My Friend Franny Hansen,

1919-2004

            Fran Hansen constructed high-level crossword puzzles, mostly for the New York Times, where she published 83 puzzles, including every Christmas puzzle from 1995 until her death in 2004 at age 85. 

But she also constructed puzzles for the Washington Post, the LA Times, several other news and magazine outlets, and such book publishers as Dell, Random House, and Simon & Schuster.  For decades she was widely praised as a master of the craft.

According to Will Shortz, who took over the Times puzzle editorship in 1993, Hansen caused a sensation with her first puzzle in 1964, submitted to the then editor Margaret Farrar.  The puzzle was based on Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” and forced solvers into reading and writing backwards to finish the 21 x 21 Sunday grid—a true tour de force.

Her signature puzzles were based on her own five-line limericks.  Shortz said of them that they had “perfect rhyme, and perfect meter” plus a perfect letter and syllable  count—and that they were “funny besides.”

I met Franny in 1992 at a wedding in Metuchen, NJ, where she lived most of her life.  My wife and I were seated at the “old people’s” table where Fran, a widow since 1983. also got dumped.  The groom was Benn Ciardi, the son of deceased celebrity poet John Ciardi, whose biography I was then writing.  Fran was a good friend of Benn’s mother Judith, the core members of a local women’s club they called The Quiet Hour that met once a month. 

Frannie and I became friends at once because we shared an interest in the Ciardi family, the standard repertory of the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center, crossword puzzles, and funny limericks.  Hers were much better mine, and she proved it by going right into what she called her favorite: 

            A defiant old maid, pray forgive her,

            Remarked with a bit of a quiver:

                        Tonight I shall smoke

                        And drink till I croak—

            And nuts to my lungs and my liver!

Will Shortz liked this one best:    

                        Said W, Somerset Maugham

                        I shall visit the island of Guam.

                                    If I find it is hot,

                                    I shall leave on the spot.

                        I detest feeling overly waugham.

Franny and I had breezy conversations all afternoon about about Mozart, Verdi, and Puccini, about what a good crossword solver John Ciardi (who had died in 1986) had been, but I wanted to hear more and more about how she constructed the puzzles. Actually knowing a real-life constructor of Times puzzles, was an enormous kick for me and I wanted to hear all her stories.  But there wasn’t enough time.  Not nearly.

            When I got home I looked for her puzzles in the many collections on my bookshelf.  I had solved them all once upon a time, but now I wanted to study them to see what Miss Franny Hanson had been up to—and I was charmed and fascinated by her skill. 

I was also on the lookout for new ones by her—or at least new to me.  And when I found one, I’d solve it and often I’d send it to her with a note about how hard certain clues were.  She’d sign it and send it back with a word or two about the puzzle.  I think for both of us this little routine became great fun.

In late December 1998 I solved Franny’s Christmas puzzle for the Times, Yule Get Over It, and sent her a letter bragging a little and telling her how much fun it had been.  I also told her that my life of Ciardi, which she had a copy of and praised lavishly, had won an award from Choice magazine, a gold sticker for being Academic Book of the Year.  She was extravagantly happy to hear the good news and wrote in early May 1999 that “if they didn’t give you the Pulitzer, somebody goofed, that’s all.”  We had a mutual admiration society going.  “It’s a wonderful book and although it took years of your life, you have something to be proud of for the rest of your life.”

In July 2000 she was delighted to hear the paperback edition of my Ciardi book was about to be released.  I sent her a copy of the advertising bookmark that had been printed, for which she thanked me and called me a peach.  In September I ran across a book with another of her puzzles.  “My goodness, I had completely forgotten that old Flag Day puzzle!  Bless you for sending it along and I see you are a solving pro—good for you!”  She said she was writing more daily puzzles than in years past because she was “getting lazy in my dotage,” and because “they go much faster than the big ones!”

Two days later she got another note and finished puzzle from me and wrote back, “You are really on a puzzle bender!  Sounds to me like you are an A-one puzzler—keep it up!”  She signed off, Cheers, Franny.

When she died on July 9, 2004, I felt like I had lost a friend I’d met only once in my life, and with whom I had exchanged maybe ten letters in all, but her words remain with me twenty years later.

 

 

Visions and Revisions at 80: April 29, 2022

         I miss toiling away contentedly at my quiet, and lonely writing desk pursuing topics in American literature.  I would be hard at work at the old stand even now at age 80 had I not been thwarted by cataract surgery in 2018 that went terribly wrong.  Yes, I know that sounds preposterous—isn’t cataract surgery a slam dunk?  Isn’t it the most sure-fire, least-likely-to-go-wrong elective surgery there is?  Yes, of course that is indisputably true,  but a couple of months after the surgery, my ophthalmologist-surgeon finally got around to telling me the obviously bad news in suitably somber and apologetic tones: “The surgery,” he said,“was a failure.” 

