ACROSS
1. Mythological fish lady
4. With 13 Across, Nashville’s answer to “Laugh-In”
7. 60 in Roman numerals
8. Fermented grape juice
13. See 4 Across
15. Major national soybean group (abbreviation)
18. Full of excitement
19. The NCAA’s system of ranking basketball teams
21. Acronym for instructional television
22. Athletic shoe that extends well above the ankle
24. A very long period of geologic time
25. Definite article
26. Ireland’s famous patron
29. State of 4/13 Across
30. Ecoregion based on soil instead of water
32. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s state (postal abbreviation)
33. Twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet
34. Chemical symbol for Tellurium
35. Opening section of an essay or piece of music
37. To ask humbly
38. “American Girl” Kittredge
39. Spanish “is”
40. Major form of classic Japanese musical drama
41. To color or stain
42. No longer an amateur
43. “Good luck” in internet slang
44. Holy ___, the central government of the Roman Catholic Church
47. “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the ___ of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40 KJV
49. An organism that lives on or inside another, to the host’s detriment
53. Chemical formula for Mercury sulfide
54. This cover story creature’s name comes from the ancient Greek words for “the thread-like ones”
55. The kind of tube described in this week’s “Back Roads”

DOWN
2. The hour in which things get squeezed in just before it’s too late
3. Symbol for a medical prescription
5. Acronym of a new program in the farm bill, offered as an alternative to the current Direct and Counter-Cyclical Payment program
6. One of several spellings of a dish consisting of pig intestines
8. Term used colloquially to mean electric power in watts.
9. Marty Feldman’s role as a hunchbacked lab assistant in the 1974 Mel Brooks film “Young Frankenstein”
10. Jerry Seinfeld’s excited response when accused of sticking his finger up his nose (two words)
11. Latin for “for example” (acronym)
12. One senator’s apparently enough for this state
14. Grain alcohol
15. Goes with “ooohs”
16. “___, Ubu, ___. Good dog.”
17. Major soybean processing and export company
20. This week’s “Back Roads” weather-watchers
23. Bill ___ and the Comets, of “Rock Around the Clock” fame
27. The “life force” in Chinese culture
28. A young fox
31. Someone who holds an MBBS, BDS or DDS degree
36. Where the fat lady sings
37. Footballer/soldier character in “Doonesbury” comic strip
42. “Praise the Lord and ___ the Ammunition,” a song written in response to the attack on Pearl Harbor
44. “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them ___-I-am.”
45. Porter Wagoner song “___, Drink and be Merry (Tomorrow You’ll Cry)”
46. The masculine third-person, singular personal pronoun
47. Code for England’s largest airport
48. One of Sigmund Freud’s three “psychic apparatus” (See also, 51 Down)
49. The only class in school where it’s OK to bean someone with a dodgeball (acronym)
50. The fifth note taught by Maria to the Von Trapp children
51. One of Sigmund Freud’s three “psychic apparatus” (See also, 48 Down)
52. Abbreviation for Theistic Evolution, a concept that says belief in God and biological evolution are not mutually exclusive.