                                  T H E

                               Z E P H Y R

                      __     M A G A Z I N E
                     {__]++++++++++++++++++++++++++[]
                     Issue #25                8-25-86

                A weekly electronic magazine for users of
                            THE ZEPHYR II BBS
                        (Mesa, AZ - 602-894-6526)
                    owned and operated by T. H. Smith

                        Editor - Gene B. Williams

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                                (c) 1986

    THIS ISSUE:

      And here we go again with a dive into the past - back to
    Rovin' around the country and checking things out.
      This week's strange and unusual topic deals with laws.
      We elect 'em, and pay 'em from our taxes. Sometimes I wonder
    if there isn't some national (or international) competition
    going on to see who can come up with the most outrageous law
    or regulation.

                                ROVIN' #1

      Some strange Arizona laws (they're all real and still on the
    books!):

      In Apache Junction it's illegal to prospect for gold unless
    you have a signal fire in your hat.

      In Benson it's a felony to park a Brahma bull in front of a
    rodeo clown.

      In Winslow you can get up to 30 days in jail for laughing at
    an enchilada. In this same town, cowboys are required to register
    their socks as deadly weapons.

      In Teec Nos Pos (where is that?) it's illegal to lie to someone
    unless that person lies to you first.

      In Bowie you can't use a live rattlesnake for a belt. In
    Wickenburg you can get in BIG trouble for carrying a concealed
    coyote. Eloy has a specific law against robbing a convenience
    store with a loaded gila monster. (Don't worry, though. In the
    entire state of Kansas it is illegal to eat a rattlesnake.)

      In Holbrook it is illegal to call out a posse to hunt for
    Easter eggs.

      Yuma has a law against putting barbeque sauce on fried adobe
    and selling it as short ribs.

      In Nogales the use of barbed wire in the manufacture of
    underwear is strictly forbidden.

      There is a state law which makes it illegal for two people
    of the same sex, or two people of opposite sexes, to live in
    the same house, apartment or whatever unless each has separate
    facilities. (It's okay if they are related as first cousins
    or closer.)
      Which turns around and makes the law allowing "common law
    marriage" such that to be legal you have to break the law
    for 7 years. (Live with someone for 7 years - which is illegal -
    and you're legally married.)

      Not to be outdone:

      In Ohio it's -still- illegal to fish from a bridge while sitting
    on a giraffe. In the city of Oxford, OH, it's against the law for
    a girl to undress in front of a picture of a man.

      Portland, Oregon has a law against taking a tinkle while on
    roller skates.

      In Norton, Virginia you can find yourself in jail for tickling a
    girl.

      In Minnesota it's illegal to hang clothes of a female and a
    male on the same line.

      While in Cleveland it's illegal for two men to drink from the
    same bottle.

      Waterville, Maine has a law against blowing your nose in public.
    Rumford, Maine makes it illegal to bite your landlord. In the entire
    state you will be breaking the law if you walk around with your
    shoelaces untied.

      You can also find yourself in court in Natchez, Mississippi for
    giving beer to an elephant.

      In Texas you can't legally milk someone else's cow.

      Oklahoma has a law that won't allow you to give liquor to a fish.

      Pittsburgh has a law against sleeping in a refrigerator.

      In the entire state of Virginia you can be arrested, fined and
    even imprisoned for having a bathtub -inside- your home.

      And in California you can be arrested for boiling a dust cloth.
    Another cleanliness law, from Carmel, prohibits a woman from taking
    a bath in a business office. As a step to protect the animals, in
    Pacific Grove it is a misdemeanor to kill - or even to threaten -
    a butterfly.

      Florida has a law against falling asleep under a hair dryer. In
    this stormy state it's also illegal to break more than 3 dishes in
    one day.

      While Georgia makes it illegal to slap a friend on the back.

      Don't play hopscotch anywhere in Missouri on Sunday.

      Norfolk, VA has a law that prohibits a girl from attending a
    dance without a corset.

      Wenatchee, Washington has a series of laws. In that town it's
    illegal to play baseball in public, illegal to play ANY kind of
    ball in the street, and illegal to play catch with an apple.

      Los Angeles makes it illegal to make faces at your opponent
    while wrestling.

      In Omaha you can get put into the slammer for burping or
    sneezing in church. You can also be arrested for sharing a
    fingerbowl.

      In Cedar Rapids, Iowa a man was fined $33.50 for going into
    a women's outhouse "clambering in the facility's pit."

      A man in Massachusetts has been in the state mental hospital
    for over 50 years for painting his horse to look like a zebra.

      A man in Kansas is in for 1-to-10 for "assaulting two trees."

      A few years ago New Jersey officially declared that wife
    beating was not a marital right.

      But in Whitesville, Delaware, it's still considered to be
    "disorderly conduct" for a woman to propose to a man.

      And in Hartford, CT a wife is prohibited from kissing her
    husband on Sunday.

      A real bad one - in Alabama you can get the death penalty
    for putting salt on a railroad track.

      And even worse - the state of Rhode Island has a proposed
    tax of $2 for each act of intercourse.

