Grid: 10 minutes; meta: slept on it 

Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Keep on Truckin’” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re on the lookout for one thing you may name a trucker. The middle entry (TENFOUR, clued as “Message received,” to a trucker) was clearly thematic. There had been no apparent theme entries past that, aside from the 2 lengthy acrosses (which had been ten letters lengthy). I attempted to use 10-4 to them (taking the tenth and 4th letters), which lead nowhere. I overcomplicated issues and researched trucker 10 codes. I figured they had been a little bit of a stretch as the premise for a meta, however I had enjoyable studying about them. I slept on it, awakened, and tried making use of 10-4 to varied locations within the grid. Wrong rabbit gap, however I stumbled into the appropriate one once I noticed “Detraining site” (which struck me as an odd clue for EXIT the day earlier than), and realized the clue had a 10-letter phrase adopted by a four-letter phrase. Fifteen different clues adopted the identical sample:

WSJ Contest – 10.14.22 – resolution

• [5a: Detraining site]: STOP
• [13a: Cloverleaf ramp]: EXIT
• [16a: Restaurant card]: MENU
• [19a: Folksinger Burl]: IVES
• [23a: Allocation word]: PER
• [25a: Ceremonial acts]: RITES
• [33a: Burdensome task]: ONUS
• [34a: Menacingly wild]: FIERCE
• [40a: Serpentine fish]: EEL
• [42a: Diagnostic test]:  SCAN
• [47a: Lighthouse view]: SEA
• [56a: Newsworthy pair]: ITEM
• [57a: Transplant hero]: ORGANDONOR
• [61a: Lymphocyte site]: NODE
• [62a: Melancholy sigh]: ALAS
• [63a: Decorative trim]: LACE

The first letter of the theme entries spell SEMIPROFESSIONAL, our contest resolution. Note to self: when the grid yields no sign: verify the notes. I did so pretty rapidly, however not carefully sufficient. Solvers: let me know the way you made out.