THE RECORD HEAT : Note: It Was Hot All Over County : The Weather Service Chooses to Ignore North Portion, Which Also Was Sizzling

Orange County’s third day of record-breaking heat settled heavily on the La-Z-Boy recliner-chair store in Anaheim and Lee Buoy, assistant manager.

“The last 3 days haven’t been too hot because of the heat,” Bouy said, surveying a vast store free of customers. Naugahyde moves slowly when the mercury tops 100 degrees, he said. But his spirits lifted gradually Thursday as the second of the store’s three air conditioners finally kicked into operation.

Gazing out the window across the shimmering asphalt of South State College Boulevard at a chiropractor-Laundromat-motorcycle accessories mini-mall, Bouy, 24, sighed: “I had a customer struggle in here who said it was 102 degrees in the shade. Now with the air on again, at least it’s heaven in here.”

But chocolate chip cookies could be baking on Anaheim sidewalks and the nation’s official temperature-taker, the National Weather Service, wouldn’t know it. Because in Orange County, the NWS looks only to Santa Ana, Newport Beach, El Toro and San Juan Capistrano for its federal highs and lows. (The National Weather Service does collect hourly readings during daytime hours at Fullerton Municipal Airport, but not a daytime high or overnight low.)

Yes, big government overlooks an area where the mercury may be sky-high. Cars overheat in the north county, too.

If someone official had bothered to check with Anaheim, for example, they would know that the city’s high of 107 degrees Thursday beat out both Fullerton (104) and Santa Ana (102), according to Ray Merchant, spokesman for Anaheim’s Public Utilities Department.

Electricity demand also jumped to a historic April peak, Merchant said.

In Fullerton, Art Deluca, John Maize and Scott Kunhort perched precariously atop a 50-foot-tall cage and painted trim on a new shopping mall. Asked how the weather was up there, they hollered down that it was hot, but great for their tans.

Unofficially, the high recorded in Fullerton was 104 degrees at the airport, down two ticks from Wednesday, Jim Brunner, city administrative assistant, said.

Brunner said he wouldn’t want any official forecasts, anyway. “I listened to the weatherman a couple of days ago and he said it would be 89,” Brunner said. “It was 102. Never again will I listen to a weatherman.”

“I don’t need a forecaster to tell me the temperature,” said Bill Higgins, Brea’s maintenance manager. “I’ve got 50 guys who tell me and the thermometer on the wall.”

Just in case the feds are curious, Brea scorched Thursday, recording a high of 106, Higgins said. He called his workers in early to escape the heat. “When it gets like this, we usually have them come in and clean trucks,” he explained.

Over at the Center of the Southland--the official city motto of Buena Park--it was cooking outside the Buena Park Mall.

Inside, Bobbie Fox, owner of the Canyon Smoke Shop, set her walk-in cigar humidor at 76-degree temperature and 58% humidity to protect the fragile stogies.

“We keep it pretty cool in this section,” she said, waving a cigarette in her left hand. “Cigars will just all fall to pieces if it’s dry.”

Although she lives just a few hundred feet away from her shop, Fox drove to work Thursday in her air-conditioned car. “Are you kidding--walk over in this heat?” she exclaimed.

Across town, at the Movieland Wax Museum, 246 wax figures of Hollywood’s greatest stars stood safely inside the air-conditioned walls.

“You want to know if they’re dropping like flies at the wax museum?” asked a laughing David Robert Cellitti, resident sculptor.

No, he said; all his creations from Mary Pickford to Michael Jackson looking his baddest were faring just fine. “It takes 160 degrees for us to pour the wax,” he said. “So even if the air conditioning is out, our figures are not in immediate danger.”

At a stoplight in Fullerton, three teen-agers with shirts off, windows down and a non-functioning air conditioner were taking a black Labrador puppy to the veterinarian for shots. Many of their classmates had fled hours earlier to the beach, ditching school.

John Musgrave, 18, of Anaheim, the driver, complained: “Half the classes at school today were without air conditioning. We were all sitting there kicking back with the teachers. They weren’t doing much work either.”

As the afternoon wore down at the La-Z-Boy store in Anaheim, the affable and easygoing Lee Bouy perked up as a couple walked in. Customers! “They’re coming in, sure but slow,” he said.

Bouy was, after all, an Employee of the Year in 1988. Sitting around all day in a La-Z-Boy isn’t for him. Although, he confided, “I can safely say I have sat in all of them, yes.”

Bouy is a true reclining professional, even at home: “I get plenty of sleep, no matter how hot it is.”