My path to acrostic poetry began when I was twelve years old, and a Dell Crossword Puzzles book cost thirty-five cents. The book wasn’t all crossword puzzles. My favorite feature was Solicross, where they gave you a nine-by-nine grid and put a circle in one of the squares, blacked out three others, put point values on the rest, gave you a letter list, and let you go to town. It is quite similar to Scrabble, but a Scrabble grid is 15 by 15.

So here’s to Solicross (property of Dell), and to Scrabble (property of Hasbro). Long may they wave!