DO YOU KNOW WHAT A GADID IS?

by Sheila Connolly

I love crossword puzzles—even those elaborate punny ones—and I treat myself to the New York Times Sunday one, which usually takes me the better part of a week to finish, since I work on it only during commercials while I watch television, or during the parts of shows that are really boring, like sports reports.

Will Shortz, the all-knowing
editor of the NYT puzzles

But I hate to run out of puzzles, so the last time I was in a big bookstore I bought a compilation of 100 Sunday-size puzzles, just to keep it on hand. When I bought it I did not realize that the first few puzzles were historic: the first four date from World War Two, and then they proceed chronologically up to 1990. I guess anything after that is considered "current."

Trying to complete the early puzzles (I'm working them in order) has been challenging and interesting—and shows how much popular culture has changed over the intervening years. This is my seat-of-the-pants analysis, but so far I've made a number of observations:

--the puzzles from the war years are filled with references to geography in the Pacific and military terms, as well as some associated clues: for example, Native Hindu in the British Army, (I got that one), or Nazi submarine base in Belgium.

--there is a pervading assumption that the puzzle-doer (puzzler?) is well educated, since the clues include many references to plays from various countries, foreign languages, science, geography and history. Take spirit worshipped in Thailand, or pertaining to the armpit (huh? There's a word for that?).

--then there are the clues that completely mystify me—and there are lots of them—like arrogators (no, it's not a Japanese alligator—shame on you), or the gadids of the title.* Or hakenkreuz.

Sure, there are answers in the back of the book, and on one page the editor admits that the puzzle "may require a visit or two to an unabridged dictionary to complete." Gee, thanks. I for one believe that using a dictionary is cheating. I'm going to fill in only those words that I know or can tease out based on what other letters I've filled in. But I'll admit that gadids stumped me, so I turned to my trusty dictionary (one not much younger than the puzzle)—and it wasn't there. I had to look for it (gasp) on the Internet to find the answer, and I'm still left wondering how on earth I could have known that unless I was an ichthyologist. I ask you, is that fair?

But looking at these puzzles raised for me a bigger question: have our education and our cultural standards changed so much in the fifty-plus years since the early puzzles appeared? Or were the puzzles targeted at a rarified few who could have a hope of finishing any one of them? It appears that the creators assumed a breadth of knowledge that is, by current standards, staggering. (I feel the same way when confronted with British puzzles, where every other clue seems to be an inside joke that you will understand only if you attended Oxford or Cambridge in the 1920s.)

Or are we just getting dumber and/or more impatient? Over the past few years we have watched mobile devices proliferate—and now our communications have to be condensed into 140 words. Gone are the elegant quotations of yesteryear; language is reduced to a codes (IMO).

I wish I had statistics on who does the more complex crossword puzzles these days. They still appear in newspapers (where newspapers survive—can you do a puzzle in an on-screen version?), so someone must want them there. But even so, the clues that challenge one's mind and memory seem to be dwindling down; there are more references to television characters than to Greek gods. I know, I know—these are intended as entertainment, not a cultural pop quiz. But it still makes me sad. What we've gained in speed, we've lost in subtlety and nuance and richness in our language.

Do you enjoy crossword puzzles?






*In case you really, really want to know, according to TheFreeDictionary.com, a gadid is "A fish of the family Gadidae, which includes the cods and the hakes." And Hakenkreuz is the German word for a swastika.






.

MY ORCHARD

by Sheila Connolly

Several years ago, my agent and I were kicking around ideas for a new series. She had already seen a draft of one book I had completed but she wasn't satisfied with it, so we were trying to find a way to tweak it to make it more appealing to a publisher. I wanted to keep the setting, so I needed something appropriate to western Massachusetts. Then I said, "apples," and the rest is history.