    ***
      In Sweden you can get into trouble for teaching a seal to
    balance a ball.

      East Germany has a law against taking a picture of someone
    waving bye-bye from a train window.

      In Iceland it is perfectly legal to practice medicine without
    credentials as long as your sign clearly reads, "Quack Doctor."

      Cambodia prohibits citizens and visitors alike from insulting
    a rice plant.

      Incidentally, while on the subject of laws - an 1899 Federal
    Statute makes it illegal to dump ANY industrial waste into
    ANY body of water.

      A case came up a few years ago involving the "rape" of a
    15-year-old boy by a 23-year-old woman. The judge threw it out
    of court, calling it "sex education."

      In Nevada a woman was refused the job as jailer on the grounds
    that she was "too nice."

      In Colorado a police officer chased down a DC-10 jet and
    ticketed the pilot for taxiing with his flaps down. This same
    officer also cited two 737s. All three tickets were based on
    a law that was still on the books, but no longer applicable,
    concerning planes during the 1920s and 1930s.

      In Utah a man was arrested, tried and convicted of sexual
    assault. His story was that he was just trying to expose
    himself when he tripped on his pants and fell on his victim.

      According to the Chicago Police Dept., more women kill their
    husbands than vice versa.

      A Tallahassee, Florida man decided that the world was getting
    to be too much. So he left a suicide note, got himself a motel
    room, and put 3 rounds from a .25 caliber automatic into his
    head.
      He sat around for a while, waiting for something to happen,
    and finally went home again. His wife noticed some blood stains
    on the pillow, woke him up and asked what was going on. He
    told her, after which she had him rushed to the hospital.
      Examination revealed that bullet #1 went in between his
    left ear and left eye and went straight out the other side
    of his head. #2 went in the temple and came out through his
    forehead. #3 just went straight on through the center.

      In Tulsa the local dogcatcher went after an unleashed dog.
    Trouble was, he couldn't catch it, even in his truck. He -did-
    get back at the owner, however. While chasing the dog he
    clocked it at 30 mph in a 25 mph zone - and ticketed the
    owner with a $20 speeding ticket.

      Did you know that 15% of us bite our toenails?

      The first book I wrote was on home pest control. Since then a
    new study was conducted by Florida University concerning how to
    get rid of cockroaches.
      Give 'em baking soda. Since roaches can't . . . er . . . release
    gas from either end (oh, shades of Smiler Jack) the roach
    literally blows up.

      Ever hear of the emperor beetle of South America. It weighs
    1/4 pound. Watch out McDonald's!

      By the way, if you gathered together all the insects in the
    world, and all other living creatures, the insects would
    weigh 3 times as much.

      According to a report from the United States Institute on
    Alcohol Abuse, marijuana will never become more popular than
    alcohol because:
      "Marjuana makes a person introspective and they study their
    own navel, whereas alcohol will make you become outgoing and
    study someone else's navel."

    ***
      Tax time is past, but, here are some expenditures:
      $103,000 to find out if fish that drink tequila are more
    agressive than fish that drink gin.
      $46,000 to find out how long it takes to cook breakfast.
      $27,000 to find out why inmates want to escape.
      $97,000 to study a whorehouse in Peru.
      $2,000,000 for a police car that was never used.
      $4,000,000 to find out if untuned engines pollute more than
    tuned engines.
      $320,000 to find out if college students engage in premarital sex.
      $345,000,000 to find out why Americans don't save as much as
    they used to.
      $121,000 to find out why people say "ain't".
      $71,000 for a history of comic books.
      $5,000,000,000+ in military equipment abandoned in VietNam (550
    tanks, 1300 pieces of artillary, 1,600,000 rifles, etc. etc.).

      A man from New York won $128,000 in the Irish Sweepstakes. The
    government wanted $112,000 of it, leaving him with $16,000. He
    decided to deposit his winnings in an Irish bank.
      Visiting hours in prison are . . . .

      Price of a marriage license in Thailand dropped from $5 to 5c.
      Meanwhile, in Indonesia the price was raised - to 25 dead rats.
      And meanwhile, a woman from Java reported to the local police
    that she had been raped - by a monkey.

    For the Useless Information File:
      In 1974, 8-year-old Richard Knecht broke the world sit-up record
    after doing 25,222 sit-ups in a period of 11 hours 14 minutes.

    Until Next Time

       If you haven't already done so, don't forget to send your
    donation/contribution to Thane to help pay for the new hard
    drive so this system can get back up to full power. It'll keep
    running if you don't - and there's no obligation. It's just
    a nice thing to do. $5, $10, whatever you can afford.
       Send to:
                     T. H. Smith
                     PO Box 17274
                     Mesa, AZ  85212

       Meanwhile, I'm storing the new issues so that they can be
    made available for download as soon as the new hard drive can
    be put on line. Ya see, there is one completely full diskette
    and another that is nearly full, just for the past issues of
    the magazine. There's no way to make downloads available at this
    time. (Of course, you can still capture the present issues.)
       As soon as the hard drive comes up again, once more all past
    issues will be available for download.

Zephyr Magazine is © Gene Williams. All rights reserved.