One day I was thinking of going to a Shakespeare talk at EPOCH in Norton. I have a 90-year-old friend who lives there (who's probably more up on everything than I am) and I planned to call her to see if she will be there so we can sit together. I didn't know if she was a Shakespeare buff like I am, but she may have decided to go to the talk, anyway. Five minutes later the clue in my crossword puzzle was "enthusiast" and the answer that fit was BUFF! How often do I ever use that word? I'm sure I've never seen it before in my puzzles.

Agatha Christie, one of my favorite mystery writers, once said, "One of the oddest things in life, as we all know, is the way that when you have heard a thing mentioned, within 24 hours you nearly always come across it again."

That happens all the time when I am doing my crossword puzzles, as shown above and also the following:

CLUE - Movie hero John (WAYNE). Our minister had just mentioned John Wayne in his sermon that morning.

CLUE - Revenge is a ----------
best served cold (DISH). This saying was new, and not understood, by me. I finally got the answer by other words around it. The next day I heard the saying on TV! CLUE - Actress Rowlands (GENA). A new parishioner and I had just exchanged our names with each other and I hoped I'd remember hers - Gina or Gena - as I'm not too good at remembering names any more. The first answer in a crossword puzzle that day was GENA. I'll remember it now for sure.

CLUE, forgotten now, made me say to myself, because of a couple of letters already in the puzzle, AMY GRANT. Now where did that come from? I didn't even know I knew her. It fit and was right when the puzzle was finished. The next day, The View had her on as a singing guest. Loved her!

CLUE - Coin in a loafer. (PENNY.) It was in an early evening puzzle. Later I was reading a mystery novel, ironically one with crossword clues, and it concerned a penny loafer.

Yes, there actually are modern mystery novels that incorporate crossword puzzles in them. One author has a related puzzle to fill in after reading the book; another has readers do puzzles as we read along, to help us (maybe) decide on the solution of the mystery. Talk about combining two of my at-home pastimes! Life is good, even if these books are not my favorites. For anyone interested, the authors' names are Parnell Hall and Nero Blanc.

I was listening to a Tanya Tucker song, with A Field of Stone in the title. Just as she sang the word stone, I was writing STONES in a puzzle. Weird.

Answers I know immediately:

CLUE - Skater's jump. (AXEL.) My father's name was Axel.

CLUE - Thomas --------- Edison (ALVA) My aunt's name was Alva.

Answers that my generation will know right away:

CLUE - Borden's animal (EL---). (ELSIE). CLUE - WWII Battle site. (--- JIMA). (IWO).

CLUE - Lucy's friend. (--HEL). (ETHEL).

WHAT? (Even after looking up the answer.)

CLUE - Many not ands. (ORS).

Surprising, and creative, clues:

CLUE - Stick in the fridge (BUTTER).

CLUE - Fly catcher. (MITT).

BETTY STEVENSON is a community columnist. Her commentary appears every other Monday.