Well, Blow Me Down!

Thought for the day: The subject of criminal rehabilitation was debated recently in City Hall. It's an appropriate place for this kind of discussion because the city has always employed so many ex-cons and future cons.  Mike Royko

I understand it's a little windy in Chicago. I've never been there, but our youngest son attended school at Chicago's Illinois Institute of Technology, which, by the way, some magazine or another voted the school that looked most like a penitentiary. Anyway, when he was offered a full ROTC scholarship to attend that school, I warned him up and down about the frigid winters, but he assured me of how much he LOVED cold weather.

(Yeah, right. He was born and raised in Georgia. What did HE know about cold weather?)

Our concerns notwithstanding, he accepted the scholarship and set off for the Windy City. His first winter there was a record-setting one. For high temperatures. Piece of cake, right? The second year, however, set records in the opposite direction, and was unrelentingly cold, windy, and snowy for weeks on end. So, when he called me, I figured he was finally gonna admit that the cold weather was more than he'd bargained for ... not that I would've ever said, "I told you so." (But I was thinking it!) But no. He told me, "This is so NEAT! As soon as you walk outside, you can feel the hair in your nose freeze!"

So (ahem) turns out he really DOES like cold weather.

Okey dokey, let's take a virtual whirlwind tour of Illinois before we make fun of some of their laws.

This is Abraham Lincoln's home, located in Springfield. Before he was elected president, he served in the Illinois legislature, and practiced law in Springfield. With Lincoln's ties to Illinois, it should come as no surprise that in 1865, Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

Like his home, Lincoln's tomb, just outside Springfield, is also a National Historical Site.    

Illinois is also home to the largest catsup bottle in the world. The 170-foot tower, located beside route 159 near Collinsville, was built in 1949.

On December 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and a group of scientists built what you see in the drawing on the left. Constructed on a transformed squash court under a section of stands at the University of Chicago's Stagg football field, this stack of uranium-embedded carbon blocks successfully demonstrated the production of controlled heat. Called a pile, this was actually the first man-made nuclear fission reactor.  [Photo courtesy of University of Chicago archival photograph files.]

 In 1947, a plaque was unveiled at  the University of Chicago to commemorate Fermi's achievement. It reads: On December 2, 1942, man achieved here the first self-sustaining chain reaction and thereby initiated the controlled release of nuclear energy. [Photo courtesy of University of Chicago archival photograph files.]  Fermi is second from the right.  

On April 15, 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's in  Des Plaines, Illinois. That building was demolished in 1984, and then rebuilt according to the original blueprint. It is now a museum.

The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, in Collinsville, documents the history of the most sophisticated prehistoric native civilization north of Mexico.

 


 The Home Insurance Building, built in 1885, was the world's first skyscraper, at 138 feet, and ten stories. Alas, it was demolished in 1931.

When the Sears Tower was built in 1974, it was the tallest building in the world, a title it maintained for nearly twenty years.

During prohibition, Chicago was notorious for bootlegging and mobsters. The infamous St. Valentine's Massacre of 1929 is depicted at the left. (There are actual gruesome photographs on the web, but I preferred this shot of Chicago policemen reenacting the event.) Al Capone hired hit men and ordered a hit on his arch-rival "Bugs" Moran. The hit men, disguised as policemen, arrived at the garage to do the dirty deed, but Moran wasn't there. Five of Moran's men, a mechanic, and an optometrist who "got a kick out of hanging around with gangsters" were lined up against the wall and shot in the back in a barrage of gunfire.


Time to move on, and check out those laws:

                                                                                                                  

