Having a blog, I think I have told it all, but maybe not everything. One thing I rarely discuss is my love of word puzzles: Syllacrostics, Codewords, and Brick by Brick. I do enjoy crossword puzzles, but I prefer puzzles that require me to know definitions and authors of quotes. I am much better at the word puzzles because, like the typical arrogant American who doesn’t think they need to know the rest of the world, I am not good at geography. I don’t know the name of a seaport in Saskatchewan or the name of Russian ambassadors during World War II. I can’t tell you where some European countries are on the map, much less know the names of their rivers and capitals.
My mother, who didn’t graduate from high school, worked on crosswords in books and newspapers in ink, and she never had a splotch. I think what she could have accomplished if she had been born in the middle of the twentieth century. She was smart as a whip and a single mother working dead-end jobs. But I envied her skills as a crossword puzzle guru. Even today, when I complete the word games, I write “Fantastic” or “Great” if I get through without an error, using a pen, like Mama, and not a pencil. Using the pen reminds me of my mother and connects me with her. She passed away when I was age 36 and she was 56. I miss her a lot, even though she was a quiet person who didn’t really communicate with her two daughters.
She drank her alcohol and completed her crossword puzzles until the time for her to go to work. Our hometown paper had the crossword and a jumble crossword, and I often tried to get the paper before her and fill out the Jumble. But I never touched the crossword puzzle. That was her domain, but in our mutual love of words, I found a sense of connection with her that was otherwise missing.
I think my love of word puzzles, which my youngest daughter says demonstrates that I make fun hard work, stems from my deep anguish at not knowing my mother and why she had to drink every day to survive in the world. They are my way of sharing her world. I recently bought six of the new Giant Book Puzzles from Penny Dell Puzzles with 562 pages! I must have another ten or twelve Codewords, ten or more Brick by Bricks, and the ten or more Syllacrostics that came this week. My husband thinks I have enough for the year, but he doesn’t know how fast I go through them. Also, I am a sucker for every deal from Penny Dell. I really must learn to say no to their advertisements!
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