Every house in New England in the early years had an orchard; cider, soft or hard, was a staple of life then. The house that is the heart of the Orchard series was no exception, and I have documentary evidence, in the form of a series of diaries, that refers to the whole family picking apples together (the grandparents shook the trees; the granddaughters collected the fallen apples, and the father took them into town to sell them). That orchard is long gone now, but for the book I put it back and expanded it, and now it's flourishing in its second fictional year.

I'll be the first to admit that I knew very little about orchard management, which is why my protagonist didn't either—we could learn together. I began by talking to the managers of the UMass experimental orchard in Belchertown, which is in the town adjacent to where the books are set; I also talked to real orchard managers locally, and familiarized myself with heirloom apple varieties. I even went so far as to take a state-offered course on starting a small farm, which was both informative and enjoyable.

And I planted apple trees on my minuscule property. The first was a Northern Spy, purchased in Hadley, Massachusetts. I wanted to focus on heirloom varieties because you don't see them in markets. If you're lucky you can find a few at roadside stands for a few weeks in the fall—if you happen to be in the right place at the right time, and the season is short. The Northern Spy is not the best choice for a starter apple, because they are notoriously slow to produce fruit, but I figured I was in this for the long haul.

The second tree was a Cortland—not a very old variety, but it dependably produces versatile and flavorful apples. The second year I added an Esopus Spitzenberg (said to be Thomas Jefferson's favorite variety) and a Hudson's Golden Gem (my daughter's choice). This year they were joined by a Newtown Pippin and a Roxbury Russet, both of which have a very long history in Massachusetts.

Cortlands

This year I have apples. As I learned, trees bear fruit only on second-year growth, so the two newbies will have to wait until next year. But the other four have apples! Maybe only two or three per tree (except for the Cortland, which is doing exactly as promised), but they are apples. My first crop! I feel so proud!

I believed I could not and should not write about managing an orchard without some hands-on experience. I'm still scared to prune, although I know I need to, in order to maintain the most productive shape for any tree. I am not spraying the trees (with the exception of an early spray of Safer Soap, which is in fact a soap and acceptable to organic growers, to eliminate winter moth larvae, which can strip a small tree bare of leaves in a couple of days, as happened with the Cortland once). And I am worrying about them like a mother. Are they getting enough food? Water? Is something gnawing on the leaves? Is the timing right so they will cross-pollinate (which is essential, but apparently I've got that right)? Is there anything I can do about rust?

One of the most difficult things has been the waiting. Apples ripen on their own schedule, and some of these trees (like the cranky Northern Spy) ripen as late as November. But when you have only three apples on a tree, you can't pluck them off to test for ripeness. Then came Hurricane Irene. I'll admit I wanted to stand in front of my baby trees to protect them from hurricane-force winds, but that wasn't exactly practical, so I just kept my fingers crossed and hoped.

Hurricane Irene's Harvest

And I found that apples decide when they're going to fall. For three out of the four trees, only a few dropped in the wind; the others just weren't ready. The Cortland lost the most, but it had the most to give, and there are plenty left. I snatched up the windfalls and made a large (and tasty) apple crisp.

One final note: the real house in my story retained a couple of old apple trees when I began writing the series. It's now reduced to only one, as the other fell in a spring storm a couple of years ago. I just happened to be there a few days later, in time to take cuttings, which I then grafted to the Northern Spy and the Cortland in a last-ditch effort to save some part of the old tree. Only one took, but it took well, and this year produced three apples--two of which some evil squirrel pulled off, took a quick bite (I could see the toothmarks) and left on the ground. I rescued them and ate them (all right, I cut away the bitten parts). I have no idea what variety they are, but they're part of my family history, and I hope they'll live on, both in my books and in my yard.

If you get the chance, try an heirloom apple. They haven't flown halfway around the world. In fact, they probably haven't gone more than a couple of miles when you find them at a farm stand. They may be small, or look mottled (that's normal for some varieties), but some of them taste wonderful, and if they aren't good for eating, they may make great pies. It would be a shame to lose this part of our heritage.

Hudson's Golden Gem--yes, they really are golden