It’s only words and words are all I have

To take your heart away.

~~The Bee Gees. Lyrics by Henry Priestman & Sean O’riada

[A Wordle puzzle from the N. Y. Times. Sometime in September, 2023]

If you backed away from your device while reading this post, its okay, rest assured. There is no Cholera pandemic. The last one (Covid) was hard enough. So, why the Cholera thing? I used it to grab your attention. The power of certain words is frightening. Once, while chaperoning a week-long field trip to Cape Cod in the 1980’s, I was the Person-in-Charge. We always had a teacher drive their own car in the event of an emergency. The motor coach wasn’t on site. A 7th grade girl had to make a visit to the local hospital for nothing really serious. No worries. Upon our return to the school in Stamford, CT., I was asked by an administrator if everything went without incident.

“Yeah, no problem. We just had to take a girl to the ER for Smallpox,” I said.

I had to help the admin up from the floor.

“S..S..Smallpox?” she managed to blurt out.

“Oh, sorry, I meant a flare-up of measles.”

Believe it or not, I continued to teach there for another few years. So why am I telling this to you? Its the power of words. Smallpox–Measles…for a moment they were the same to me. It may not have been measles, I just don’t recall. So, pardon my liberties with this narrative.

But, I digress.

I have been a crossword player for as long as Rome had Popes (hyperbole). When I began my teaching career in Pennsylvania in the 1970’s I lucked out with my schedules for several years in a row. My lunch period abutted a planning period which gave me more than ninety minutes to get in my MG Midget, buy a New York Times, drive across the river to Wilkes-Barre, go to a McDonald’s for a cheeseburger, fries and coffee. Armed with a sharpened #2 pencil, I would find a hidden booth and get down to work. This was my life for several years.

Before long I moved onto the harder stuff. The Sunday Times crossword. This is a notorious graveyard for word people. I’ve seen grown men reduced to tears, marriages broken, bargains made at lonely crossroads with Satan, farms mortgaged and rings pawned for the power to solve the Sunday Killer. I recall taking my daughter to Quebec City in the 1980’s. We were driving through Maine. At our campsite, after dinner and a short evening walk, she would retire to her little pup tent with a flashlight to read The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I would adjust the Coleman lantern so the light was on the picnic table. A small campfire sent a fragrant scent my way once in awhile, obeying the shifting breezes. I popped open a can of Moosehead Ale, got two #2 pencils, folded the Sunday magazine section to the puzzle and lost myself for an hour. An hour later, I sensed movement near me, beyond the glare of the Coleman. I looked up. A large, furry thing strolled between me and my daughter. It was a black bear. I froze. It passed by and vanished into the woods. I called to Erin. “We just had a bear come through”. She got back to her book. I finished the puzzle.

But not before the word BEAR resounded throughout the campground. It had been heading for the refuse cans. Lights were lit. People scurried about.

The power of one word energized the sleepy campers.

~~

Several years ago, I noticed everyone was talking about SUDOKU. I thought it was a type of sushi, which I don’t eat. When I found out that it involved numbers, I was not interested. I’m very weak in math and arithmetic (is there a difference?). But its not my fault. The nuns didn’t teach it right. (I’ve dined out on that excuse for my deficiencies more than once.)

~~

So, a short time ago I was half sitting/half lying on my bed with my surgalized right foot elevated. Helps the swelling, I was told. I stared out of my bedroom window and surveyed our patio. It was overcast, gloomy actually. The monsoon that swept through the City today had abated, a little. On Alexa, my Spotify was playing Indian Love Song by Slim Whitman. Man, that guy could yodel. My eyes fell on a paperback lying on the window shelf. It was a Crossword Dictionary. I grabbed it and leafed through a few pages. How did there get to be so many words in the English language? It was awesome. I was familiar with many of these. Who can forget EMU or GNU after you’ve spent years doing the crossword? Other words I use a lot danced before my eyes. ERICACEOUS, SALACIOUSNESS and the oft used PINNATIPARTITE. And there was one words I use nearly everyday, if not every hour…NYMPHOMANIACAL.

[The book. Photo is mine]

I should mention that I was an avid Scrabble player. Not so much the board game, but the one you get as an app. The same goes with Words With Friends. I stopped playing them for several reasons:

1–I don’t have a lot of friends.

2–I got sick of the ads. This is where I got smart. Bear with me, my readers. I got so annoyed by having to view hours of ads for online games that I would never play. Games where I get to mow down advancing Zombies with a gun that Rambo would have trouble holding. Or, waifs with a bundled baby who is thrown out in the snow by her cheating husband. And how many times should I have to click NO, or an X to indicate I’m not interested? Five clicks to convince the word-game-people that I don’t want to play Candy Crush Saga. I cried ‘Enough’! I walked away from them like a bad date. But, I came back to those two games out of boredom. The kind of boredom that creeps in at 3:00 AM. Only other insomniacs would understand. But I figured out a way to block those stupid, inane ads…I would outsmart those ads people. I would pay $3.99/month to have them removed! Am I clever or what?

~~

I lived in England for a year in the 1980’s. I used to read the Guardian newspaper every day. I tried to solve the British-style of crosswords and I failed horribly. In the last several years I tried again to conquer them…then success. It takes some getting used to, but that’s because the Brits are far better at English (and words) than we Yanks.

[Order the book if you’d like a challenge. Photo is mine.]

Now where are we? I read via Google that Wordle is the most popular word game today. I had a few friends post their results on FB. I thought it was just another fad…until I tried it. Now, of course, I can’t make it through the day without playing. Kind of like my need to watch TV commercials about Beet Nuggets and ED medication.

As I draw this blog to a dramatic cliff-hanging end…one that will make you await my next post with an eagerness beyond the desolate corners, wilderness areas, unexplored regions, secluded hideaways and uncharted realms. Wait. Just now, at the finish, I noticed a Post-It attached to the edge of my laptop. It’s a note to myself, scribbled during the night. A prompt to help me make my point. It simply reads:

Don’t say gay

What was DeSantis thinking when he made that statement? If I say that, can I be arrested?

It boggles the mind. It is without a doubt beyond doubt and veritably factually…stupid.