This newspaper was so rarely (if ever) printed that only one copy of its mastiff was obtainable, and is shown here:

A few of the articles are 'reprinted' here in the interest of historical inaccuracy.

TESTIMONIALS: *** "We always carry the Ogstone Blob with us when we're traveling. That way, we won't forget where we're from." *** "Our cousin Harry was so glad we sent him a subscription to the Ogstone Blob. He says that without it he would never have known that we have a hippopotamus, because we never mentioned it." *** "The Ogstone Blob is SUCH a great newspaper. Our dog just loves it."

Ogstone was a little town so far out of the ordinary that nothing ordinary happened there at all. In fact, ordinarily nothing happened. So they couldn't print what was happening in the papers and since they had to have

SOMETHING to put in the newspaper (nobody wants to buy a blank newspaper, or to try to do the crossword puzzle without any clues), they put in what happened, if anyone could remember that far back. The last time something happened, it was a fracas over what the police SHOULD have done versus what they MIGHT have done. You might wonder why they have police in a town where nothing happens... Well, they get more government money that way. The original article was headed, "Assault with an odorly weapon", and we've included that material here, along with plenty of background and/or extraneous material we thought would prop the story up: It started with a routine nightly patrol down along Coon Creek, where the road ends going out of town next to the railroad. The officer driving saw something ahead, and slowed down. Whether they were in a hurry we don't know, even though that would be a rarity; but a skunk was in the middle of the road straight ahead and facing away from them, and since it didn't seem to be concerned about the fact that it was blocking the road, the driver turned on the flashers and the siren. One would suppose he thought the skunk would be startled and run off like a rabbit would. Well, skunks don't think that way; at least in terms of quickly scampering off to safety. And flight to avoid prosecution isn't going to help in bringing charges against an offender when they resist arrest the way skunks do. So, naturally, a skunk will raise its tail... And that brings us to mention of the crux of a legal dilemma so extraordinary that Ogstone finally had something to put in the paper. The issue of whether the skunk should have been charged dealt firstly with the 'causus probabili' which the police maintained they did indeed have. They argued that they had probable cause because the chief had said, first thing when he arrived the next morning, that a skunk "probably caused" the smell of the patrol car, even though affidavits had not yet been sworn by the officers on duty. The Chief also said that the smell had "assaulted" his senses, and since skunks don't usually spray like that unless they're "aggravated", he said he would confer with the District Attorney to find out what charges would properly be proferred in the case, given that the offender was a "real animal". The Chief called Judge Whappenen, first thing, and asked who should try the case. J.W. said that they would definitely need a Distinct Attorney to prepare the case, and a Distinct Justice to try it, but he didn't know which one, and would send over a list of Justices and let them decide which to bring the case to. The Chief consulted the Uniform Code of Criminal Conduct, and couldn't find what he needed. Then he did an Internet search for "Animals and the Law", but all he could find were voters' rights issues and articles dealing with Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig; none of which mentioned any statutes applicable to skunk behavior. The only material he could find that was even remotely relevant dealt with the age-old question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?", and, of course, the Ogstone Blob was able to obtain the original source material and quote it, in the paper, in full: "Why did the chicken cross the road?" This is an age-old question, and one which is so commonplace that we decided to inquire into its history and origins. As to where and how it originated, the only serious answer we could get was from the police. Everybody else thought it was some kind of a joke. The police said that, in certain serious criminal affairs, a motive must be established before a case is brought before the court. It may not be sufficient to have the testimony of an eyewitness who can testify to having witnessed the commission of the crime, because the charges might depend on the degree of aggravation of the offense as well as on whether or not the crime was committed in connection with other offenses. One thing IS certain, however. A chicken will ALWAYS cross the road for the purpose of

