New York Times, Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Sitting in class my third year in law school, I noticed the friend next to me solving a crossword puzzle, and I was envious. We were both bored with the lecture, but he had something else to do — something interesting, challenging and fun. I remember my mother used to work the daily puzzle from The Indianapolis Star, and I would assist her on occasion, but I really didn't get hooked until that spring morning in Bloomington, Indiana. Since that time, I have worked one puzzle a day with rare exceptions. I am addicted.

Many years ago, after completing a New York Times daily puzzle I found to be inane, I decided to create one and send it to The New York Times for publication. After waiting two weeks to receive notice of the acceptance of my masterpiece, the bad news came from former crossword puzzle editor, Eugene Maleska. My puzzle was a hopeless case. He said, "… the entries contain a plethora of esoterica. Frankly, I doubt that any crossword puzzle editor would accept such an amateurish creation." I don't know whether I was more let down by the blunt rejection letter or the fact that I had to look up the words "plethora" and "esoterica."

Eventually, I was accepted for publication in The New York Times. I loved the days when my puzzle appeared in the paper. I had to have more. I stepped up submissions to once a month. The addiction grew.

Maleska and I became friends until his death. When Will Shortz became the editor, he bundled up and returned to me six puzzles that had already been approved by Maleska for publication. I began to experience distress and dismay — withdrawal symptoms. Happily, I was able to adjust to the Shortz style and have been a regular, but not prolific contributor. It's great to be back in the Times after an absence of a few years.

Today's puzzle has a military theme. Construction was not difficult but I do regret not having room for more theme entries — "Arf" = CHOW LINE and "Bear hug" = ARMED FORCES, for example.

By the way, I lectured to a law school class a few years ago and I noticed one of the students working a crossword puzzle. Nothing's changed.

WAR GAMES today, theme answers relating to war getting kooky interpretations. I liked PRESENT ARMS as something an RN might say, although I think I've seen that before somewhere. Ah yes, Michael Dewey's puzzle from earlier this year. SHORE LEAVE was fun too, a smile-inducing "description" of an ebb tide.

Mickey sure did a nice job in those NW and SE corners. I like long fill in my crosswords. Getting both the usual long downs as well as long acrosses that don't confuse the theme? Yes, please! That NW corner is so nice, SPITBALL and LISTEN UP featured at a very low price of admission in BSA. The SE does have SSW and STS, but those are so minor. I bet there are other good possibilities for where ANAGRAMS sits, ones that don't cause the terminal SS? problem at 60D, but ANAGRAMS is such an appropriate word for a crossword.

And some constructors would go whole hog, removing the black square between ISLE and BSA and trying for a themeless-like triple stack. I'm glad Mickey didn't. I really like the balance in those two corners, getting a good amount of nice fill without having to suffer through very much glue.

Man oh man, that NE corner did me in. I gave up after ten minutes, randomly guessing the last squares. (I'm pretty sure Jay BORNEY is a person, dagnabit!) It's nice that there are two ways in (LAVALIERS and SHORE LEAVE), but LAVALIERS was a random string of letters to me. Fun word to learn when I look at it now. During my solve though, I felt like there were too many random-ish guesses, one involving that LEM author, but much more so in the ACA/CARNEY/LAVALIERS pile-up. I would have much preferred if one of those had been clued much easier; if Art CARNEY had made an appearance ACA (here, in Spanish).

Educated Americans really ought to know the Accessible Care Amendment, though. Er, the Accelerated Coverage Act. Dang it! The Affordable Care Act. (Don't worry, I had to look that up too.)

All in all, the theme felt like it didn't quite cohere for me. Maybe more consistency would have helped, i.e. each of the themers could be reinterpreted as commands? Still, a fun solving experience … aside from the frustration involved with that NE corner.