Of course I knew that already.  It was very clear (ironically) because my vision was worse than it was before the surgery—and there was no fixing the problem.  That’s the killer.  It seems, he explained, that he hadn’t noticed a wrinkle on the retina behind the cataract—no explanation, no excuses.  He just missed it.  But now that he could see the wrinkle on my right retina, he thought he’d take a look at the left side and sure enough, there was another wrinkle there too.  And both were too small for a surgical repair, that according to the retina specialist I consulted, who explained that the wrinkles were too big to allow for normal sight but too small for corrective surgery.  I was left with blurry vision I never had before the operation and two eyes that would never again work in synch.  So yes, I saw worse after the cataract surgery than I did before.  My cataract surgery had failed.

But just to be sure and to leave no stone unturned, I got a second opinion from Dr. Pit Gills of St. Luke’s Cataract Surgery Center in Tarpon Springs, recommended by my retina specialist.  Pit, and that is not a misprint, is a local TV celebrity-doctor appearing these days and nights on television ads.  And he was suitably impressive, putting me through five hours of testing before giving me five minutes of recommendations:  I should have the other cataract removed, he said.  He wouldn’t guarantee that I would see any better, but it made sense to him to proceed anyway.  It made less sense to me.  The wrinkles would both be there and surgery was still not an option to remove them.  Things had gone badly in 2018 and I was afraid they would go badly again.  I’m just not in the mood to risk another bad outcome.  Gun shy, that’s what I am. 

Immediately after the original surgery in 2018 I was furious and frustrated beyond words.  It was unthinkable that my eyes were actually worse after the surgery. I wanted something horrible to happen to the idiot doctor; I had visions of pure vengeance to punish him for what he’d done to me.  But violence is contrary to my nature, and I eventually soldiered on.  I mean, it wasn’t all that horrible—I was able to do almost everything almost normally, except for scholarly writing—which had been my life for half a century. 

Scholarly writing, I should explain, demands that I consult notes and books next to a computer, then return to the text onscreen to continue the writing.  The botched cataract surgery meant that as a writer I could not see the monitor and the papers I was working with next to the computer with the same pair of glasses.  Which made writing pretty damn near impossible. 

I was angry, but to be fair to the idiot doctor, I was also getting too old to start any new, multi-year scholarly project anyway—so maybe I should be happy it wasn’t any worse.  Right?  That was the right attitude, the most charitable one.

            And eventually I adjusted and adopted the new attitude.  I had published a lot of newspaper work and blog entries over the years, so maybe that was my future.  I didn’t need two pairs of glasses for that.  But then my future became even more seriously clouded by further health problems that began unfolding in March 2020 when a bladder issue put me in the hospital for four days—and then after a relapse for four more days in April.  Just as the urologist and I were doing an ancient celebration dance to thank the gods for my recovery (an hour before my scheduled discharge), my standard-issue heart monitor that all patients wear routinely while they are in the hospital, began sending out distress signals that caused panic at the nurse’s station.   My heart was showing signs of sudden and serious damage. 

An on-call cardiologist was called in at once, but after examining me and the data, he decided there was little chance of a problem.  I should go home and in a couple of weeks make an appointment for something called an echocardiogram, which gives a complete ultrasound picture of the heart and its performance level.  And it turned out there was indeed a problem, two of them in fact.  One was electrical that was fixable with a pacemaker.  The other was a “severely stenotic aortic heart valve,” clearly the more serious of the two problems and frightening to even say.  It would require the installation of an artificial aortic heart valve, either through open-heart surgery or by running the valve up through an artery in my groin.  Both procedures were tricky, but the catheter procedure did not demand a thoracic surgeon and a team of life and death assistants who thrilled at the chance to cut open my chest cavity and put me on life support for six hours.  Nor did it require six months of painful recovery.  Luckily, after two or three dozen hospital tests, they decided I qualified for the artery procedure, and so in July I got my pacemaker and in September I got my heart valve. By the end of the year, even though I had been out of commission for half of 2020, I felt I was “getting better.”  The cataract surgery hardly seemed important anymore.

            But here I am, four years after my last book was released in the summer of 2018, finally starting something new—but without the least bit of confidence.  That last book, a study of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s love life,  and which I called Longfellow in Love, of course, took about fifteen years to find its way into print—with time off for me to write one other longish book, a 500-page memoir, plus a lot of short pieces.  It’s a good book and I’m proud of it, but for a string of good reasons, ones that make one kind of miserable sense that left me bloodied and cursing God for my bad luck, the book fell into The Abyss of Neglect.  (I’m pretty sure that’s one of Dante’s circles of Hell. . . .)  Because of that disappointment plus the string of health problems that have been hounding me for the last three years, I haven’t done much new work in a long time.  I had for many years planned to continue with the Longfellow story, which my first book stopped in 1861, but my long disappointment with the book’s 2018 reception and my wearing ill-health that robbed me of energy combined to make me give up the Longfellow story—and nothing has taken its place.  At least not yet.

            But in the meantime, however, on April 28, 2022, I turned 80.  And that seems to have changed the rules governing reasonable expectations for productive work and the expectation of completing it—not just for the short- and long-term future, but for the present as well.

