Editorial
Front Page - Friday, June 11, 2010
I Swear...
Life-like puzzle
Vic Fleming
In last week’s column, I mentioned that when I give civic club speeches on crosswords, I ask the audience to visualize what parts of their lives are like puzzles.
Sports fans are quick to point out that box scores in baseball and basket ball have puzzlesque qualities, as do scorecards in golf.
Football is often cited for its being played on a field that is zoned off, with specific rules that dictate how progress is measured line by line.
But football is by no means alone in having this analogy to puzzles. Check out the playing areas for soccer and lacrosse and hockey.
Certainly, figure skating has a puzzling quality to it, as the participants must choreograph a routine that contains certain mandatory and certain elective elements.
Snow skiing has the features of a maze: Start here; go there; and do this and don’t do that on the way.
Musicians see that what they write and what they read is, in essence, coded material, which they must translate into an enjoyable and artistic experience for those around them.
My dad was in car finance. The promissory notes and automobile lien documents are like puzzles. The borrower must comply with all rules or run the risk of having his car repossessed.
A law office is a veritable epitome of puzzledom. The client comes into the office. He/she must be screened at some level and then interviewed. During the interview, clues and facts and perceptions come rolling in; they must be analyzed, arranged and sorted. The case may ultimately involve depositions, interrogatories, deadlines, briefs, recapitulations, etc.
Similarly, a medical office offers a view of a set of puzzle-evocative images. The patients converge on the waiting room, then are sorted out into smaller components, as they are assigned to their specific physicians. Questionnaires, forms, charts are all about. And it all leads to the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment.
What about car sales? There is that lot at the dealership: vehicles parked in little slots. You look around, show an interest and wind up in a little office with a salesperson and contract forms.
At for banking, there are deposit slips that are quintessentially gridesque; there are the checks themselves: legal orders by a customer to a bank in a form that is nothing like any other writing that one does in a normal day; and there are the account statements.
What about just organizing a normal day’s activities?
“It’s 6:00 a.m. Gotta have some coffee, clean up, read the paper by 7:00; hit the road for work at 7:30; start the work day at or before 8:15; two errands during the noon hour; pick up the kids at 3:45 ...”
Tell me life is not like a puzzle!
Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Arkansas, where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.
|
|