More Blue Moon characterizations from my friend Bill:
This guy fixes cars. Thick blond hair half way down his back, round glasses like hippies used to wear. Howard the Duck. Old torn corduroy coat and grease under his cuticles, Howard fixes the cars.
It's impossible to do a crossword puzzle in the tavern without sharing it with Howard. He begins by sitting down next to you, then the back of his head appears between you and the puzzle. "You stumped?" he asks. "Nope, just taking my time," you respond. In a minute he'll have the paper turned in his direction. "Lemme see ...Give me your pencil...Here's your problem, a mine entrance is an avid, or is it an avit? Yeah, that's it. avit. OK, so this is right." The puzzle is gone. (editor's note: I think it's an adit.)
His mechanical abilities come into question periodically, and nobody can read the puzzle when he's finished with it, but all of the squares are filled. He swears it's right. The consensus around the bar is that avit and avid are the same word to him, and that one is an archaic spelling of the other, and that the filibuster is enough by itself.
Is it some kind of socialism that makes him act this way? Does everything in the tavern belong to everybody, and the puzzle is being done for the communal good?