Crossword Puzzle: They Don't Run On Empty

Want to test yourself on running trivia? Our next puzzle, They Don’t Run On Empty, has you covered!

We’ll have a couple more of these in the next few weeks but first, a little more about our crossword puzzle-maker, Robert Wolfe: A retired veterinarian and runner himself, Bob was born in Boston and raised in Newton, MA, and went to Michigan State for four years.

After receiving a BS (which he says he’s “full of” - ha!), and a DVM (Doctor of Veterinary Medicine), he set up a companion animal practice in Cedarhurst, Long Island and practiced 50 years, hanging up his stethoscope two years ago. Married 10 months shy of 50 years, he has two daughters and a 16 year old granddaughter.

So when did his excitement for crossword puzzles come about? “I started solving puzzles while in Vet School, trying to compete with the smartest girl in the class, who was also solving puzzles in the daily MSU paper,” Wolfe says. After three years of trying to solve the Sunday Times puzzle while in New York, he made up his first puzzle, and sent it to New York Times puzzle editor Will Weng, who rejected him.

Undaunted, he sent another puzzle to the next editor, Dr. Eugene Maleska, who liked his work and gave him guidance on how to improve. “The puzzle I sent him wasn’t quite good enough for the Times, but he published it in his NYT Simon & Schuster Crossword Puzzle Book Series,” Wolfe says. His third puzzle — which got published in the Times in 1973 — launched his career.

Since then, Wolfe’s puzzles have been published in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Newsday, Dell, Simon & Schuster, The Crossword Puzzle Club and many others since 1973.

Since his high school track days, Wolfe has run or jogged daily, “in any season, any weather,” he says. He’s recently switched to walking and swimming, but also enjoys coin collecting, playing piano and guitar, writing, world travel and photography, as well as rooting for the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics. He also enjoys painting and sketching in all media and genres, setting up reunions for his Vet School class and his fraternity. “We’re starting a Zoom frat reunion now,” Wolfe says. “People said I’d be bored when I retired — NOPE!”!

Link to downloadable puzzle
Answers to puzzle
Crossword puzzle by: Robert Wolfe
Produced by: Alison Kotch