Joel Smith asked for a volunteer to fill an important job in the production of our upcoming Soap Box Derby.  Carl Christensen announced that Descanso Gardens is remodeling the entrance area, with pavers across from the ticket office, the entrance to the gift shop changed, and a pond to the west of the open air café.  Carl also announced the next two programs, listed in the beginning of this newsletter. Bachy reminded everyone to feed the Children’s Hospital cans on the tables.  Frosty gave the Sick, Lame and Ailing report, including a reminder to everyone to call Dick DeGray who misses us very much.

Carl Christensen introduced our guest speakers for the day, the Crossword Coaches, Betsy and Paul Cheves. Sharing the podium, they asserted that our chances of developing Alzheimer’s is reduced by 50% if we do crossword puzzles on a regular basis.  To further captivate us, they said the Melinda and Bill Gates do one of the newspaper crossword puzzles every morning, competing for the quickest to finish.  It seems that 50 million people in the U.S. do crossword puzzles every week.  In order to improve one’s skills, certain facts must are essential: All of the major newspapers, including the New York Times, L.A. times, USA Today, etc. publish crossword puzzles that follow the same general realities.  (1) Monday’s puzzle is the easiest and Saturday’s is the most difficult. (2) Sunday’s puzzle is a different size and is the difficulty of Thursday’s puzzle. (3) The easiest puzzles have many black squares and the difficult ones have few. (4) Letters of the alphabet are divided into three classes. The first class  is made up of letters that are found in 85% of English words, and include the letters A, E, I, R, S, T, L, N, and D.  The second class of letters are considerably less common, and are O, U, B, C, F, G, H, K, M, P, V, W, and Y.  The third class are letters that rarely appear in words.  They are Q, J, X, and Z. Knowing this helps a lot when you are missing letters. (5) There are many small, but unusual or archaic words that that commonly appear in crossword puzzles.  These words are called ‘crosswordese’ and you will get to know many of them as you progress.  “Ort”, for example is a food scrap.  It also helps to develop lists of words as you find them in puzzles of rivers, saints, animals, etc. (6)  Most crossword puzzles have a theme, but they don’t tell you what the theme is.  Find the theme. Long words are more likely to reflect it. (7) As puzzles get more difficult, you will need to use divergent thinking to get the answer.  Some examples are as follows, with the clue appearing first:  Perk up=private jet; ranch setting=salad; “Dellicious” drink=cider;  and layer=chicken.(8) Each crossword will have two names; the person who wrote the puzzle, and secondly. the editor.  The editor has the latitude to change some of the clues if he so wishes.  You will begin to recognize the authors you like best. (9)  You can get all the major newspaper puzzles on line at Cruciverb.com (Latin for Crossword).  A benefit of this site beyond not having to purchase all the newspapers is you aren’t working with the low quality of news paper, you can print out more than one copy, and you can enlarge them if you need to. Always begin your new hobby with Monday and Tuesday’s easier puzzles. (10) Forget you thesaurus, your dictionary, and you encyclopedia.  Use Google for almost instantaneous answers when you’re stuck. (11) Rent the movie Word Play.  It is a wealth of information.  The Cheves are penning a book on the subject that will be available to our members for purchase, and it’s publication will be announced at a future meeting.

Jim Edwards paid to announce that his (unnamed) team was finally in the top 25, but only for a brief five days.  Ruining Diane’s idea for a Kiwanis fund-raiser by selling tickets to see the house fire, Councilman Spence announced the Fire Dept. Exercise would begin their training exercise  with the first house being burned down on Saturday, 2-3-07 at 9:00am. Bob Wallace contributed two happy bucks in honor of his alma mater, Stanford U.  Mel Wilson added one gratitude buck that our beloved member and City Manager, Mark Alexander, is not leaving us to manage L.A. County.  Clyde paid to apologize for running out of food.  Doris paid to announce that she has a like-new ’98 Jag for sale.  Mary paid two sad bucks to counter Bob’s happy one.  Daryal announced that our very own Joel Peterson had attended the Sundance Film Festival.  Not to be out-prestiged, Carl Christensen pointed out that he had also attended.

Music:  Piano tunes by Ed Moulton who also led us in Welcome Back, Hi Neighbor, and On Kiwanis

Guests:  We had twelve members of La Cañada Kiwanis AM Interclub with us: Dottie Hazel, Larry Simmons, Erik Fiske, Sean Crahan, Margot Siess, Ellie Bowers, Martha Burns, Phyllis Trueblood, Jean McVickers Spomer, Don Spomer, Joan and Don Williams.  Additionally, Bill Hacket, representing Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, Dan Daneley, a guest of Al Restivo, Carl’s wife, Irene Christensen, and Fred’s wife, Linda Schooley,

Master of the Cash Box:   Newly full-fledged member Joel Peterson quickly collected large amounts of cash for various infractions committed by various members.

Anniversaries: None present

Birthdays:  Patsy Christianson

Fines:   Carlos Cortez and Joel Smith were fined for not wearing their pins.  Joel, of course, has  long maintained the buck is worth not having to put  the darned thing on.  Prez Steve fined himself for forgetting the Birthday/Anniversary list, announcing that he was  putting the group on the honor system.  Patsy Christianson was the only one who copped  to a birthday.

Frosty Challenge:  Carl Christensen won hands down after Frosty, George, Daryal, and Fred all  did their best on the theme of dying and God:  A man told his wife that if he were ever hooked up to some machine, living on liquids, to please unplug him.  So his wife got up, unplugged the TV, grabbed his beer and threw it down the drain.

Secret Greeter:  almost no one would admit not shaking the hand of Norm Johnson.

Fifty-Fifty Drawing:  Bob Martin

This Week's Editor:  Diane DellaValle