Crosswords

Years ago I did the crossword puzzle every day. Well, every day but Saturday. I never could do Saturday’s puzzle. My big puzzle day was Sunday — I would fold the newspaper just right, then clip it to a clipboard so that I could work on it where ever I was. And I did. I’d work on it all day long. I grew quite a collection of crossword puzzle dictionaries, of which I still have.

I had a system, which I followed. I always went in number order, across first, then down, crossing off the numbers as I filled in the words. I had to be completely stuck before I made the puzzle a group effort. And if I made you a part of the group effort, you needed to follow my system, or I’d take my puzzle away.

I don’t know why I stopped doing the crossword puzzle. Since my husband works for the newspaper I’ve had a steady supply of papers, yet there came a time when I just stopped. I don’t even recall what became of my crossword puzzle clipboard. But I still have all the dictionaries, which sit on a shelf with my husband’s vast collection of dictionaries and some alphabetic world history book that is huge and was very handy prior to this thing called the internet. (more on that book another time)

This past Sunday I made the decision that I was going to do the crossword puzzle again, every single stinking day. And so far I’ve done pretty good. I finished all four days, Monday through Thursday. Both yesterday and today I completed close to 90% of the puzzle before I needed to look anything up. That’s not too bad. I’ve still got it. But, will I have it on Sunday? We’ll see.