I’m a huge lover of crossword puzzles. I became addicted from a very early age, 1950, when I sat watching my father curse and swear at the kitchen table when he couldn’t find a word he needed. Throughout my life I continued my interest and it has culminated in the current game Words with Friends, an online game. My better-half and I have been crazy for that game for more than 13 years with no end in sight. I’ve played hundreds of players and thousands of games and it’s been great fun and frustrating as crossword puzzles tend to be. Just recently I decided to do a little investigation into the history of crosswords. If you are a crossword addict then you might find this interesting. Here’s what I’ve discovered.
The game word-cross first appeared in December of 1913. Three weeks after the first puzzle appeared in the New York World newspaper, a type setter accidently reversed the name from “word-cross” to “cross word”. That newspaper folded in 1931 but by then dozens of newspapers constructed and ran their own weekly puzzles. By the early 1920’s, crosswords were popular in Great Britain, Germany, France, and Russia. In 1924, two New York entrepreneurs saw an opportunity. The story is told that Richard Simon’s aunt asked her nephew to find her a book of crossword puzzles. He couldn’t find one, so he started a company in partnership with Max Schuster and published the first crossword puzzle book. Americans then went crossword crazy. Simon & Schuster reprinted the book and sold more than a quarter-million copies in the first year, and their upstart company is now one of the largest publishing houses in the world.
My thanks goes out to the Hasbro Company and Zynga for keeping the interest in crosswords alive and well in both board games and a huge on-line presence.
Over the years I’ve read on a number of occasions about people with addictive personalities. These are people who are drawn to addictive behavior and activities for some unknown reason and can’t ever stop being addicted to something. I’ve finally decided to admit that I may be one of them.
My first major addiction started when I was just turning twelve years of age. Both of my parents were smokers and so were my grandparents. This was before anyone was aware of the dangers of smoking and we all thought it was pretty cool. Most of my friends smoked as well and we spent more time stealing cigarettes from our families than we did actually smoking them. I was so good at taking their cigarettes they never had a clue. It wasn’t until many years later that I told them about it and we all had a laugh or two. It was either steal from them or take a chance of being caught shoplifting in a store.
There was and still is a price to pay for such behavior and I soon found out what karma was all about. My best friend at the time was my partner in crime and karma reared it’s ugly head in the following incident we were involved in. It occurred at our elementary school where we accidentally started a fire in a nearby field while sneaking a cigarette that burned that field just prior to the annual Easter egg hunt. Lots of fried eggs, firemen, and police officers are all I remember about that day. Karma can be a real bitch.
Marijuana was next on my list and I did my best to smoke as much of it as possible over a five year period. I slowly weaned myself from both marijuana and cigarettes and finally kicked both nasty habits. I dabbled with alcohol as well a for a while but I could never get into the projectile vomiting thing.
After cleaning up my act I fell into two new addictions which I still have to this day. I’m John and I’m a chocoholic and caffeine addict. I just can’t stay away from these wonderful things and I promise I never will. Unfortunately it may require that I be buried with a bag of Hersey kisses and a hot cup of Hazelnut coffee. I won’t even get into my bacon issues which are even worse. It seems like every addiction I’ve ever had has been bad for me and that pisses me off. Why can’t I find a really healthy addiction?
My latest and possibly most boring addiction won’t kill me but it does irritate and annoy me. It’s called Words With Friends, a computerized take off of the old Scrabble game and is played on Smart Phones and Tablets.
I’ve tried on a number of occasions to quit but I keep getting pulled back into it by my friends and family members. It’s maddening at times because it requires that I respond in a reasonable fashion to their game play. There have been times that I’ve had as many as ten games going on at the same time and at that point it becomes more of a chore than fun. I want to stop but the ever present peer pressure to continue is there and plays heavily on my competitiveness. It becomes even more ridiculous when friends and family members become upset with me if I decline to play or if don’t do an immediate rematch.
I need to find a new addiction and fast. I’ve never been addicted to sex like some people but I could easily be pulled in that direction. Even that seems like too much work if you think about it. I want a lazier addiction that I can enjoy without it becoming strenuous.
I’m being forced to continue my never-ending search but in the meantime does anyone out there know a good four letter word that contains a "Q", an "X", and a "J"?
Where’s that twelve step program when you need one?
