“You do the New York Times crossword puzzle, don’t you?” my friend asked.
“Pretty much every week since I graduated from college,” I said.
That long?
Well . . . yes.
Don’t you?
Why the NYTimes crossword puzzle?
We lived on the East Coast for nine years.
It also was notoriously the hardest crossword puzzle during those years.
I’d trained to be a newspaper reporter, so reading the Sunday NYTimes appealed to my pride.
I’m different now. 🙂
We splurged on the Sunday paper during those years, and I finished the experience with the crossword puzzle.
Sometimes I got them all!
Most times I did not.
But my brain usually got a workout.
And I’ve always used a blue ink pen on newsprint. It just feels right, somehow.
Crossword and word puzzle fans–the NYTimes knows about you!
You don’t have to buy the paper anymore to work the daily crossword puzzle.
Puzzlers can subscribe to all the puzzles here.
I’d never played the Mini before–and did okay–but the hardest part was wrapping my brain about using a keyboard rather than a blue ink pen!
Other than the working the crossword puzzle, it appears you can play most of the puzzles on that page.
I learned all this from my friend, who actually wanted to direct me to a fascinating podcast.
Martha Stewart is a major NYTimes puzzle fan, and she interviewed the paper’s game editors Everdeen Maston and WIll Shortz.
You can hear the fun interview here.
Among the trivia discussed was the history of the NYTimes crossword puzzle–launched in 1942.
Shortz (whose puzzles I enjoy) described how he discovered Sudoku, and both editors revealed their favorite Wordle starter words.
Mason is the first editorial director of games at the paper.
Just last year, the youngest person to construct a crossword puzzle for the paper, was a 14 year-old boy from Boston.
How to make your own crossword puzzle
While some people still make their own crosswod puzzles with graph paper and pencil, like everything else, puzzle making has gone digital.
A NYTimes article explains how in a “Crossword Constructor Guide.“
Here’s one to try–anyway you like!
I made it using Amuselabs.com:
Mother’s Day with the puzzle
Those of us who like to do, at least the Sunday NYTimes Crossword puzzle, are a determined bunch.
When we lived in New England, we always stopped at the convenience store on the way home from church so I could purchase the Sunday paper.
I read through the newspaper–and enjoyed the book reviews and the New York Times Magazine–with my expectations up for the prize: working the crossword puzzle.
It was my Sunday pleasure.
I continued the tradition through several different moves, until the year my brother gave me a subscription to paper as a gift.
When we had kids in the house, even the puzzlers knew to let me work the puzzle first.
Some Sundays, I magnanimously copied it early–so they could have their own puzzle and leave mine alone.
But one Sunday long ago, my husband handed me the NYTimes, picked up the kids, and headed out the door with his puzzled visiting father in tow.
“Where are we going?” my father-in-law asked.
“It’s Mother’s Day,” my husband laughed. “We’re taking the kids to the park so she can read the paper and work the puzzle in peace.”
“She doesn’t want to spend Mother’s Day with her kids?”
My husband grinned at me. “Doing the puzzle alone is what she wants most of all.”
Well, yeah. He was right. What a lovely afternoon!
(More than once, our second child has rung the doorbell on Mother’s Day, handed me flowers, and the Sunday Times!)
He’s my puzzle-maker, and he understands.
How about you?
Crossword puzzle or another word game?
Pencil or ink?
Share or not? 🙂
Tweetables
Adventures with the Sunday crossword puzzle. Click to Tweet
The joy of the Sunday crossword puzzle. Click to Tweet
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