Sometimes you learn the weirdest things in puzzles. Did you ever have your feet X-rayed in a shoe store when you were little? Yeah, you heard me! The clue at 13D was: “Diagnostics done with “Foot-o-scopes” in old shoe stores,” and the answer was XRAYS. Rex was equally surprised and wondered if they used those lead aprons like dentists do. But then commenter BonitaBill posted: “I remember having my feet x-rayed at the shoe store in the 1950’s and there was no protection available.”
Could that be where the expression “twinkle toes” comes from?
Nah.
Wikipedia tells us all about these shoe-fitting fluoroscopes that were used from the ’20s to the ’70s. They were considered useful in sizing for kids shoes bccause kids’ sizes change so often. They were phased out when people started worrying about radiation. In 1999, Time included them in “the worst ideas of the 20th century.” [It came in right behind our friend X’s “golf with a defense.”] In the novel It by Stephen King, a character recalls using one.
I posted about it in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) asking if any members recall having their feet x-rayed when they were little. A good 20 or so said they remember it clearly! Maybe it was used more in the UK.
At 64D, the clue for CAT was: “Abraham Lincoln was the first to keep one at the White House.” Lincoln’s Sec’y of State William Seward gave Linc two kittens as a gift and he named them Tabby and Dixie.
I am lifting the following material from the Smithsonian magazine:
Lincoln’s love of felines was legendary. “Supposedly he was feeding a cat from a plate and Mary Lincoln said, ‘You know, that’s not really respectful, this is a very proper house and seat of government and you shouldn’t feed the cats from the dishes.’ [In response,] Lincoln said, ‘Well if it was good enough for James Buchanan it’s good enough for this cat.’” When asked if her husband had a hobby, Mary simply responded “cats.” “I have seen him fondle one for an hour,” wrote Maunsell B. Field, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury.
You know our Phil. Once we unleashed him on the topic, there was no stopping him. The following are Susan Ford with Shan, Amy Carter with Misty Malarky Ying Yang, Clinton with Socks, and, last, W’s cat India.
And don’t forget Willow who currently resides in the White House.
Finally (on this topic), Rutherford B. Hayes’ wife, Lucy was a cat lover and received a gift of what is believed to be the first Siamese cat to reach the U.S. It was named Siam, but, sadly, contracted a mysterious illness and did not live long. Today, the Hayes presidential library sells (plush) stuffed cats.
[Note: No animals have been harmed or eaten by Haitians in the production of this blog post.]
Today’s puzzle was a marvel of gimmicks and tricks. The theme clues all had warnings about things we shouldn’t do, but the theme answers did them all. E.g., one clue referenced the state slogan “Don’t mess with Texas,” but the answer was AESTX: the letters in TEXAS are messed with.
My favorite was at 41A where the clue was: “A tip in the working world: Don’t …” So you’d think the answer is don’t “mix business with pleasure,” but the answer has the letters of the two words “mixed,” i.e., they alternate: PBLUESAISNUERSES
The puzzle adjures us not to cry over spilled milk. And here’s an unusual song, “Milk,” by a band called Garbage.
Tom McMahon posed the following question for the membership of the DMC(UK):
I’ve just bought another pair of the same trousers that I already have four pairs of, just in case they stop making them.
The question is whether to leave them untouched until one of trousers 1-4 are too worn to be wearable, or to introduce the new pair to the existing trouser cycle and therefore extend the life of all 5.
Sandra Davies inquired whether they are all the same color, and Tom replied: “Of course, what sort of loose-moraled dandy do you think I am? (Grey, btw.)”
Marie Diesel-Dyer wrote: I have this with everything I like. Spare backups. Shoes, clothes, husbands….
Dave Henderson noted: You now have the full set. A pair of trousers, an old pair, an old old pair, a new pair and your new new pair.
Suzanne Knowles counseled: Wait for a trouser to die
Paul Murphy wrote: To answer this question we need to know the lifetime of a pair of the trousers, the current ages of the current trousers, your own life expectancy, the minimum number of pairs of trousers that are needed to be able to wash them when needed/desired, your risk aversion levels to either running out of trousers near the end of your life or have remaining wear in your trousers after your death. (I might have over-thought this.)
A number of members introduced the fear that his pants size might change, most likely upwards.
Theo noted: ‘The clothes I used to buy were nice, why don’t they still sell those? With what I’m buying now, I can’t bend down and reach my toes.’ And I replied: Are you sure it’s because of the clothes? I haven’t reached mine since the Clinton administration, but it’s from all the beer, burgers, etc.
From Frank Bruni: In The Baltimore Sun, Dan Rodricks quipped: “Donald Trump saying he won’t debate Kamala Harris a second time is like the Thanksgiving turkey saying he won’t be available for Christmas dinner.”
Roger Angell was born on this date in 1920. He passed away at 101 in ’22. Along with Bart Giamatti’s brilliant essay “The Green Fields of the Mind,” Angell’s writing on baseball is the best we have. His annual write-up of the season came out in late November (in The New Yorker), and I gobbled it down immediately. His finest work may have been on the Boston-Cincy World Series that ended heartbreakingly for Boston, but not until Fisk struck his heroic historic blow to win Game 6. The homer made Angell think of all of his many long-suffering Red Sox fan friends and picture each of them exulting in the moment. And then he wrote:
“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring—which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté—the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball—seems a small price to pay for such a gift.”
It still sends chills down my spine, nearly 50 years later.
He also wrote:
“Since baseball time is measured only in outs, all you have to do is succeed utterly; keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time. You remain forever young. Sitting in the stands, we sense this, if only dimly. The players below us—Mays, DiMaggio, Ruth, Snodgrass—swim and blur in memory, the ball floats over to Terry Turner, and the end of this game may never come.”
Last Sunday, my Caitlin and Danny took my grandson Leon to his first major league game: Boston was visiting Yankee Stadium. Danny splurged on good seats and the weather was perfect, but they were driving so I worried about traffic, parking, etc. So how was it? — Awesome. The Yanks won a good game, and Aaron Judge hit a mammoth home run!
There is nothing like the first time you emerge from the little tunnel and the field spreads itself out before you with the crowd noises and the smells. I wanted it to be as defining an experience for Leon as it had been for me, sixty five or so years ago. Good job Danny and Caity — he will never forget that moment.
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 