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The Scales, zodiacally / MON 9-28-26 / Store, as ashes / ___ Guofeng, successor of Mao Zedong / Tropical tree whose product is sometimes used as a meat substitute / Coconut Girl Scout cookies / City NE of Oklahoma City
Monday, September 28, 2026
Constructor: Helen Chen
Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (solved Downs-only)
 |
| [67A: Kylo ___ of "Star Wars"] |
Theme answers:
- BOMBSHELL (18A: Complete shocker)
- TATER TOTS (27A: Alternative to French fries)
- BLAST ZONE (46A: Detonation region)
- JACKFRUIT (60A: Tropical tree whose product is sometimes used as a meat substitute)
Hua Guofeng (born Su Zhu (苏铸); 16 February 1921 – 20 August 2008; also spelled as Hua Kuo-feng) was a Chinese politician who served as chairman of the Chinese Communist Party and the premier of China. As the successor of Mao Zedong, Hua held the top offices of the government, party, and the military after the deaths of Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, but was gradually forced out of power between December 1978 and June 1981, and subsequently retreated from the political limelight, though still remaining a member of the Central Committee until 2002. [...] While Hua ended the Cultural Revolution's most notorious policies, such as the constant ideological campaigns, he remained generally committed to a command economy and the continuation of the Maoist line. Between December 1978 and June 1981, Deng Xiaoping and his supporters forced Hua from his position of paramount leader but allowed him to retain some titles. Hua gradually faded into political obscurity, but continued to insist on the correctness of Maoist principles. (wikipedia)
• • •
The theme here is perfect for a Monday, and it's timely as well, given that the regular season of Major League Baseball ended just yesterday. Congrats to the Phillies and the Astros, who clinched the final playoff spots on the last day of the season. Playoffs start tomorrow. Baseball has lots of words for "home run," and these are four of them, and they all "lead off" their respective answers, so ... yeah, what more do you want? Besides good fill, I mean. I could've used more of that. The theme is very dense, which means there's not a lot of room for any other snazzy entries; in fact, nothing at all over seven letters long (and only two of those). The short fill gets pretty icky in places, most notably at INURN (100% pure crosswordese) (33D: Store, as ashes) and URE, an answer so bad I thought for sure I had an error over there in the west (35A: Suffix with fail or forfeit). I thought, "No way they let Midge URE into a Monday puzzle. That's crazy." And in fact, they did not let Midge URE into a Monday puzzle. Worse—they let in an ugly suffix. Who is Midge URE, you ask? Aside from co-writing and producing "Do They Know It's Christmas?," he was, among other things, the leader of the band Ultravox from 1979-1987. Look, I told you he wasn't a Monday answer. But now you are armed against his eventual appearance on some future Saturday. Other UREs (according to former NYTXW clues) include a Yorkshire river, a chemistry pioneer Andrew, and an actress Mary (Academy Award-nominated for Sons and Lovers (1960)). Go back far enough, and you'll get [Old Orkney land unit] (1973), [Mist, in Scotland] (1972), and [Ounce in Shetland] (1948). I doubt you'll be seeing any of those ever again.
Bullets:
- 17A: Solid baseball hit (LINER) — with baseball as the main theme idea, it's maybe better to go a different direction here. See also the clue for ALL TIED (43D: Like the score going into extra innings). Or else, really lean into it—change the TEAMS clue from N.H.L. to MLB, for instance (29D: The N.H.L. has 32). There's another baseball clue opportunity at GIANT*, and, if you really want it, BANANA:
- 66A: Helper for computer problems, informally (I.T. GUY) — had the -GUY part and all I could think of was:
- 9D: The Scales, zodiacally (LIBRA) — we are currently in the LIBRA BLAST ZONE (Sep. 23-Oct. 23). Also, "zodiacally," top-tier adverb invention, thumbs up.
That's all for today. See you next time.
*Whoops, looks like GIANT actually did get a baseball ⚾️ clue (63A: San Francisco ballplayer) and I just didn’t notice, sorry
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69 comments:
My five favorite original clues from last week
(in order of appearance):
1. Fictional company known for its duds (4)
2. Some experts of interest? (10)
3. A bit corrupt, perhaps? (4)(3)
4. It's in the eye of the beholder (6)
5. Deal made on the spot? (2)(4)
ACME
ECONOMISTS
DATA ROT
RETINA
AD SALE
My favorite encore clues from last week:
[Ones who have trouble finishing sentences?] (8)
[Invasive plants?] (5)(5)
ESCAPEES
ENEMY SPIES
Downs-only DNF. BLAST!
