A crossword puzzle guide to authenticity


My high school friend's mom, a stay-at-home housewife, loved crossword puzzles.

Tattoed in my brain is the image of her sitting at her kitchen table in her bathrobe, hair in rollers, chain-smoking and drinking coffee while she worked the crossword puzzle in the newspaper -- with WCCO A.M. talk radio playing on the kitchen counter. Never did she fail to work those puzzles to completion in short order.

She never used a dictionary. She used an ink pen and without fail quickly worked even the New York Times Sunday crossword to completion. Over time she had learned all the little obscure abbreviations and "variations" ("var.") employed by the puzzle-makers.

And then come the pretend intellectuals who memorize the same tricks of the trade and try to pass their crossword puzzle skills off as intellectualism. These would be the same people who think anything on PBS must be smart entertainment.


no thanks <-- back to