The Virginian-Pilot from Norfolk, Virginia • 27

Beacon The Lighthouse BACKGROUNDING THE NEWS KV VIRGINIA AND NORTH CAROLINA Against 9 1 Odds Texas Wildcatters TryAgain in NC Vlrglnlan PlIot Photo by Perry Breon Ancient Statutes Blue Laws Defy Reason the Top Crop uwv Useful many ways! DIP DISH CHIP (847 M' URNITURE SALES? Wait or LEMONS ON THE LAWN MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS RECORDS SHEET MUSIC (A Bona ide Semi Annual Clearance) Rowe Long SOON AT I A In 1958 Prime Minister Har old MacMillan was denounced by the numerically small but powerful Lord Day Observ ance Society for attending a charity cricket match were to revise the law he said doubt if they could word it successfully to apply to Justice Dougherty may yet receive his announced aim riends were surprised that he excluded from his lineup a record banned by some radio stations because it was supposedly provoking sui cides fit into that group at he gagged to an in quiring pal too much of a beat to ELECTRONIC ORGANS summer theater employes (in cluding actress Peggy Cass) and druggists whom he caught working on Sunday The last two Sundays in July were happy ones for Earl Dougherty a justice of the peace in Bucks County Pa He spent them merrily hand ing out on subpoenas to such people as It is little easier in the Unit ed States where most easing of restrictive laws has come by court or administrative in terpretation rather than legis lation The court did not rule on his claim that it was also a vio lation of the first amendment which guarantees freedom of re ligionA The decision has been PAUL CO Jew elers Silrersmitlia WARDS CORNER Weal 0 Granby DOWNTOWN 25 Granby St After 30 tries' to land 9 1 odds chances are find a win ner If there is a winner to be found! Nine to one are the odds against finding oil or natural gas in an area that has geologi cal characteristics North Caro Coastal Plain has those characteristics And 30 is the number of tries men have made to find a for tune in natural resources under the wilderness and marginal land south of Norfolk which has so much in common with the rich oil lands of the Gulf Coast or the second time this year a group of Texas who look for oil where none has been found before are sinking deep holes to find the black gold that made Texas rich They have just completed three wells in the 78000 acre Hoffman orest in Onslow County The Taylor Exploration Co drilled the wells following sev en drilled earlier this year by the Coastal Plains Oil Co in the Lake Mattamuskeet area of Hyde County Neither company has an nounced the results of its dig ging But there is no sign of the jubilation or of increased They were all violating dating back to 1794 Practically every state in the Union has at least one blue law and many towns and other lo cal governments have some that are practically purple In general as in Pennsyl vania The bill to which the civil rights rider has been attached would exempt boiled peanuts (or peanuts raised for boiling) from acreage control for another two years What could be more perverse (in a Georgia eyes) than to attach a civil rights rider with its odor of death to a bill creating visions of peanut butter in the sky? an editorial in The Virginian Pilot always running out of things on Sunday appealed A legislative review of Mas sachusetts blue laws by Attor ney General George eingold in 1953 He said he was nailed to the for enforc ing the 251 year old statutes still on the books Blue laws have been and still are being attacked in the courts by commercial organizations and by Jews and Seventh Day Adventists who observe the Sabbath on Saturday and claim that the laws are discrimina i tory and unconstitutional A Jewish merchant in Springfield Mass recently won a ruling that to deprive him of the opportunity to work on Sunday was a violation of the fourteenth or proc amendment employment not occasioned by religious worship or works of charity They stem from the biblical injunction to keep holy the Sabbath and many of them date back to our Puritan be ginnings They often appear ridiculous by modern standards they are widely ignored they are a con tinuing thorn in the flesh to law enforcement agencies rand they are practically never repealed Attempts to' circumvent them have produced some of the silliest situations and some of the most tortured legal distinc tions in history Some examples: In Louisiana it is illegal to The enterprising justice bagged 225 including the report ers and photographers who trailed him like the tail of a comet in his travels through Bristol Township Since Dougherty pocketed the $9 in court costs that went with every $4 fine he was accused in some quarters of having an ignoble motive for his burst of zeal He protested that nothing could be further from the truth: The laws should either be en forced or repealed he said and he was merely trying to drama tize how completely they were being disregarded The nation' 1 a at antics but few of us could really afford to do so of town are thick with thirsty Court tests by commercial or Scots ganizations are under way in Pennsylvania Indiana and Ohio The Virgipian Pilot and The Portsmouth Star Norfolk Portsmouth Va Sunday Aug 301959 3 Est Phone JU 7 7515 PRons MA 2 1625 Simply styled 4" Paul Revere Bowl teamed with 12'' trav ideal for buffet and casual enter for His Sunday activities these 'days are curbed pending a court test by a restraining order ob tained by one of his victims He can console himself with the thought that at least he suffer the fate of a Penn sylvania private eye who one Sunday several year's ago got out The Governor Pavs a Visit Gov Lindsay Almond Jr with Dr Lyman Brooks director of the Norfolk Division of Virginia State College during the budget of Norfolk last week of oil or gas It looks like once again the wildcatters have failed to land the 9 1 odds so temptingly set before them Geologists reckon that when the structure and composition of the layers of earth and rock hidden under the land's surface have certain characteristics its 9 1 there is oil there Do the 9 1 odds still bold after all the failures? A spokesman for the State De partment of Conservation and Development said recently: as to whether or not crude oil and gas occur in North Carolina have ranged from positive and freely given statements by laymen and pro moters who just know oil isthere because it looks like it' to the