A favorite snack of Jason Momoa's
Is a heaping handful of Girl Scout SAMOAS.
ANA de Armas enjoys them as well
And GAGA and GARBO both think/thought they're swell.
So next time you're hungry don't grab a BANANA.
Crack open a box with Jason and ANA.
Would love to see a second column of observations, when solved normally (i.e. including across). Would be a more balanced critique.
Hi Rex! Thank you very much for your blog. In all sincerity, do you have any connections with the editor(s) of these puzzles? I feel that the choice to reference “frat” in the clue for BRO this week was in extreme poor taste and very triggering. I wish I trusted it not to happen again tomorrow or the next day, but, since I don’t… Well, it’s worth a shot! It would be a remarkably easy fix. Thank you again for your service!
Cute early week theme with a splashy and apt revealer - well filled overall. The big guy summarizes all you need to know. BOMBSHELL, TATER TOTS, JACK FRUIT all wonderful.
TULSA County
Clean grid for the most part - GARBO, Rex’s TRAGIC - ZENITH pair, ALL TIED are top notch. Some gluey shorts due to the theme density but no main issues.
Enjoyable Monday morning solve. I want to know who’ll stop the rain?
And as the BOMBSHELLs of my daily fears explode
I try to trace them to my youth
Yeah, what he said!!!! I had all the same hangups and got stuck in the same area. Threw in lethal for Ophelia's fate, and that worked with avGUY and leASE and it took me a long time to undo that corner and make it right. ARROW was my last answer in.... I know the saying--have always loved that joke about the time flies liking an ARROW and thinking about throwing my fruit across the room.... but certainly couldn't infer that without the clue! 21 minutes for me, downs only. Wanted SuEDE down there but what ends in a "u"???? ALLeven before ALLTIED. I haven't heard an announcer call one a TATER, I think that's more dated, right? Thanks, Helen, for a nice puzzle, and keep up the good work! : )
A puzzle devoted to baseball that includes BANANA ball and WILL Shorts first name—what more can you ask of a constructor? Plus SAMOAS to nosh on…Sounds like fun for a rainy day watching a game being played in a covered stadium.
Well now, that’s a tight theme. I mean, what kind of theme answer could you get with “dinger”, say?
Speaking of which, that revealer lands perfectly.
I think the cluing was perfect for Monday, where there was just enough non-obvious to get the brain involved, in general. In other words, instead asking for the opposite of “white”, say, today the puzzle asked for the opposite of “liability”.
Plus, there was the grinner, with the BANANA/ARROW quote, and a trio of lovely answers in HAVOC, MOTIFS, and BOX SET.
Good to see you again, Helen, after a four-year absence. This was a lovely way to LEAD OFF the week. Thank you!
Well, in Fredericksburg those cookies are called Caramel deLites, not SAMOAS. My understanding is that this is true for about a quarter of the country.
Thought while solving that HUA seemed a little out there for a Monday. A little surposed Rex agrees, as our cultural base seems pretty different.
Hey All !
Not a baseball follower, but good to know the playoffs are starting. Was a Phillies fan as a youth, so I guess go Phillies?
Liked the puz. Hadn't heard of JACK as a HOME RUN synonym, but that's me, again, non-baseball watcher. Even football, I've weaned off in the last two years.
I DOESOK on this LEADOFF puz for this week. No HAVOC, didn't go GAGA, I SHALL GO SEE what y'all thought about it.
At least we finally got some F's ...
Hope y'all have a great Monday!
Three F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
Who else saw the clue for actress Greta and thought, “Wait a minute, GERWIG doesn’t fit”? Sic transit gloria mundi.
I love the Savannah Bananas! They are the baseball version of the Harlem Globetrottters. Sadly, my Angels lost their 100th game yesterday—they were the last franchise remaining that had never lost 100 games in a season. But we have a new owner taking over so hope springs eternal!
This was an easy typical Monday puzzle? You could’ve fooled me. I liked it anyway. 🎈🎈🎊🎊
Solving ""normally" I found this easy, and doing it on line made all the themers light up, so even easier. HUA was the only no-know in the whole thing. The BANANA/ARROW quote is a pretty famous Groucho-ism. Surprised that OFL was unfamiliar with it. We managed to get URE and ERE in the same Monday which is interesting. Learned something about the JACKFRUIT, which makes one thing I now know about a JACKFRUIT.
