Steve Huppert
Columnist
hupps440@aol.com
I have never been involved in puzzles. I can remember in the fifth grade my mother would give me 25-piece puzzles to put together. Each puzzle would take only a few minutes. It was a piece of cake, not worth my time. That is about as far as my puzzle making experience has been, feeling it was just a waste of time.
Now that I am older, unfortunately much older, I am starting to appreciate what the puzzle business is all about.
If you or someone you know has been involved in putting puzzles together you know it is not a piece of cake. Puzzle people need to be special. It takes someone who can sit in front of little pieces of cardboard for hours trying to figure where one piece goes and how the pieces are going to fit together. Then where they belong; when you are talking about up to a thousand pieces, that is not easy.
The big pieces of the fifth grade have turned into what feels like millions of pieces about the size of a thumb nail. It feels like there are thousands of them and they all look the same. The card table that you have put them on is completely covered with these little bits of frustration. It doesn’t seem like thousands, but more like millions of things that you don’t know what to do with, from the very beginning.
I ask you, how can puzzles pieces be put together without the puzzle person going crazy? They say it is for relaxation and to help a person stay sharp. If you ask me, puzzles are just another form of torture.
If you were not a drinker before you started, you will be by the time you have half the puzzle completed.
Puzzle people are divided into groups. The largest group is old people; unfortunately, I am one of them.
Old people like something to look forward to each day. They want to complete something before the final curtain, nothing like staying busy until the end. I hope they don’t stick a puzzle in my casket. What way to go. Hell in a box.
In many cases finishing a puzzle is what keeps an old person alive. It Keeps them thinking and looking forward to finding the final pieces to the puzzle.
I recently started, at 81, my first 1000-piece puzzle. I thought this puzzle would be an easy one. I have found out that none of them are easy.
At any rate, if you would like to stop by my house, I will be happy to let you experience the wonderful life of being a puzzle person. I might even give you something to drink. You will probably need it.
Thought for the day: Anything you can start you can finish.