committing a crime. And the intent to disrupt traffic is often itself the motive for perpetrating the crossing itself, as is evidenced by the chicken's choice of WHEN to cross; i.e., when a vehicle is approaching. The police said there is a famous case where a gang of chickens was going across a road to steal golf balls from a golf course, and taking them back to the farm; and for a long time the case could not be prosecuted because the police couldn't figure out where they were hiding them. The obvious place would have been in the henhouse, underneath the hens; but after executing several search warrants and finding none, they had to give it up and rethink their consensus on the precepts of the case. No golf balls, no conviction for theft. Their first suspect in the case was a man who claimed to work as an exterior decorator, who had been doing some painting for the farmer. He had originally fallen under suspicion because he was not painting a cow on the side of a barn there, as the police thought he should have been doing. But the farmer vouched for the man and said that, indeed, he did hire the fellow to paint a barn on the side of a cow. But, after that, the list of suspects grew thin; and finally, only the cows remained on it. One of them had gone over to the golf course on a number of occasions, and had been caught on the green one day, with her head cocked to one side, staring intently down into the cup, where there was a golf ball which someone had left behind. When the farmer explained that cows are afraid to death of mice, and will stand in a field all day, staring down into a hole that has field mice in it, the police had to concede that the cow was probably not committing a major crime, other than the trespassing it would have been committing if the farmer had not owned the golf course. The detective still was not satisfied, and he decided to stake out the henhouse, which sat on a hillside where he could observe it with binoculars from a distance without tipping off the chickens. For six weeks, he sat there every day, until the day came when the police served their last search warrant. After the search was over, he was still there. And within an hour or so, he noticed a few golf balls had rolled out from beneath the edge of the henhouse and were lazily making their way down the hill. But he knew there was no room for the hens to get beneath there, and he had already seen two officers shining their flashlights underneath there and carefully and thoroughly examining every square inch of dirt there. Right then, he figured the department must have gotten the goods on those chickens, because it was obvious that there were indeed golf balls on the premises. So he left his stakeout and went downtown to see what evidence they had collected. The police hadn't found ANYTHING. Nothing that even looked like a golf ball. And when the detective went back to bring in one of the ones he had seen roll out from under the henhouse, he couldn't find even one. But the judge wouldn't send the squad out there again. Eight times was enough, even for such determined criminals as they all knew those chickens were. The detective could spend all day and night looking, if he wanted, because the farmer said that was o.k., but no more searches. And the detective DID spend all night and day trying to find even one golf ball on that hill, and couldn't. He kept on looking so long, that by the time the sun went down, the farmer's wife had brought him three meals, and a packed lunch in case he kept a vigil that night. And by the time he finally admitted defeat and sat

down a good distance from the henhouse, on a tree stump, it was after midnight. He sat there musing for a good four hours, wondering how a bunch of chickens could have beaten him when NOBODY else ever had. And he was so lost in thought that a fox with a bunch of golf balls in his mouth walked right by him, just as it was beginning to get light, and for a few seconds neither of them paid any heed to the presence of the other. The instant he realized the fox had golf balls in his mouth, the fox realized he was sitting there. And that fox was gone so fast he was invisible by the time the detective had turned his head to look at him. He got up and walked up toward the henhouse. The least he could do was to see if the fox had stolen any chickens. And when he shone his flashlight in the window, it happened to shine right on a hen which had arisen and started to push a golf ball from its nest the moment he turned the light on. The golf ball fell down between the floorboards, which were widely spaced to hinder animals that might get in there after the chickens, and he heard it hit the dirt underneath them. He bent down, and shone his light under the floor. There were dozens of snakes under there. The detective had barely a chance to witness a snake swallowing the golf ball before a dozen or more started toward him, obviously meaning to defend their territory against intruders. He took off running about as fast as he could without stepping in a hole or running into a tree. He went home to get a few hours of sleep, deciding to do a background check on that old fox as soon as he could manage it. He decided to go first to either the Hunting And Fishing Club or the Fishing And Hunting Club because they were right across from each other, and the Hunting Or Fishing Club was on the other side of town. The fellows at the latter club weren't real experts like the guys who belonged to the first two; and they didn't have to be able to hunt AND fish at the same time to be members over there. The real experts belonged to both clubs, and most of them could not only hunt while they were fishing, but they could also fish while they hunted. When he finally made it over there after supper, they didn't want to let him in. He wasn't a member, and they already had read about the case he was working on, and told him, flat out, that none of them hunted chickens. So he went over to the Hunting Or Fishing Club and sat around. They didn't care whether you hunted OR fished, as long as you knew the difference. The guys in there were all sitting around making jokes about the Hunting And Fishing Club people making lures for fly fishing and bragging about how, when they're tying flies, "none of them ever get away," and saying they're such good fishermen that when they go fishing, "the fish'll be just jumping out of the water, already filleted." They were laughing it up, too, about the guy who wanted a good 'bass boat' but couldn't afford to spend the kind of money the companies wanted; and when he finally found a good price on one, it turned out to be a huge green rubber raft shaped like a rock bass; but he bought it anyway just so he could say he had a 'bass boat'. They said they'd even seen those people fishing on the golf course, and playing golf in the woods. That was all the detective needed to hear. He figured he had it all figured out. He went and called the Game Warden and told him part of the story, but

