There are so many interesting things to do in life. Take
crossword puzzles for example. My family probably
wishes you would take my crossword puzzles, but that
is a discussion for another post.

I like to do crosswords because:
1) They are fun.
2) They keep your mind active.
(I read a story one time in the Reader's Digest
about a lady who took her 90 year old mother to
the doctor. The doctor insisted on talking to
the daughter rather than the 90 year old
patient. Finally the older lady became totally
exasperated and asked the doctor if he did cross-
words. "Yes, I do," he replied. She shot back a
second question. "Do you use pen or pencil?"
"Pencil," he answered. "Well, I use pen," she
said, 'You can direct your talk to me!")
3) It is a family tradition.
(My family, parents, siblings, grandparent (G. Opal),
neices/nephews etc., all do crosswords. BTW G.Opal
does do hers in pen!)

The Mayberry newspaper does not have crosswords in it, so
my parents have figured out a solution. The Mayberry library
saves all the Big City newspapers for them and they go collect
them once a week or so. Actually, they only save the Everyday
Section for them. My parents then divide the donated puzzles
into two groups, one for them and one for me. They give me
the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays and keep the Thursday-
Sundays for themselves. See, Mon.-Wed. are the three easiest
days of puzzles. They get harder as the weeks rolls by. They
are not convinced of my deep intelligence and wish to save me
from self-humiliation. They are pretty correct in this evaluation.

I have a fetish with these puzzles. I cannot put one of them on
the fire-building newspaper pile until I have totally completed
both puzzles in that paper. When I get stuck I will put that
particular one in a "stuck pile" and go back in a few weeks or
months and try to rework it. (I am getting close to the point
of this whole story; aren't you glad?)

I pulled a puzzle out of the stuck pile this week and began to
try to rework it. It is dated January 11, 2006. (So, you see,
I never give up, I told you--it is a fetish with me.) One of the
clues was "The Three Coins..." fountain. So, finally I googled
it and after digging a little, slowly coming to realize that it was
a fountain in Rome and re-Googling I came up with a name.

Trevi.

This was yesterday. This morning I was reading in the National
Geographic about Rome's underground treasures and what do
you think they mentioned? The Trevi Fountain. What a
coincidence! Isn't it odd, that I would read that months old
(July 2006 ) NG this morning?