            Here’s what happened.

            First of all, going back, turning 79 was traumatic.  It was such an advanced age for men in my family—my father, and his father, for example, had both died of colon cancer at age 55—that being 79 suddenly felt wrong to me, something like survivor guilt.  I couldn’t shake it, couldn’t get past it.  I was 79.

            What’s more, I’d been sick for most of my 78^th year, first with my bleeding bladder, then with my heart problems, and later with some reduced kidney function that changed most of my heart meds that caused my blood pressure to spike so high (210/110) in early May 2022 that I was hospitalized for the better part of a week after my 80^th birthday.  That combo of meds, symptoms, and high anxiety seemed like enough for anyone to work his way through, but I added Irritable Bowel Syndrome to my list of troubles. 

Add in the urgent all-day peeing caused by my Lasix; the shortness of breath that had something to do with my heart meds; the light-headedness that seemed now and then like a full-bore vertigo attack; and my all-around lethargy, shake it all together, and you have more symptoms than I could manage.  Little wonder I couldn’t face my writing desk during my 78^th and 79^th years.  But here I am in June of my 80^th year, struggling with all the symptoms, and making headway on every front:  I’ve lost 20 pounds  over the first six months of 2022, my meds have been readjusted, and I’m even getting a tiny bit of exercise—chair yoga, walking in the pool, and lapping my way around Publix with the help of a carriage.  It isn’t easy, and my back hurts too much to do much walking, but I am making progress.  And wonder of wonders, the itch to write has even returned.  And it seems right to spend at least a little time writing about the faltering health that I may yet steer my way clear of.  That’s the hope.  I may yet be able to resume something like my pre-78 health and productivity.

v  

It’s weird but working on a long-term return to health is actually a certain kind of fun—or if not exactly that, at least a pleasant self-satisfaction.  Getting back to health and productivity, giving up on my desperate death watch of the last couple of years, has given me a new lease on life.I suppose.  I’ve always liked long-term projects—and this one has a sweet life or death edge to it.  Nice.  I mean, nothing much has gotten my full-time attention over the last couple of years, so right about now my “let’s live a little bit longer” goal is sharply defined, and while life and death hasn’t interested me much for a long time now, all of a sudden I’m sort of interested in seeing if I can reverse the body damage and carry on a bit longer.  It’s a good goal.  My fortune cookie tonight reads, “A man’s dreams are an index to his greatness.”  That sounds like Chinese wisdom that must be relevant somehow, even though I’m not sure what in hell it means.

Just getting to 80 was a huge kick.  I never expected to reach such a longevity milestone, but when I turned 79, just beginning my 80^th year, I found myself wanting more than anything to finish the year out so I could officially be 80 years old.  But that made the year between April 28, 2021 and April 28, 2022 go by with excruciating slowness.  I had a notion that I was getting better.  That’s true enough and I do feel that way every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but the rest of the week I have various symptoms that leave me with long-term discouragement. 

On a good day these days, I can enjoy the business of everyday living—getting up, checking on my vitals (for the last three weeks very normal), and then mostly a half-hour nap, followed by various play-time activities, like the swimming pool or maybe some chair yoga.  Nothing strenuous.  I got a haircut today.  A trip to the supermarket is a big outing—and it’s usually a failure because as soon as I start walking, with or without a carriage, my back begins to ache.  The only thing that relieves the pain is rest, preferably on my glider/armchair in the living room.  I  see and feel improvement almost every day—but every day something drags me down too.  It’s draining. And confusing.  I think maybe I have what journalists and scientists have settled on as the “right” term:  long Covid.  Symptoms include loss of smell and taste, heart damage, kidney damage, diabetes, chronic nerve pain, difficulty breathing, and overwhelming fatigue.  Throw in irritable bowel syndrome and you’ve got me to a tee. 

Me having it is the weird part because I’ve never tested positive for Covid-19, and I must have had twenty tests over two years.  There’s no record of my ever having it, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had it.  I’m actually sure I have.  I’ve got every symptom!

I  can’t tell at this point where this saga will end, but at 81, I know I don’t have much time left—not too many people survive their 80s, after all, the Death Decade as I’ve come to think about it.  At Christmas last year I ate a catered dinner and thought I got food poisoning, but it turned out to be a bowel obstruction and I was rushed into surgery that same night.  Over the next six months a bladder problem that presented itself on the April 2020 catscan of my abdomen got worse:  the bladder had migrated from its proper position into my scrotum and had wrapped itself around my left testicle.  A five-hour surgery on August 31, 2023  repaired it, and two months later I am back on my feet and nearly pain free.  The testicle is still tender when I sit down or stand up from a chair.  But there is improvement.  I may even be able to play golf come Thanksgiving.

But that’s a little rosier than I feel right now.  My body is aging rapidly and breaking down one organ at a time.  I can’t imaging surviving much longer, but the doctors have been putting me back together for going on four years now, so who knows?  I’ll hang in as long as I can.