was interrupted. "This is the Card Game Warden's office," the man said, "You need to talk to the Golf Game Warden." The Golf Game Warden wasn't sure he could help him. "We're in charge of making sure you don't play golf in the woods out of season; like during the winter. And we also enforce regulations against playing golf in the woods during hunting season, unless you're within fifty yards of a golf course, of course." "Well, I saw a fox running past with a mouth full of golf balls, this morning; and the golf balls we know were stolen by some chickens from a golf course," the detective told him, "And I wondered what you'd have to say about it. Could this fox be selling golf balls to poachers, do you think?" "Oh, I don't see how poachers would have much need for golf balls. But I think I know what fox you're talking about. And I think your best bet is to contact the office of the Justice of the Geese, because they had a stalking and harassment case going against that fox not long ago, and they pretty well got him figured out." So he called the J.G. and asked about that fox. They said he was wanted for trying to extort a flock of geese with the intention of forcing them to give him some golf balls. But they'd already had four or five hunting parties out after him to bring him in, dead or barely alive, and all of them had been fired because they were playing golf in the woods instead of hunting. "Well, why do you suppose they were doing that?" the detective asked. "Well, whenever hunters see a golf ball in the woods, they experience an overwhelming urge to go home and get their golf clubs and come back and play a round of golf. We've never figured out why this sudden impulse strikes them; we just know it happens to all of them, and apparently none of them can resist it, no matter how avid a hunter they are," the clerk said. "So, you suppose it should be fairly common knowledge, that hunters suffer from severe golf addiction?" the detective queried. "Well, that's hard to say. We weren't really even aware of it ourselves until we had to fire these bounty hunters over it." "You don't suppose they were corrupted somehow, by the lure of golf, and fell into trafficking in golf balls with this fox, do you?" the detective asked. "Oh, no! That's out of the question. All of these men were innocent and had no criminal intent. They just happened to see a golf ball lying in the woods and couldn't resist the urge to play a game of golf with it; that's all," the clerk said. The detective knew right then that he really had the goods on this old fox. He must have been rolling those golf balls out in front of hunters to save his own skin, and was probably terrorizing those chickens if they didn't cough up some for him when he came over to that henhouse. So he went in to the office and filed an affidavit of Causus Probabili Ab Initio with the Justice of the Tees (which handles all golf cases other than putting), which enumerated the precepts of the case and controverted all but the dimmest shadows of doubt concerning the culpability of the fox (named as John Dough in the papers of indictment) in the crime of "Loitering in a public place (State Game Lands property) for the purpose of interfering in the business of lawful actions undertaken by hunters using said property as provided for by the rules and regulations of the State Game Commission". But he couldn't charge the fox with entrapment, which is only applicable in

sand traps, and had to settle for enteement, which applies to all areas in which teeing off is done. Although he was dissatisfied with being unable to charge him with resisting arrest, it was still evident that flight to avoid prosecution would have to be added to the charges; so he was content with the fact that he had solved the case and provided enough corroborative testimony so that the police department would be able to stop the theft of the golf balls and halt the continuing criminal enterprise which was behind it. The Ogstone Blob was able to determine that the old fox was never prosecuted, nor caught; and that information was provided by the detective, who never gave up on a case. He retired about sixteen years after filing in the case, and decided to track that fox down if he could, even if he couldn't have him arrested any longer. He found out that the fox had moved several miles away to the site of an old mine, and had dug himself a den underneath the shack where the dynamite was stored, probably knowing full well nobody was likely to do any shooting around there. And by the time the detective located him, he was presumed dead, although there were rumours that he had taken to running off to the trading post where furs were bought and sold and had feigned death among the cadavers there a few times in order to avoid capture. So the detective gave up, and went home and sat there doing nothing (except for granting interviews to the press) until the day he died. When the Ogstone Blob interviewed the Ogstone police chief, Sgt. Ray O'Heat, he told us that he's working on a conspiracy theory to explain what's happening here with this skunk business. He says the old fox is reported to have gone out to Hollywood and passed himself off as the Twentieth-Century Fox-Terrier; and that him and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Lion are in cahoots with the Universal Rundle in some widespread conspiracy to undermine Lawn Order in this country, which is a major threat since people have taken to imitating groundhogs and moles and are burrowing into their lawns and hiding out where the chemicals in the air from anti-static laundry dryer inserts can't get them. Chief O'Heat feels that the only solution is going to be to get rid of all the places where burrows can be made, and if we can just cement everything over (except for gold courses, of course) then we can protect the country from a major disaster. We don't know if that's the best solution; but the Chief says, "you know the old saying that when the cat's away the mice won't pay?" He said you have to get tough with those felines and such; and have some place to put them like a prison farm for those chickens who stole all those golf balls. He says bringing the skunk case before the District Badgerstrate is the only way, because he is the only one around who can make a badger go straight; and they figure skunks will have to turn their lives around and show a fully Distinct improvement, too. We do know that, so far, the skunk has not been charged, or arrested, because the Public Defender maintains that the officers' act of turning on the lights and siren when they saw the skunk was the wrong thing to do, and that the skunk was fully within his rights as a skunk to react to it as he did. We did speak with the Distinct Attorney, and he says that he has had to have been completely Distinct several times before because of this skunk, but remaining Distinct is part of his job; and it's "all in a day's work". The Chief said that he was actually glad the incident happened, because with so little going on around here, the Police Department has to read the newspaper to find out if anything's going on. He wishes we wouldn't print the same thing every issue; but we can't help it. If there's no new news, there's no new news; and that's it. At some newspapers, they employ Old Newsies; and at others they employ New Newsies; and since the two factions don't get along very well, the papers tend to stick with one or the other. And, of course, we know what's big around here, and just go along with it. Our founder, Mr. Cannon Willoughby, is a native of Old New Zealand; and won't budge on the hiring issue until they rename his homeland New New Zealand (or, so he says!), and the rest of the Ogstone Blob's staff has to follow suit.