Give me something to do with baseball and I'm all in, especially with the playoffs starting tomorrow (Go Bosox). Plus I thought this was a just-right Monday puzzle. No Hard Chances (sticking to baseball) , so nicely done, HC, and thanks for all the fun.
The top-middle (CLOSETS, ADMINS, LIBRA) was the tough part in my own downs-only solve.
Not because any of those are hard, but because I led off with “edict” instead of ENACT for 25A, along with “mods” for the end of 8A (i.e. instead of “mins” from ADMINS).
That, combined with the less-common nature of SCALY and OLDIE at the top, made me take eons to get CLOSETS and ADMINS, both of which probably should have been pretty easy.
Anyway, very fun one for downs-only purposes!
Lol I didn’t understand the theme because I have not heard most of those terms used in a baseball context. Time to watch the Phillies, I guess!
Eliot: Are my poems ready for publication?
Editor: CLOSETS.
Love the baseball reference with INURNed run (as opposed to an urned run).
The self-applied pressure that @Livefprof and I feel to keep coming up with groan-worthy takes on each puzzle puts the ONUS ONUS.
People hated Mao's successor so much that he became known as HUA the F**K.
I'm with @Rex exactly on how the d.o. solve went. Also that this was a hum-dinger of a Monday puzzle. Thanks, Helen Chen.
The Arrow and Banana answers are part of an ANTANACLASIS. There is a nice explanationof this classic pun in Wikipedia.
I actually knew the “time flies” joke, because it was a favorite of my father’s. Nothing like recognizing a classic “dad joke” in the puzzle :)
The theme was OK, but if I never see INURN again it will be too soon. I guess it was slightly redeemed by sharing the grid with ENACT. But as Lewis points out, the fill was fairly good for a Monday. I enjoyed the few moments between getting IT GUY from crosses and looking at its clue, moments I spent musing that the clue would be "male equivalent of Clara Bow." I also enjoyed realizing that SCAN, clued as "Look at carefully," could also have been "Give a quick glance to."
I'll leave you all to muse on the phrase "ALL TIED." Are there games in which only some are tied?
Never heard of these baseball terms.
Didn't read the long clues, and got them from crosses - then checked in after the happy music. Went by very quickly, yet didn't feel like a Monday.
GIANT was clued as a baseball clue in the web version. RP mentioned it was an opportunity for another baseball tie in. Maybe he didn't see the clue bc it was going across?
This was a bittersweet solve for me.
A baseball theme – this on the day after my beloved Mariners were eliminated for any contention and they let go their manager – a TRAGIC end to perhaps the most disappointing and discouraging season in their nearly 50-year history.
On top of that, one of the revealers was crossed by a city in the state that stole – I mean STOLE! – my beloved Supersonics, never to be seen again.
Oh well, if there’s one thing I’ve learned since 2016, it’s that when all the world around you seems to be crumbling into madness, the least one can do is carry on and comment with dignity.
I mostly liked the puzzle – easy with a bit of tang. The theme answers had a certain oomph to them (BOMBSHELL! BLASTZONE!) sprinkled with a bit of whimsy (aww, TATERTOTS, how cute).
So thank you, Ms Chen. It was a nice Monday puzzle, even as I felt some personal sting.
This theme was likely completely Monday appropriate, but went over my head—I didn’t know any of the baseball terms, so upon completing I stared bewilderedly at all the theme answers and tried to come up with the connection. I correctly guessed what it might be and came to the blog to confirm it.
I should pay more attention to my own local minor league team though. Before founding the Savannah Bananas, Jesse Cole was in my little city of Gastonia, NC, coaching the little summer league, the Gastonia Grizzlies. When he was denied buying them, he set his sights to Savannah and the rest is history. Eventually Gastonia kicked out the Grizzlies, who moved to Spartanburg and became the Spartanburgers. After Gastonia built a new stadium, they entered the Atlantic League with a team branded the Gastonia Honey Hunters, partially named after the honey badger but also a tribute to Ransom Hunter, the first freed slave to own land in Gaston County. That team flopped, and the new team in Gastonia went through a trial run of a few different name options, including the Gastonia Bologna, Gastronauts, Zombies, Galactic Dinos, Garden Gnomes, and Yarniaks, eventually settling on the Gastonia Ghost Peppers, a homage to the Carolina reaper. Jesse Cole still feels a deep personal connection to the team and promotes them.