• It's against the law to wear saggy pants. (That's saggy, not soggy. Of course, if they're real soggy, they're also apt to sag.)
• You can be arrested for vagrancy if you don't have at least a dollar on your person. 
• You must contact police before entering the city in an automobile. (I have a feeling this one's been on the books for a LONG time.)
• It's illegal for a woman over 200 pounds to ride a horse in shorts.
• The English language isn't to be spoken. (Only "American.")
• In Champaign, it's against the law to pee in your neighbor's mouth. (There was actually a need to write this one down???)
• In Chicago, it's illegal to eat in a place that's on fire. (But it's the hottest spot in town, officer ...)
• Can't give a dog whiskey in Chicago, either. (Better stick to beer.)
• It's also illegal to fish while sitting on a giraffe's neck. (Really? What's with all these giraffe laws?)
• And you may not drink beer out of a bucket while sitting on the curb. (For Heaven's sake, stand UP! And while you're at it, pull up those pants!)
• It's only legal to protest naked in front of Chicago's city hall if you're under seventeen and have a legal permit.
• In Cicero, no humming allowed on public streets on Sundays.
• In Des Plaines, wheelbarrows with For-Sale signs may not be chained to trees. (Booooorn freeee...)
• In Evanston, bowling is forbidden. (Now, that's downright un-American!)
• In Galesburg, no person may keep a smelly dog. (A law obviously enacted by people who never owned a dog who tears into the back yard, still wet from a bath, to roll in the first putrid thing he finds.) 
• It's also illegal in Galesburg to burn bird feathers. (In case you were wondering.)
• And you can earn a one thousand dollar fine for beating rats with a baseball bat. (Use a hockey stick.)
• In Horner, it's against the law to use a slingshot, unless you're a law enforcement officer.
• In Kenilworth, a rooster must step back three hundred feet from any residence if he wishes to crow. (So, do his owners have to mark the distance for him, or does he get his own tape measure?)
• In Kirkland, bees aren't allowed to fly over the village or through any of Kirkland's streets. (Who's gonna stop them?)
• In Normal, it's against the law to make faces at dogs. (Aw, come on! It's ... normal ... to make faces at some dogs.)
• In Winnetka, you aren't allowed to remove your shoes in a theater if your feet stink. (So, who gets to tell that snarling 350-pound biker to put his boots back on?)
• And finally, in Zion, it's illegal to give lit cigars to dogs, cats, or any other domesticated animal. (Stick to chewing tobacco, or let 'em light it themselves.)

Okay, boys and girls, this brings us once again to (ta-DA!)

The Weirdest News Srories of the Week

***  A family of four, including a three-week-old infant, got so hopelessly lost in a corn maze, poor ol' Dad had to call 911 for help. The sun was fading fast on Conner Farm, in Danvers, Massachusetts, so they ended operations for the day, unaware that stragglers were still wandering among the cornstalks. Until police showed up with a rescue dog, that is. Didn't take long to find the corn-fused family, either. Turns out, they were only twenty-five feet from the street. Not sure why they were unable to see the street lights or hear the traffic, but it's a safe bet the family won't be visiting a haunted house this year. They've already had their Halloween scare for the year.

[from YouTube]

***  Most people pace themselves to last through a marathon, but Brett Henderson streaked right past the other runners like they were standing still. Wait, no. He didn't streak past; he streaked. As in, wearing no clothes. His mother claims the borrowed shorts he was wearing kept falling down, so I guess kicking them to the curb was his solution. Police say otherwise, and call him a narcissist who refused to stop when ordered to do so. It took additional persuasion from a Tazer to bring him down. The offense occurred in May, during Cincinnati's Flying Pig Marathon, and the Ohio judge finally made his ruling this week. Henderson is banned from flying with the pigs in any future marathons. Flying pigs, they like. But the naked truth is, unfettered bouncing balls they can do without.

***  How do I love thee? More than the stars in the sky, the raindrops in a hurricane, the grains of sand on the beach. The grains of sand on a particular Cornwall beach, that is. And how much is that, you ask? I'll have to get back to you. Researchers are counting them now. That's right. Researchers from Australia, England, and the United States are conducting an erosion study to determine whether beaches are shrinking or being replaced. So, they're determining how sand moves by ... er ... counting it? The researchers have been planning this study for the past five years, and have some very sophisticated machines and a bank of computers to help them. Dr. Ian Turner said, "For every wave that runs up on the beach, the instruments used in this field study will give information on the transport of sand in the water column, the movement of the sea itself, and the net change in the beach shape." So, whatcha think? I'm thinking most of the locals would've been more than happy to give them an earful about how much that beach has eroded over the years. Hmmm, could be another Ig Nobel in the making.

***  What's not to love about a doctor who still makes house calls? For free! Only problem is, this boob wasn't a doctor. He wasn't as obvious as the dude in the picture, but this guy did go door-to-door with little black bag in hand, generously offering to perform free breast exams on unsuspecting (and unbelievably gullible) women. The Florida man was 76 years old when the authorities charged him with multiple counts of sexual battery and practicing medicine without a license, and now, at 81, his lawyers and prosecutors have allegedly reached an agreement. The judge will be ruling on the sentencing later this month. Dunno what that sentence is gonna be, but maybe those women he molested could come up with an appropriate one. Like maybe a few prostate exams or colonoscopies performed by volunteers?

                                       Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.