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As anyone who comes to this page has figured out by now, this puzzle celebrates the 34th birthday of one of my friends, University of Minnesota reference librarian extraordinaire JON JEFFRYES (57-Across). You can click on his name to get a "traditional" biosketch, but to create a compelling puzzle, it was necessary to carry out additional research and to recruit several collaborators.
Here's what we learned: Jon and his twin JUSTIN (1-Across) were born on February 28, 1980, in the town of SLATER,_IOWA (28-Down). There is another sibling, JOSH (58-Down). Jon's partner is named AARON (30-Down), and Justin's wife Rebecca, by amazing coincidence, share the same last name, Miller. This inspired us to come up with MILLER_TIME (thinking of the tagline from a vintage beer marketing campaign) as a jokey theme entry (11-Down). Jon and Justin have a Wheaton Terrier named CLARY (29-Across, pictured on the puzzle's main page). Professionally, Jon specializes in the ENGINEERING (20-Across) disciplines. His favorite GENRES (49-Down) of reading material are mysteries and the like, authors like Kate Atkinson and Louise Penny.
We thought that the puzzle might be more fun, as well as fair, to those who do not know its honorees, by coming up with "normal" clues for some of the fill, and leave it for the birthday boy to make his own private connections. To make the puzzle even more fun, we "gayified" any number of the clues. We leave you with the pleasure of finding these, but thought that you might particularly enjoy a rollicking rendition of "It's Raining Men" (4:54 min from YouTube, a 1982 hit for The Weather Girls).
Finally, by way of explaining the puzzle's title, Jon has been known to say "I'm old at heart." We sure hope that this puzzle makes him feel young.
APPENDIX: Here is more information, much of which did not make it into the final grid. It was compiled by Meghan, with additional input from Carolyn, Kris Fowler, Jan Fransen, Janice Jaguszewski, and Megan Kocher.
Food & drink
Baked goods: Donuts, cake (he'll go to any meeting if there's a promise of cake), cookies
Café Lurcat
Poutine
Hoppy beers/IPAs
Clothing
Argyle (2 mentions)
Warby Parker glasses
Banana Republic (he worked there, and ties his ties Banana Republic style)
Places
Iowa (2 mentions)
Grinnell (his alma mater)
Northeast (Minneapolis)
Boston (where his twin lives)
People
Twin (Justin) (2 mentions)
Aaron (a particularly oddball fact is that Aaron's last name is Miller, and his twin Justin's wife Rebecca's last name is Miller)
Clary (Aaron and Jon's Wheaten terrier)
Reading
Kate Atkinson and her Jackson Brodie detective: Jon and Janice (Jaguszewski) would alert one another when a new novel was out.
Louise Penny's Armand Gamache mysteries
Judging Minnesota Book Awards, and the agony and ecstasy of reading all those books in a short timeframe
Media
Angela Lansbury
The Archers (e.g., Ambridge)
Downton Abbey (this morning's quote: "Better than last season!")
Full House (Jon once told me that he thought about joining Boy Scouts, but they met at the time Full House was on, so that was out).
Golden Girls
Michael Haneke
Terry Gross, Fresh Air, and NPR in general
Etc.
"I'm old at heart" - a classic Jon quote
ESL conversation partner
Cross-country skiing
Walking everywhere
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