Anyway, all that to say, I need to remind myself that baseball is fun and promote my local team. Maybe that was the good effect of a Monday theme going over my head. Glad for the reminder.
"Time flies like an arrow" is a classic example of a sentence that early machine translation could not reliably parse. This poem was inspired by a Scientific American article on that subject.
Time Flies Like An Arrow by Edison Schroeder 1966
Oh thin farm girls like farm boys narrow,
And tax firm men like fat tax forms,
And thin fruit flies like thunderstorms,
But time flies like an arrow.
When farm girls thin their boy friends flanks,
And tax forms tax all firm men's souls,
That's when the murd'rous thunder rolls,
And thins the fruit flies ranks.
Like tossed bananas in the sky,
The thin fruit flies like common yarrow,
Then's the time to time the time flies,
Like the time flies like an arrow.
I hope so. What ownership did to that franchise is despicable. You had the two best players on the planet and wasted them. Criminal. Look forward to their resurgence.
Ah, they’re only like the Globetrotters in that they barnstorm and entertain. Huge difference is the legit competition. So they’re actually more like The historical Indianapolis Clowns, who are now more like the Bananas…
Well put!
Always appreciate your analyses Thanks for the golden oldie “My Guy””
Not hard when done using both Down and Across clues. Entirely fitting Monday puzzle with a cute and apt theme. I hope there an be a baseball themed puzzle on Opening Day next year given the current labor wars. Tampa Bay and Milwaukee having the two leagues’ best records does not help the owners’ arguments on imbalance.
For every puzzle that's entirely obscure (to me) sports slang, we should get a puzzle that's all video game slang. The puzzle wasn't hard but I know any of those terms (including the revealer)
Tough Monday for me, more like a Tuesday. Cross referencing does not make for a quick solve.
I did not know JACK FRUIT and HUA.
Costly erasure - chaOs before HAVOC.
Timely baseball theme with not much junk and sparkly answers, liked it.
Croce Solvers - Croce’s Freestyle #1152 was a pretty easy one for me. The top was a bit tougher than the bottom. Good luck!
I was interested to read Rex's comments because after finishing the puzzle I thought it might have been easier doing Downs only: You would have been more likely to have the H for HAVOC and not go with Chaos; you probably would have the S for SOB and not go with Cry; and so on. But I also thought certain things were not very Monday-ish, such as the awful URE clue and the unknown HUA.
I had no idea about the theme since I never heard BLAST and JACK used for home run. Still, it was a fun enough Monday romp, with a serving of BANANAS and TATER TOTS.
Not a bad puzzle but overrated by a full star. NITS: 11A, One OWEs even if making payments on schedule. ADMINS clue, 8D needed some hint that answer is an abbreviation. 54A, SCAN is the opposite of "Look at carefully". Another way to say ALL TIED is TIED.
Ha, after reading that this puzzle came at the end of the regular season, I turned to the local paper's sports page to see how the Twins did. They are NOT in the playoffs - the article only mentioned that they won their last game and managed to keep the Texas Rangers from getting in. As the article states, the Twins were reduced to playing spoiler for the final weeks of the 2026 season.
Green JACKFRUIT does make a pretty good substitute for meat, texture-wise. I've used it to make sloppy joes, also adding lentils and tofu. But I needed crosses in order to see it, didn't get it directly from the clue. I haven't heard JACK as a term for a home run hit. In fact, BOMB and TATER seem terms for a home run, but BLAST and JACK seem, to me, to be verbs describing how the ball was hit. Am I wrong here?
Helen Chen, thanks for an interesting Monday puzzle!
I appreciated learning three new words for HOME RUNs (I learned TATER from previous puzzles), but for me the happiest moments of the day came from the comments: Dr Random's Gastonia lore at 9:38 and gerry w's poem at 9:40.
@Roo, Do you play the BEE? F was yesterday's featured letter with 45 F-words.
Note to ADMINS--not a spoiler, word counts are available same day.
f
Except for HUA I found this enjoyable. What a relief for - what felt like - a struggle the past few days.
Thank you Helen :)
I had the same snags as Rex in my Downs-only solve for the most part, except TRAGIC and ZENITH were easy for me, BOX SET was really tough, and as a non-American I had no idea about the theme. JACK FRosT and the cross-referenced ARROW made that middle southern section really thorny. However, I somehow managed to see the connection between ARROW and BANANA. Isn't it more common to use a cross-reference clue on the word that goes in the second blank? That would've made ARROW and BANANA very easy, but it would've given even more evidence that JACK FROST was correct.
