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Special People Vol. 2 No. 95, May 2, 1983 On the cover: (From top right counter-clockwise) Gregorio Cendaña, Alexander and Zenaida Magnaye, & Julio Iglesias and his children Chavelli, Julio and Enrique. |
The earliest
crossword puzzles that I made were unique and shall we say “out of grid.” It’s
been my fascination in early childhood to make word puzzles. I was dyslexic,
that is, having difficulty reading aloud the English words that I’m seeing, up
until Grade 2. So, I asked my Mom to buy me a vocabulary/dictionary. During the
two months school vacation, I started memorizing its contents – from A to Z. By
Grade 3, I could already read even words like “bourgeois” (boor’zhwä’),
“gendarme” (zhän’därm’), “rendezvous” (rän-dēvōō’), etc. In high school, I was
already solving the crossword puzzles of different newspapers, and started
making word puzzles myself. I noticed that all the crossword puzzles that
I encountered were of odd number of grids, 13x13, 15x15, 21x21, etc. To be
different I started making even-grid puzzles. I started out with 14x14 then
16x16 and 20x20. The one featured in this Special
People May 2, 1983 issue is among the earliest I made. You’ll notice it’s
quite crude and amateurish. Even the layout is manually drawn, and numbered and
lettered using lettering guide. I blogged this for nostalgia’s sake.
“May my lips proclaim
Your praise, since You teach me your statutes. May my tongue recite Your
promise, since all Your Commandments are righteous.” – The Psalms 119:171-172, The Jerusalem Bible.