misty and wordy state ments of learned men that oil may or may not be present The present wildcatters Gilbert and Judge Bry ant Seay of Houston Tex no doubt have heard both kinds of pronouncements And as their holes go deeper and deeper and the drilling bits get hotter and hotter the words of the late Dr Col lier Cobb a geology teacher at the University ot North Caro lina to tantalize them Said Dr Cobb: personal ly drink every barrell of oil drilling activity which surely found in North Carolina" would have followed the finding ROBERT RAMAGE 12'' tray ideal for buffet and casual taining Bowl may be used alone many serving requirements $12 00 mcl tax The London Times sprang to his defense wtih the comment that denounce watching cricket is to do a disservice to the true practice of Christian Those Americans who have seen cricket and who cher isn sunenng as a vnnsuau vu a summOns while ferreting tue would probably agree bue law violators The LDOS rises in wrath every time an attempt is made JIM DOYLE to repeal or modiiy even the most outrageous ones and the churches even though they agree that many of them are outmoded present a united front against change The last attempt ROM995 1" The Tidewater area lacks a magistrate with sense of humor exhibited by Bucks Earl Dougherty in 'the accompanying North American News paper Alliance story but it has its share of blue laws and enforcement problems Virginias blue laws have been on the books since wt 1779 They have never been amended Court interpreta Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinin CTSC 1 tions have exempted kiln furnaces gas stations movies i baseball games and some plants from the Sunday closing i statutes our years ago ministers and food store operators in Portsmouth and Norfolk County waged an unsuccess ful campaign for tighter enforcement of the blue laws The ministers sought stricter observance of the Sabbath the merchants curtailment of cutthroat competition Similar drives have been staged in Norfolk Since 1957 the Norfolk Retail Merchants Assn has been trying to find a means of halting the spreading practice of Sunday openings our merchants at the armers Market on Virginia Beach boulevard were indicted early this month by a Corporation Court grand jury on a charge of violating the blue laws Last year City Atty Leonard Davis said he believe the law could be made to apply to food stores (shopping center supermarkets have been a chief target York City service Station attend in the campaigns for closings) Even if state legislators ant caught washing a car is fined $5 It is even more difficult to understand why in some places baseball is legal and pro foot ball or hockey for example are not PIANOS By Baldwin Baldwin Acroionic Hardman Cable letter Betty Reu Winter ORGANS By Baldwin Orga Sonie rank Sinatra Goes Gloomy on Records HOLLYWOOD rank Sinatra must have been in a bleak mood when he selected numbers for a new' album just out from Capitol Appropriately titled One it is an unbroken procession of classic tear jerkers rankie gives each his sad dest all 11 a MUSIC CO Home Of Baldwin Pianos and Organs" 124 COLLEGE PLACE JUST GRANBY DIAL MA 5 2073 Portsmouth The Portsmouth MusleCo sell intoxicants on Sunday You can buy beer though thanks to the Louisiana Supreme Court which solemnly ruled in 1956 that beer is not an intoxicating beverage mnnfli 1R niff chnfl? radio announcers plant guards Massachustts towns of Yarmouth and Dennis disr tressed when a sudden crack down deprived them of lucrative Sunday profits took out licenses to sell candy a permitted Sun day activity (gift sales are not) The next Sunday they did a thriving business in taffy kisses at prices ranging from a few cents to $50 ashtrays hooked rugs and costlier items with each pur chase Baseball enjoys a hard won immunity to Sunday laws throughout practically the en tire country although it is dif ficult to understand why Mickey Mantle can practice his profes sion on Sunday when a New The New Baldwin Home Organ Smart Versatile Complete inest features first from Baldwin at a purse pleasing price that will delight you A new complete full size Home Organ with self contained amplification Newest for every decor You can choose from a variety of Transitional styling Perfect finishes But England source of most of our blue laws makes even Sunday in Wichita look like a wild Bacchanal and our re strictions look like models of logic According to the letter of the law an Englishman can fish on ii Sundav with a rod and reel eAii torn ii mii i i izi activity particularly gainful but not with a net he can buy i nranrl knr nnr foa inrnnarintr taa is work) actors can perform on television but not on the stage and a movie can be shown only if a clergyman is on hand to de liver a sermon half way through Of course many of these laws if enforced at all are enforced very loosely And the British areas ingenious at finding ways to get around blue laws as are we Private theater clubs which are just about as private as Radio City Music Hall present at repeai failed in the House of regular Sunday performances Commons by a vote of 281 to In Aberdeen Scotland a trav 57 eler can get drunk in a notel on Sunday afternoon but a stay at home By a sort of rule of thumb one becomes a trav eler when he is at least eight miles from home' Each Sunday therefore the roads leading out all poor nuts Eugene Now the question in a nutshell: help the goober growers but shall We also pass a bill to nourish The human crop so it will flourish? We offer plans and subsidies or everything but wisdom trees And all too frequently seen Sowing seeds of long lush green or projects from which accrued Huge harvests of ingratitude I somehow feel that civil rights Are subject to the worst of blights And need some plan or subsidy To battle bugs of bigotry Perhaps the lowly peanut would Rejoice to help the cause of Good And boil with hot and happy pride To furnish men a civil ride And (while the Georgia solons sputter) Spread wide the Word like peanut butter LARRY HIRSCH fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiinjiii iir Vlrglnlan Pilot Photo by Perry Breon Jingle Bells Rushing the season at City Hall and Granby Open Monday and riday Till 9 urniture Route 58 (Not Business Route) VIRGINIA BEACH VA GA 8 5951 (No Toll '1 US 4 1 I' VtA 2 lr li iW i I I 1 1 pc HZ aJ Za C' ZZ '4 I jBawwin) 1 SvaT jv Il II I a wT I I sn II5.