Words - May 31, 2012

WORDS.  The dictionary is full of them.  I mentioned earlier that my mother kept a

scrapbook.  She would find unusual names in the newspaper, cut them out and paste

them in her scrapbook.  She also had a fascination with words.  She could decipher the

cryptogram, no matter how hard.  I don’t think she ever missed.  I do pretty well, also,

especially if one of the letters is supplied.  Mother also liked to work the crossword

puzzles including the NY Times puzzle in the Sunday newspaper.  Now that Times

puzzle is pretty difficult especially for novices like me.  Seem like I finished one once

but that might have been wishful thinking.  I can do the daily puzzles most of the time

but my mother could zip through these in a few minutes, never missing.  There’s an

art to doing crosswords.  You have to work at it over a period of time, building up

a repertoire of words.  Crossword builders will use certain words that reoccur in later

puzzles.  It takes work to get good at it.  My mother was good.  I think I also inherited

my sense of humor from her.  One of her favorite jokes came from one of her puzzle

books.  Hope this doesn’t offend anyone but here it is:  (First Man) “How are you doing

with your crossword puzzle?”  (Second Man) “I’m almost finished but I’m hung up on

48-down ‘Substance on the bottom of a bird cage’” (First Man) “Oh!  That’s an easy

one:  Grit”  (Second Man)  “Of course.  Say, do you have a pencil with an eraser?”

My mother also loved to read.  She liked mystery stories best and so do I.  I guess you could say I inherited the love of reading from her.  My favorite as a boy was the Perry

Mason stories by Erle Stanley Gardner.  I still have several paperbacks that I intend

to read again when I have time.  Or as my dad would say “some of these days.”  I

recently visited the local library and checked out the thriller trilogy written by an author

from Sweden.  They all began “The girl with (or who)………..”  They were on the

NY Times best seller list for several months so I decided to give them a try and they

were pretty good except for the overage of four-letter words that didn’t add to the

story line at all.  The pendulum has swung a long way to the left since Clark Gable

spoke the famous line in the 1939 movie “Gone With the Wind.”  He said, “Frankly,

Scarlett, I don’t give a d…”  Startled everyone.  What a difference a few years makes.

The new book, Calico Joe, has been out a few weeks.  I have read most of the books

that the author has written.  Shows you that you can be a successful writer without

relying on objectionable words to attract a reader.  Not necessarily true with the movie

adaptations of his writings.  The first movie of one of his works was about a law firm

in Memphis, Tennessee.  This was the book that made him famous and was a great

story.  I could hardly wait to see the movie.  One of the characters was the chief of

security of this law firm, a dark sinister individual and was portrayed on the screen

by the grandfatherly guy who pushed Quaker Oatmeal and diabetic supplies on TV.

In one of the movie scenes, Winfred dropped the F-bomb.  You could have knocked

me out of my cushioned seat with a feather.  I almost spilled all of my large tub of

double-buttered popcorn.  Worst case of casting for a movie that I ever saw.

I guess I’m old fashioned but I don’t believe movie makers have to use such bad

words in order to sell more tickets to their shows.  I may have more to say on this

subject, but I’m about out of space so I will save it until later.  Until then, this is

Rambling Reed, opinionating from the Queen City of the Ozarks, Calico Rock, AR