@liveprof Bravo!
This MonPuz definitely went all-out, puztheme-wise. It had a lotta baseball game. Liked.
And GO TWINS! [Well ... at least maybe next year ...]
Was astonished, when TEAMS got a hockey clue, tho.
Holy MonPuz no-knows, Bats-man! HUA? JACKFRUIT? URE? SAMOAS? Not too bad, on the MonPuz solvequest nanosecond scale, tho.
staff weeject pick: URE. Actually, only a no-know in the sense of all them alternate clues that the mighty @RP came up with in The Blog [It now gets capitalized, after 20 years of service.]
fave moo-cow eazy-E MonPuz clue: {Places to hang clothes} = CLOSETS. Nice untoughie clue for one of the two longest non-themed longball answers. ALLTIED clue was a close second, btw.
other fave stuff included: BANANA & ARROW quip. Just a Q short of a pangrammer. TULSA [maybe just ENE of OK City, dependin on how you SCAN yer map.] radio OLDIEs. That the puz weren't outta my league.
Thanx for a fun ballgame, Ms. Chen darlin. It's a hit. Going, going ...
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s.
Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Not even bomb or blast? Do you live in France?
An absolutely delicious Monday puzzle that made this solver think a little bit rather than just read the clues and fill in the boxes. It was harder, I'm sure, for those who solve "downs only" and those who pay no attention to our erstwhile national pastime. Otherwise, it was only slightly harder than a typical Monday, but loads more fun!
I cannot figure the offense. Don't fraternity members refer to one another as brothers? Isn't bro a common abbreviation for brother?
I’ve never done a crossword puzzle where ignoring half the clues made the solve easier. I’m sure there has gotta be an exception or two out there…but today’s was certainly not one of them.
The exteriors of armadillos aren't scaly. There like armor. The Spaniards named the animal, and its name means "little armored one."
Like Rex, I tried solving down clues only, and really struggled. Unlike him, I didn't get there. The last straw was the clue for 50 down being "See 37 Across"... I said a dirty word and started reading all the across clues. This surely is a challenging puzzle, even solving normally... never heard of SAMOAS, URE is terrible, and don't get me started on HUA.
And I can't believe the NHL has 32 teams. When I was little, there were 6!
A lot of what @Rex said. I’m also a D-O solver on Mondays (and Tuesdays) and I ran into some of the same problems. In the SW corner I couldn’t conjure up TRAGIC or ZENITH (two fine words, but I was experiencing some sort of brain fog) so I just kept hacking away until I happened upon AUX (I had A_X; what else could I put in there?) and that triggered HUA (Oh, yeah. Who What Where HUA!) and that led to BLAST ZONE and I was just about done.
Just a couple of nits: ALL TIED. I say ALL TIED UP. As in, “How’s the game going?” “It’s the bottom of the ninth and it’s ALL TIED up.” And, while three themers landed for me, JACK FRUIT did not. I’m willing to accept BOMB, BLAST, and TATER as terms for homers, JACK, unlike the others, is a verb. The slugger did not hit a JACK, he JACKED it!
Overall, a fun Monday.
As an avid, life-long baseball fan, I very much appreciated the timeliness of today's puzzle. As an avid, life-long Mets fan, it also depressed me a little as (once again) we are done in September.
Mostly appropriate for a Monday with just a couple of outliers like HUA and INURN. The first is a name I don't know and the latter is a word I will choose not to know and never, ever use... But aside from those two, this was a fun outing with a cute theme and a revealer that does it's job well.
This did not hold me up, but (even though I've been following the sport since I was five) I did not know JACK as a term for a homer. Now that *is* a word I plan to use again, likely often! The rest of the themers are fun words/phrases that make the grid look pretty.
Some nice in-the-language stuff like DOESOK and ONEDGE and I very much liked the baseball themed clue for CANOE.
Thanks Helen, this was a good, solid Monday. I needed something that would get me at least a little bit excited for post-season play..
And now Hugh's Monday Haiku:
A JAR WILL OPEN,
CLOSE ETS may CHASE The Earth,
The LOGIC HALTs here.
Interesting, Liveprof. I would have said TATER and JACK are the two most common, with BOMB a little less so and BLAST the least common. May be some regionalism going on.
