FOR MOTHER

First of all, happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. I'd like to dedicate this puzzle to my grandmother. My mom passed away several years ago, but her mom is still going strong. Grandma will be 104 next month. She's a little frail, but sharp as a tack (even though she's never done a crossword puzzle in her life). In fact, she's one of the few people still around who were alive when the first crossword was published in 1913. For all I know, she could've babysat Bernice Gordon. She was born when Taft was president, she was nearly two when the Titanic sank — but she still hasn't seen the Cubs win the World Series.

This puzzle has a bit of history behind it, too. The first version I submitted had the same (more or less) grid design — my intention was for a cross-stitched kind of vibe, with the big M-O-M running diagonally through the grid. But aside from the grid art, the only themed answers in that one were the last two Down entries — MOTHERS and DAY (where MITTENS and DAY are in this version). It was a low word-count (132) puzzle that I intended to feel like a themeless. I think it had some really nice long entries. It got nixed due to the paucity of themed material. After that, I let it sit for a year and a half. I dragged it back out this winter and upped the themed entries, putting in a whole bunch of "mothers" all clued as "Mother ___", as in the current version. However, I also included a couple of other themed entries, both clued as "Ma ___" (BARKER and RAINEY). Will said I was getting closer, but because of that inconsistency (which I chose to look at as "variety") and a bit of iffy fill, I was asked to do a rewrite. Then another. Then another. Then another. Counting the "themeless" version as number one, what you're looking at is version six. As I told Will, luckily I enjoy the process as well as the product.

Who can plan things like having the clue for RODMAN immediately precede the clue for KOREA? Serendipity is a wonderful thing, as well as a wonderful word.

Did you notice that the grid has near-symmetry? In order to be fully symmetric, the blocks would've had to spell M-O-W. Maybe I'll save that for my John Deere tribute puzzle.

Finally, it's a bit unfortunate to have PUTTING ON WEIGHT, MATURATION, and LAUGH LINES in a Mother's Day puzzle, but please — DON'T START IN ON ME!

Pete's comments always make me laugh. Neat to hear this time though about his grandmother — what staying power! A perfect puzzle for her (and mothers out there everywhere).

I'm a sucker for puzzles with visuals. Black square visuals tend to be my favorite because they stand out so much more than circles or shaded squares or connected rebus squares. They can be difficult to work with though, because standard crossword rules don't give a lot of freedom. So I like how Pete flaunts convention, incorporating both two and ONE letter words into his puzzle... or are they really one letter words? (See the red highlights below!) Very clever implementation. That alone gave me a smile.

I can see how Will would balk at low theme density. I've often wondered about trying to construct themelesses in the 21x size, but I've come to realize that I personally get bored solving a 21x unless there's a nice theme or a gimmick I really like. Strong long fill is important to holding my attention, but by itself it's not enough for me in a 21x. Personal preference.

So even though Pete had added themage, I still felt like this was a little light. It would have been great to have some long entry like Mother OF THE BRIDE or Mother JONES MAGAZINE or something, but then you get into partial territory, where the themers don't hold together by themselves. So I'm not sure what a better solution would have been.

It did confuse me a little to see such nice long answers and consider how/if they were related to the theme. As Pete mentioned, I was wondering what he was trying to say with LAUGH LINES, PUTTING ON WEIGHT, MATURATION, etc. (insert sound of nervous laughter here) He said it, not me! If only Pete had found a way to tie all those uber-long entries into the theme, I would have absolutely loved this one.

The M O M black square patterns might look straightforward, but there's a lot of finesse that goes into them. They also eat up a lot of the black square allotment, forcing wide-open white spaces in the grid (to keep to the maximum word count of 140). I loved a lot of the mid-range fill (JOE BIDEN and his self-parodying ways = hilarious, DREW BREES, I'M SO SURE, HAY BALE), and the glue-type entries (ISSY, EERO, OVOLO) weren't too bad. A nice construction given the constraints.

Happy Mother's Day! And no, you haven't put on any weight at all.