Monday, February 20, 2017, Ed Stein and Paula Gamache

3:39 (FWOE)

Eight presidents later...

On Presidents' Day, it's fun to have a little odd trivia about these men who were elected to our country's highest office. I knew the trivia about HARRISON, BUCHANAN, OBAMA, and TAFT, and guessed quickly about ROOSEVELT. CLEVELAND I got off the C at the start of his name, and FORD I filled in by crosses without even seeing the trivia.

TYLER had 15 children?!

Anyway, all of those presidents make for some tight spaces (can you imagine our heaviest president trying to fit into the tiny SW corner?). There are two long answers, MACADAMIA, which is lovely, and OZONEHOLE, which is fine, but an unpleasant thing to think about.

This is a pleasant thing to think about.

I thought the puzzle got off to a fine start, with Bobby DARIN and 1A: Sunrise (DAWN) - gets a B-. But I'm afraid there was a ton of ugly fill elsewhere. I'm looking at you, SMEW. My error came here, but it was just a typo, so I didn't notice it until I was done, but then I had to stare this Eurasian duck right in its beady little eye.

LTD and LLCS. ATILT and EFILE. ATIE and ADDN.

Yes, AENEID and ARAGON liven the fill, as does ERRATA. But overall, I feel like we had to suffer a bunch for all of our presidents. But never so much as we do for our current one.

And scene.

- Colum