WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
by Gene Royer

April 1, 2003

WONDERFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

SPRING FORWARD FALL BACK

Imagine my surprise last Sunday when I got up at my usual 3:45 am only to discover that I had jumped the gun on the seasonal time change and had set my clock forward a week ahead of time. So instead of it being 3:45, it was still only 2:45.

Undaunted by the early rising and the steady drizzle that fell, I donned my rain gear and went outside to see what everyone else was doing at this ungodly hour. Down at the donut shop, Mr Charlie Lee was busy making fresh ones and serving "day-olds" to his usual crowd of policemen, who stop by as soon as they see the lights come on.

When I walked in, he came over quickly with two stale donuts and a cup of coffee.

"Wah still goin'on in Ilack," he said with a long face, apparently not noticing that I was much earlier than usual. "CNN sound like we roosin' big
time."

Mr Lee is a Chinese, naturalized American citizen who hates liberalism and distrusts the mainstream media as much as I.

"Don't worry," I said. "News is only news when it sounds bad. If they made it sound like we were winning they would all get canned."

He nodded and walked back to cash register to greet the newspaper man who had come to swap out the leftover papers in the wire rack. I offered him .25 for a day-old Chronicle, and he took it and left.

The only reliable thing the Chronicle prints is the daily crossword; so, I borrowed a ballpoint pen from Mr Lee and went to work on it. There were the usual clues with cutesy double meanings and archaic Latin phrases; but after years of muddling through these repetitive contrivances, the answers usually pop into my mind fairly quickly.

After about ten minutes and another cup of coffee, I stopped to ponder on one clue. Mr Lee saw my furrowed brow and came by to offer help.

'S'matta?" He asked. "Can't do it?"

"I'm working on this '23 down'. What's an eight-letter word for someone who disregards the law? It starts with a 'C'."

"Crinton", he said quickly.

"Clinton has seven letters," I said. "But that's a good guess."

Mr Lee digitized the individual letters with his fingers and shrugged. "Plolly sometin' Flench," he said and walked away.

"Plolly so," I said to myself--as a dim light bulb went off above my head. I spelled out 'Chirac' on my own fingers a few times and then wrote in CRIMINAL. These puzzles are getting much too easy.

©Copyright Gene Royer Houston TX 2003