Robert Strupp’s Reviews > The New York Times Will Shortz's Wittiest, Wackiest Crosswords: 225 Puzzles from the Will Shortz Crossword Collection > Status Update

The first 175 pages are good large crosswords. After that the number of questions double and the size of the squares halves making them twice as difficult.

PUZZLE #122. After a 12 week break of daily filling-out crosswords, I felt the brain malaise creeping in again. Dropping keys at our front door, we have 2 different locks there, while I too often found myself trying to use the wrong key. My thoughts became unfocused and meandering. I'd move somewhere to get something, forgetting what it was. So "back to the crosswords." BTW: Pappy perished from Alzheimer's at age 81.

Puzzle #113. Took off 3 months. When my brain began fogging up once more, I began again on 4.18.2021. It burns me to stare & stare at a hint and not get it, but I know this is what, over weeks and months, births new neurons to replace those destroyed by old age, concussions, coming dementia and Alzheimer's. 24) Slash-flanking words? this one took thot A: andor 51) Fab leader? A: pre 37) Two before two? A: zero.

Puzzle 96. The puzzles aren't getting any easier. I'll go from only 6 cheats on one to 22 on the other. Some of my challenges are that I've never followed pro-sports and I don't live and never ever even want to visit, New York or NYC, where many of the clues emanate from. I've come up with some new tactics such as, on short, usually 4 letter answers, inserting every letter in the alphabet into the missing spaces.

Puzzle #73. After, what, 2 or 3 years, crosswords that I start out thinking 'This is impossible' are solved within 4 hours over two days using only a dozen or so cheats. I'm praying that this ability has developed because I'm keeping neuronal growth ahead of any normal, or abnormal, age-related death of my brain cells. And, after 3 years I've seen several of the same clues used over and over. I continue on.

Puzzle 69. Still struggling along, needing anywhere from zero (yeah!) to 24 cheats and four hours over 2 days, to complete the crossword. Perfecting my technique, but, even after years, I'm reluctant to sit and stare at empty squares in order to ferret out the missing words, even though, I believe, this is the activity which is building more neurons and connections in my brain than Alzheimer's(?) is destroying.

Puzzle #63, 'Stretching the Truth' ~ Stephanie Spadaccini. The 1st crossword in a long time that I've solved using only six (6) cheats. My readers know the reason I religiously do my c-words is to keep my brain's neuronal growth ahead of the ones being subsumed by age and, possibly, the Alzheimer's process that killed my Pappy at age 81. Months of doing them, hard ones, I believe, have improved my cognition.

On puzzle 42. Trying to spend 'only' two days on each puzzle.