Was Roger physically handicapped?
Yes, it’s Roger Sharpe.
Pinball was considered a gambling machine and Sharpe was paid to come in and demonstrate his skill in the game. He called his shot and then followed it up by doing exactly what he said. When they saw that, the council immediately realized it was a game of skill and legalized them.
Moe owned a tree cutting business. One day a customer came with a strange request. He wanted Moe to cut down several large trees on his property, but * this is important, he wanted to make sure all the trees fell in an east-west direction, and not north to south. Moe completed this job and over the next several months he received similar jobs from people all over the region; all with the same unusual request. East/west, not north/south. After a few months of doing a lot of this service for multiple clients, this type of job dwindled and went away. Moe was back to doing his normal cutting. So why did he have this sudden business spurt in east/west tree felling?*
Did he leave the trees as they were, or did he dispose of them immediately?
Is the time the story takes place relevant?
Was Moe an inusual woodcutter in some way?
Are property lines relevant?
Is an easement of some sort (such as for a road or power lines) relevant?
Are prevailing winds relevant?
Is a geographical feature (such as a ridgeline or river) relevant?
Would it have been fine with the customers if all of the trees fell eastward?
Would it have been fine with the customers if all of the trees fell westward?
Would it have been fine with the customers if Moe decided randomly for each tree whether to fell it eastward or westward?
If circumstances had been only slightly different, would Moe have instead gotten requests to fell trees only in a north-south direction?
reply to Go_Arachnid_Laser
Did he leave the trees as they were Yes, or did he dispose of them immediately? No
Is the time the story takes place relevant? Yes
Was Moe an inusual woodcutter in some way? No
Was it wartime?
reply to Chronos:
Are property lines relevant? No
Is an easement of some sort (such as for a road or power lines) relevant? No
Are prevailing winds relevant? No
Is a geographical feature (such as a ridgeline or river) relevant? Yes
Would it have been fine with the customers if all of the trees fell eastward? Yes*
Would it have been fine with the customers if all of the trees fell westward? Yes*
Would it have been fine with the customers if Moe decided randomly for each tree whether to fell it eastward or westward? Yes*
*** Sometimes I am sure it would not have been OK. For instance if the tree would have fallen on a house by going in a certain direction, that would probably not have been acceptable. It is also likely that some customers wanted trees to go a certain way for other specific reasons. But in general it is not important.**
No.
No.
Is the time of the year relevant?
Is the specific year relevant?
Is there a river near the houses?
reply to Go_Arachnid_Laser
Is the time of the year relevant? Yes, we are talking about a specific time period, though the time of year is not relevant any more than that.
Is the specific year relevant? Yes, see above. This happened during a fairly specific time
Is there a river near the houses? Yes
Did the river run entirely east-west in the region in question?
Did the river run entirely north-south in the region in question?
Was it desirable for trees to fall into the river?
Was it desirable for trees to not fall into the river?
Is there any relevant geographical feature other than the river?
Is the river a relevant geographical feature?
Is the motion of the Sun through the sky relevant?
Is the Earth’s magnetic field relevant?
Were the trees supposed to help prevent flooding?
If one of the customers had instead had a tree cut in a north-south direction, would that have been in violation of any human-made law?
Is the species of the trees relevant?
Is the position of any man-made structure(s) relevant?
reply to Chronos:
Did the river run entirely east-west in the region in question? **No **
Did the river run entirely north-south in the region in question? **Yes, pretty much for the most part **
Was it desirable for trees to fall into the river? **No **
Was it desirable for trees to not fall into the river? **Yes **
Is there any relevant geographical feature other than the river? **Yes **
Is the river a relevant geographical feature? **Not especially **
Is the motion of the Sun through the sky relevant? **No more than usual 
**
Is the Earth’s magnetic field relevant? **See above **
**No **
**No to all **
Were the trees cut down because it was inconvenient/annoying/troublesome/whatever for them to be in the locations where they were?
Were the trees cut down to harvest some resource (such as wood) from them?