====== Hex ======


===== Recruitment =====

We started writing cryptic crosswords for the Atlantic Monthly in 1977, and around that 
time we began wondering (the way you do when your mind has a certain congenital warp) what
group of eight letters would yield the highest number of transposals. We wrote to [[nightowl|Mary
Hazard]], who had published some kind of lipogrammatical poem in a magazine (we now forget which); 
in the biographical blurb about her was the info that she edited //The Enigma// for the National
Puzzlers League. She wrote back to us and brought to our attention TANGIERS, GANTRIES, INGRATES, 
ANGRIEST, RANGIEST, TEA RINGS, INERT GAS, and GANISTER (plus a couple other obscurities). We were 
appropriately impressed and grateful and soon began subscribing to //The Enigma//. In fact, the first 
issue we received was the [[Nightowl]] tribute issue (January 1978); after that [[Mangie]] became 
the editor. 

//First Issue//: Dec 1977

===== Recruits =====

[[Slik]].

===== Nom =====

Our nom comes from the initials of our handles plus the symbol of our cruciverbalistic 
preoccupation. Since 1985 we've been living in south-central Pennsylvania where houses
and barns are often decorated with hex signs. We have such a sign ourselves; it was made 
by Johnny Claypool, perhaps the most famous (apart from the Zook family) of Pennsylvania's
hex-sign artisans.

==== Combinoms ====

No data.

===== Offices =====

No data.