Mark Bennett: Sometimes, life's a puzzle, literally -- activity's popularity continues

Dec. 7—By midnight two Saturdays ago, I'd learned more about the news of the day I was born than I knew about the rest of my life.

Seriously, though, in a 12-hour span, I'd read hundreds of snippets of the front page of the June 8, 1960, Washington Post over the previous 12 hours.

Some, I'd read multiple times.

In case you didn't know, Christian A. Herter served as President Eisenhower's secretary of state, the un-American House Committee on Un-American Activities of the late 1950s lavishly spent taxpayer money on hotels and limo rides, Ike tried to keep Russia (the Soviet Union then) from reverting to its Stalinist past, and University of Chicago researchers concluded that 95% of people experience three to seven dreams — averaging 15 to 20 minutes — each night.

My wife and I learned all of that, and more, by assembling a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle featuring a Washington Post front page from 63 years ago.

Thank goodness she helped — led, actually — its assembly. I got a C in high school geometry. Still, as a longtime newspaper guy, I knew to look for distinct elements of a front page, like the index; jump lines (signaling where a story continues); varying fonts for photo captions, story text, headlines, kickers and the masthead; and the date and volume number. It's geeky stuff, but in this case, slightly helpful to know.

We started by piecing together the puzzle's border around noon on that rainy Saturday, and finished about midnight with a bleary-eyed high-five.

She bought the puzzle as a Christmas gift for me during the pandemic, which became a peak era for jigsaw puzzles as people worldwide looking for indoors activities amid the isolation. Yet, that puzzle of a newspaper cover from the day I was born stayed sealed in its box until Thanksgiving weekend 2023. It wasn't from a lack of sentimentality. While millions of people regularly solve puzzles for fun and relaxation, I'd simply never put together a puzzle that big or complex, with 1,000 pieces — many of which looked virtually identical.

A couple years later, though, the moment seemed right. So, we dusted off the puzzle and tackled it.

Interest in jigsaw puzzles has waned only slightly since the pandemic's apex.

"You can get puzzles easy now," Valerie Coit, a USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association board member and cofounder, said Thursday by phone from Duluth, Minnesota, where she lives and works at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

Once COVID-19 spread through the nation and world, people craving ways to occupy their minds bought up jigsaw puzzles in bulk. Puzzles and board games suddenly enjoyed renewed popularity and shed their stereotype as an old-folks-only activity. Sales of puzzles jumped from $2.2 billion in 2019 to $3.34 billion, according to industry figures from Statista.

Puzzle manufacturer Ravensburger North America quintupled its sales during the early months of the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"Jigsaw puzzles' popularity really boomed during the pandemic," Coit said. "People were like, 'I can't find puzzles.'"

And though the jigsaw puzzles' surge has eased, the wave continues. Statista estimates the puzzle market will grow by 3.6% through 2028. The pandemic upswing spawned puzzle-sharing swap groups and little puzzle libraries, like those for books.

"I think that's the case all over the country," Coit said.

Why puzzles?

"It's a cozy activity," Coit explained. "It's got a texture and feel to it, rather than being online and on screens."

It was during the onset of those years of seclusion and sheltering in place that Coit and four other avid jigsaw puzzlers formed the USA Jigsaw Puzzle Association. The five — scattered from Texas to southern California, Georgia and Minnesota — had mulled the idea of starting a national organization before the pandemic. Once it hit, though, they made it happen.

"That kind of accelerated things," Coit said.

The USAJPA grew from 300 members initially to more than 1,300 today. The group's Facebook page (facebook.com/usajigsaw) helps puzzle aficionados and novices connect with others. "That was a launching pad for our organization," Coit said. Puzzling has grown more diverse and has drawn in more artists creating puzzle images.

"We're seeing an expansion of the community," she added.

USAJPA conducts periodic puzzle club socials via Zoom calls, allowing puzzlers to chat, work as they interact and challenge each other to speed-puzzling duels.

The USAJPA also has a YouTube channel, and Coit delivered 29 hours of livestreamed commentary on the competition at the World Jigsaw Puzzle Championships in April from Valladolid, Spain. The USAJPA serves as a liaison for the championships and its organizing body, the World Jigsaw Puzzle Federation.

"It was intense," Coit said of that four-day speed-puzzling competition.

Its champion Alejandro Clemente Leon — a speed-puzzling legend (yes, that's a thing) — assembled a 500-piece puzzle in 34 minutes.

Coit finds speed-puzzling relaxing "because I do shut out everything else." She acknowledges, though, that many jigsaw puzzlers prefer a more leisurely pace.

That's why my wife and I spread the process over half a day. After all, it took hundreds of Washington Post employees, from reporters to typesetters, all day to put that front page together on the Tuesday before I was born. Spending 12 hours to reassemble the newspaper's cover in a puzzle was the least she and I could do, in tribute.

Mark Bennett can be reached at 812-231-4377 or mark.bennett@tribstar.com.