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EUREKA! Marvin Cotten wins a new Cadillac

EUREKA! Marvin Cotten wins a new Cadillac
By D Magazine |

It’s over.

As most of Dallas knows by now, the D Magazine Great Cadillac Treasure Hunt ended May 24. The man who outsmarted Homer Cassapien is 24-year-old Marvin Cotten of Dallas, a student at the Dallas Theological Seminary. Cotten had been following the quest for the keys since the first puzzle appeared in our April issue.

Cotten’s long and winding road to his 1983 Cadillac Eldorado came to an end behind the AAA Vacuum Cleaner Co., located at Kingsley and Audelia. It was Homer’s final clue -a picture of Archimedes, the Greek scientist who, upon discovering the law of displacement, jumped from his bathtub and ran through the streets shouting, “Eureka!” (“I have found it!”) -that led Cotten to his prize. The AAA store has signs for Eureka vacuum cleaners prominently displayed in its windows.

“I used to work puzzles in D Magazine all the time, and I also work crossword puzzles a lot, ” Cotten says. “I really enjoyed the hunt and found it a challenge. In fact, I think the magazine should make it an annual event. “

Since Homer Cassapien suddenly vanished from Springline, Massachusetts, it is not known whether the elusive genius will collaborate with Don any future contests or puzzles. Cassapien’s last cryptic utterance came in the form of a telegram sent to Cotten as the winner enjoyed a victory celebration at Sewell Village Cadillac. The mysterious epistle read as follows:

“Like ice cream in summer heat, We melt into success.

Thoughts cannot deny;

Words cannot express. “

Is this Cassapien’s way of congratulating Cotten? Or is it a veiled challenge – a threat that Homer’s teeming mind and titanic ego are even now hatching new schemes to delight and torment our readers?

Frankly, we’re not sure. If Cassapien drops into our lives again, we’ll let you know. Things may be a little duller without Cassapien’s mind-bending creations – not just for us, but for a lot of people, such as the mailman who was crawling through a culvert two miles from the hiding place when Marvin found the keys. And the fraternity brothers who actually stopped drinking for several days to combine efforts on the first puzzle. And the oilman who estimated that he had lost thousands of dollars in business while caught in Homer’s spell. And the two housewives who put their families on a TV-dinner diet for weeks so they could devote more time to the contest…

To all of these people, and to all those who called or wrote tosay they enjoyed the puzzles -and to Homer Cassapien, wherever he may be-our thanks. It’s been fun.

As was promised when we began The Great Cadillac Treasure Hunt, we include in this issue the answers to all three puzzles as they appeared in letters filed with our lawyers at Haynes and Boone.

The best clue in the April issue was in the last words of Homer’s manuscript: “Eureka! I have found the answer!” The other clues stood for the following intersections (the streets were to be filled in the answer blanks in the order shown here): 1. Custer at Easter; 2. Mariposa at Dixie; 3. Mater-horn at Lingo; 4. Chantilly at Lyre; 5. Homer at Lee; 6. Hawthorne at Sylvester; 7. Manana at Electric; 8. Chancellor at Dividend; 9. Ponderosa at Everglade; 10. Prospect at Clements; 11. Summit at Bell; 12. Locksley at Robin; 13. Erie at Tiffany; 14. Jason at University; 15. Broom at Laws; 16. Pindar at Fenway; 17. Overlook at Laverne; 18. Memory at Musgrave; 19. Reagan at Holland; 20. Puget at Shaw; 21. Cascade at Pioneer; 22. Promenade at Crescendo; 23. Euclid at Sears; 24. Vatican at Rugged; 25. Norwood at Halifax; 26. Tracy at Webb; 27. Ariel at Mark Trail; 28. St. Landry at Prince; 29. Du Bois at Childs; 30. Duet at Balalaika; 31. Franklin at Aaron; 32. Brooklyn at Wa-verly; 33. Huey at Hancock; 34. Ring at Collier; 35. Lear at Park; 36. Thackeray at Lovers.

When the names of these intersections were printed in the answer blanks and the corresponding numbered letters were placed in the clue box at the back of the April issue, the poem read:



Once you find your way to Fenchurch Road you haven’t far to go For the key is hidden west of there and north of Ridgecrest Road. Take note of Hickory Crossing and Ravenscroft Drive as well And soon you’ll have a polygon drawn round treasure nonpareil!



THE OBJECT of the May puzzle was to plot 13 numbered points on a map within the polygon defined in April. Once those points were connected dot-to-dot in numerical order, the line crossed itself once. That intersection marked an “X” within a half mile of the keys. The following clues and locations were represented: 1. Golf tee (obtained from Sewell Village Cadillac) -Fair Oaks Country Club; 2. Pizza drawing (notice the shape)-Olympic Pizza, 7568 Greenville; 3. Blocks -the similarly shaped facade of the building at Walnut Hill and Greenville; 4. Woodstock crowd scene -Woodstock Apartments, 7160 Skillman; 5. Dog bone with Band-Aid -Ellsworth’s veterinary hospital at the intersection of Abrams and Kingsley; 6. Baseball cards -baseball diamonds at Fair Oaks Park; 7. Silver star on door curtain -Hollywood Door Co., 9525 White Rock Trail; 8. Magazine picture of satellite – Orbiter Park; 9. Easy-listening records-KMEZ radio at 9900 McCree; 10. M*A*S*H Newsweek cover -National Guard Armory on Goforth; 11. Top hat-Top Hat Cleaners, 105 Lake Ridge Village; 12. Six boxes of popcorn -Skillman Six Theaters; 13. Torn “No Loitering on the Premises” sign-Premises Apartments, 9327 Forest.



JUNE’S PUZZLE was two pages torn from Homer’s scrapbook. They led the contestant from the point of intersection (found in May) to the key. The intersection of the lines was at approximately the location of White Rock Elementary School, 9229 Chiswell. The school is represented by June’s clue number one, a chalkboard chart of the alphabet. The 11 other clues were represented by objects not more than a few hundred feet apart from one another in sequence. The trail could be followed as shown below: 2. Ivy League sweaters-a few houses south of the school on Chiswell is a house with a yard full of ivy-covered trees; 3. Bus on wooden bridge-bus stop at Overwood Road; 4. Crime Watch signs-two such signs lead down Parkford from the bus stop; 5. Drawing of street -the shape of the street leading away from the second Crime Watch sign, Forestridge Drive. 6. Letter to George Bush -bushes visible from the end of the street followed in the fifth clue spell out the call letters of KMEZ

radio, 9900 McCree, and the “Please Forward” stamp indicates a left turn; 7. Friday the 13th marquee-the 13 lights standfor the 13 street lamps from the corner ofForestridge Drive to the correct left turninto White Rock North Shopping Center;8. Flag and music – the flag is a black-and-white version of the French flag and themusic is from the French standard FrèreJacques, representing La Francaise bakery; 9. Two men and a woman in a shower- a love triangle representing TriangleCleaners, 121 White Rock North Shopping Center; 10. Indians in Cadillac -Chief Auto Parts, 212 Lake Ridge Village;11. Blueberries and sign – Domino Pizza,413 Lake Ridge Village (Fats Dominowrote the hit songs Blueberry Hill andWalkin’ to New Orleans); 12. Man in tubwith a telephone pole in background -AAA Vacuum Cleaner store, which sellsEureka vacuum cleaners. (The keys wereburied at the base of the telephone pole,and the Greek man, as explained on page128 of this issue, is Archimedes.)

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