Tag Archives: Wendy L. Brandes

NYT Crossword Puzzle 10-2-21 Complete (contains spoilers)

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I pulled out 30A Accords, e.g.: SEDANS because I drive a Honda Accord. My Accord is not a sedan. My Accord is a coupe. I like having two doors. I like my V6 with 271hp. I like that I can use my paddle shifters on the 405 when I see an opening to get in front of that Prius. So get outta here with the assertion that all Accords are sedans.

No theme today, but here’s a thing:

20A Pearl Harbor hero for whom a future U.S. aircraft carrier is scheduled to be named: DORISMILLER.

On December 7, 1941, Mess Attendant Second Class Doris Miller was collecting soiled laundry just before 8:00 A.M. When the first bombs blasted his ship at anchor in Pearl Harbor, Miller went to the main deck where he assisted in moving the mortally wounded captain.

He then raced to an unattended deck gun and fired at the attacking planes until forced to abandon ship. It was Miller’s first experience firing such a weapon because black sailors serving in the segregated steward’s branch of the navy were not given the gunnery training received by white sailors. Although news stories have credited Miller with downing from two to five airplanes, these accounts have never been verified and are almost certainly apocryphal. Miller himself told Navy officials he thought he hit one of the planes. Navy officials conferred the Navy Cross upon Miller on May 27, 1942, in a ceremony at Pearl Harbor.

Following a Christmas leave in 1942, when he saw his home and family in Waco for the last time, Miller reported to duty aboard the aircraft carrier Liscome Bay (or Liscomb Bay) as a mess attendant, first class. During the battle of the Gilbert Islands, on November 24, 1943, his ship was torpedoed and sunk in the Pacific Ocean, and Miller perished. At that time, he had been promoted to cook, third class, and probably worked in the ship’s galley. In addition to conferring upon him the Navy Cross, the navy honored Doris Miller by naming a dining hall, a barracks, and a destroyer escort for him. The USS Miller is the third naval ship to be named after a black navy man.

Doris Miller Memorial

The USS Miller was decommissioned a couple decades ago, and this new aircraft carrier will be the second ship to bear Dorie Miller’s name. The USS Doris Miller is still more than a decade away from being commissioned.

Finished this one in 27:05.

DayThis WkBestAverage4-Wk AvgStreak
Monday6:083:499:256:0576
Tuesday10:555:2213:169:540
Wednesday15:367:3817:0311:4017
Thursday29:2012:1228:4431:093
Friday23:2916:2331:5921:3917
Saturday27:0520:1233:5733:3817
Sunday15:1153:5646:413

NYT Crossword 12-25-20 Complete

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This wasn’t bad for a Friday at all! I was surprised at how I made it through. That’s not to say that I didn’t screw up in places, but I’m happy with how this went.

I pulled out 23A _ Bay (place mentioned in “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”): FRISCO because people I know who are from San Francisco and those who live there do not accept that word as an abbreviation for their city. It’s like how USC hates being called Southern Cal–a lot. I remember reading in the media fliers before broadcasting UCSB-USC in baseball games that we were not to refer to the school that way. But back to FRISCO! SFGate wrote about the FRISCO origins and how out-of-towners call it that.

I have my own experience with the FRISCO name and why Bay Area friends of mine have said, “Frisco is a city in Texas.”

I’ve mentioned the game Rail Baron before. I’ll dig up where I wrote about it so you can click through if you’d like to. OK here it is. It’s a Spelling Bee post.

In Rail Baron, there’s a railroad abbreviated SLSF on the board. It’s the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway. It was known as the Frisco Line, and the town of Emerson, TX renamed itself Frisco, TX after the railroad, since Emerson was built around the railway station there. Now more than 100 years old, Frisco is now a city of about 200,000.

The St. Louis-San Francisco Railway never extended west of Texas and was absorbed into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1980. The Burlington Northern Railroad merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in 1995 to make the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway. That’s the BNSF we see on railcars.

As for the theme of this puzzle, I didn’t see any, so I’ll end this here.

Finished this puzzle in 25:54.

Have a great weekend!