletoe

Bill Robinson, 66, of Decatur, Georgia, was arrested on a misdemeanor firearm charge in December 2011 for gathering holiday mistletoe in the "best way" he knew -- shooting it out of a tree with a 12-gauge shotgun. The fact that the tree was in the parking lot of the suburban North DeKalb Mall (filled with holiday shoppers) apparently completely escaped his attention. 

"Well," said Robinson to WGCL-TV, "about the time I did it, I got to thinking about it. ... I guess I assumed that everybody knew what I was doing." 

This bit of trivia, which I ran across in the archives of News of the Weird, caught my eye because of a childhood memory. I posted about it in 2007 in the context of a visit to Texas and my cousin Rusty, the writer. Here is that post:

I just got back from lunch with Rusty. He took me to a nice Mexican place in Tyler and we reminisced. Then we drove down to look at Daddy Dodd's old property. The house and barn are long gone, but Rusty was able to point it out because he recognizes the big trees that still stand around [where] the house [used to be.] We both remember shooting mistletoe out of those trees decades ago. It was part of the Christmas family gathering tradition.

Since our grandfather had moved to Texas from Georgia, perhaps he brought the tradition with him.