Aloyisius

📍 Northeast Ohio , United States

Member since August 2005

A long time ago, as a fledgling teacher in a "tuff" inner city high school, I was advised NOT to tell the students my given name; teachers had name stamps bearing only initials in front of their last names.

On my last day at school, the students begged me to tell them what my initials "A.M" stood for. "No", I told them, "You would laugh at my name". They tried repeatedly but unsuccessfully to guess my name. They promised not to laugh. "Please tell us", they implored, "You are leaving. We promise we won't laugh".

"Ok", I finally said.. and blurted out a name I thought for sure would make them laugh, a name that just popped into my head. "My name is Aloyisius Merganser"...

No laughter. Just silence. Moments went by. You could have heard a pin drop. Then, from the back of the room, a male student slapped his hand on his knee and exclaimed, "Damn! Aloyisius Merganser. Now THAT's a name!". Nods of affirmation. The bell rang. The students left. I will forever be indebted to them for their support and for their respect. And I will forever feel just a teeny bit guilty for the jokey prevarication that backfired. It is in honor of those wonderful kids that I call myself "Aloyisius".

Bird Nerd, Word Nerd, Nature Nerd. Married, three children and three beloved grandchildren.
Carpe Diem!

GRID RATINGS: scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (hardest). How difficult is a particular grid to solve? Some want to know before "diving in" if they have a busy day ahead. If you normally rely on clues from the chog, just DOUBLE the GR rating listed and you will have a pretty accurate estimate of how difficult the grid will be for you to solve. The raw scores below were derived with a two step process - the first is % of grid found with NO clues, the second reflects % of remainder found with Lickety's help and/or chog clues.
Happy Babbling!

Feb.1 2020 : 2
Feb. 2 : 1
Feb. 3 : 3
Feb. 4 : 2
Feb. 5 : 3
Feb. 6 : 2
Feb. 7 : 3
Feb. 8 : 3
Feb. 9 : 2
Feb.10 : 3
Feb. 11 : 4
Feb. 12 : 4
Feb. 17 : 4 h'mmph, lost 4 days of ratings with one "return" stroke.. ugh

Feb. 18 : 3
Feb. 19 : 4
Feb. 20 : 1
Feb. 21 : 3
Feb. 22 : 4
Feb. 23 : 3
Feb. 24 : 3
Feb. 25 : 4
Feb. 26 : 4
Feb. 27. : 2
Feb. 28: : 2
Feb. 29: : 5+