Agreed, 1152 was an easy one. SE probably the toughest section for me.
What was quaintly called "AI" back in the old days struggled with parsing the slippery mess of the English language. In particular, syntactic parsing without semantics failed miserably, despite decades of work. The example we always used to demonstrate this was "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." And optionally "time flies with a stopwatch." I even have a friend's illustration of this phrase I wish I could share! ...ah, happy memories of when AI just meant any problem we didn't know how to solve yet.
Very sweet Monday puzzle, and most entertaining write-up. TIL baseball slang for a home run (thanks, Rex!) and HUA. FG is also new to me - just looked it up.
For me it was obvious that Ophelia’s fate was TRAGIC, however
@jnlzbth. Respectfully, and I mean that sincerely - I always like reading your posts - I have to disagree with your take on doctrinaire vs D-O solving. After about ten years of doing D-O Mondays and another five, or so, of similar Tuesdays I have only found a few instances where I thought D-O solving was easier.
You state that you started with chaOs at 1A, but you had all the clues to correct that. I failed to twig on [Stop]= HALT, but had ARIA and VENN, so managed to figure it out. But let’s skip down to 37A BANANA. I inferred this from a few verticals and thought, OK, there’s a baseball team in Savanna called the BANANAs, so this might work in a baseball puzzle, and I moved on down the grid. Then I stopped dead at 50D [See 37-across]. What!?! Not only do I have a self imposed ban re across clues, I don’t even have a real down clue.
Eventually I had something that might be ARROW, but what the hell does an ARROW have to do with a BANANA? This is part of the fun of D-O solving; taking a 6 to 7 minute fill-in-the-blanks exercise and turning it into a real puzzle*. One that tends to take about three times as long. Long enough for an evening nightcap or a morning latte. More difficult but almost always more rewarding than a regular solve.
Across only might be fun, too.
Please keep posting; I’ll keep reading.
* Sort of like killing your GPS and trying to find your destination by instinct. An adventure.
I played baseball from Little League through college and I was unfamiliar with JACK as a term for a HOME RUN.
Announcers are constantly looking for new ways to describe common-as-dirt, repetitive sports actions. Just checked and a total of over 343,500 HOME RUNs have been hit over the years in major league baseball. mlb.com lists 26 nicknames for them and, yeah, JACK is one of them. Also included is Oppo taco (HOME RUN to the opposite field).
Never heard of JACK FRUIT either. Not sure why anyone would want a "meat substitute". The contemporary advice for a healthy diet focuses on plant based unprocessed foods with a limited consumption of lean meats like fish and chicken. No meat substitutes in, for example, the Mediterranean Diet.
Agree that this was a very good Monday puzzle lots of good fill and a great theme. Good writeup from Rex as always.
I've loved baseball ever since I saw Jackie live at Ebbets Field. Football has become ridiculous w all the replays, commercials, dancing after every td and catch... for me it's tortuous to sit thru 3 1/2 - 4 hours of that nonsensical drivel.
I've loved baseball ever since I saw Jackie live at Ebbets Field. Football has become ridiculous w all the replays, commercials, dancing after every td and catch... for me it's tortuous to sit thru 3 1/2 - 4 hours of that nonsensical drivel.
I believe the revitalized Clowns are the newest team added to the banana ball "league".
Jack comes from "jacked up" or "all jacked up"
I believe this is in reference to the recent disturbing case involving sexual assault charges against members of a Cornell fraternity.
Well said, Sailor. Exactly my thoughts about this fun Monday puzzle!! Thank you Helen Chen!
kitshef
I was a very big event when Mao died. I was in my twenties at the time. (Rex was about 7). His successor’s name was big news also.Somehow HUA’s name was seared in my brain, even though as you implied he is obscure now. I saw the letters appear from crosses and was very surprised. Maybe they allowed it on Monday because of easy crosses.
pabloinnh
It struck me.that you were surprised Rex didn’t know the Groucho quote as I never heard that one before. (I am in my mid seventies). On the other hand, HUA Guo Feng was a gimme for me though I was surprised it appeared on a Monday.
Anonymous 8:25AM
You made me feel old when you referred to OLDIE as less common. For us Boomers, it’s a gimme!
egsforbreakfast
Took me several beats to get CLOSETS! Very good one!
Burtonkd
GIANT Rex corrected himself later with a •note at the end .
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