Wednesday, January 5, 2011
My goal today was to get to the Soldiers Home in time for Trivia with Mike—naturally, I got there just seconds before it started, and I was lucky to find a seat. It was packed—the most people I’ve ever seen at Trivia.
Mike was on my left, and Billy moved up to sit on my right. Bob started Trivia with the Super Quiz from The News Tribune, and Billy was on a roll. “He read the paper this morning,” Mike whispered to me.
But then Bob moved on to a Trivia book, and Billy was still on a roll—so much so, he asked at one point when he’d get his Cadillac prize.
Billy moved, and Ken Levick took his place. I was leaned over talking to Ken, and Mike was punching me as if we were missing a nuclear evacuation.
“Yes?” I sneered.
“It’s punctuation!” Mike said. “The category is punctuation!”
Well, why didn’t you say so? Finally! After Air Force Academy, General Science and Harriet Beecher Stowe, I was ready for some punctuation.
Residents got the first few questions right, but then Bob asked something about a failed punctuation mark: What was the interrobang? Nobody else answered, so I ventured a guess. “A question mark followed by an exclamation point,” I said.
Seriously, everyone at the table, around the perimeter and throughout the room turned and looked at me as if I had just ordered a nuclear evacuation.
“Well,” I stammered … “if ‘interro’ means question, like ‘interrogate,’ and ‘bang’ is ‘emphasis,’ maybe it’s a question mark followed by an exclamation point.”
I was right. Mike beamed as if I’d won Miss America.
In Bob’s Trivia book, each section begins with a declarative paragraph about the topic. Also in Bob’s book, a lot of the questions are true/false. Together, these two simple facts combined into the biggest laugh of the day—Bob was reading the no-need-to-answer introductory statement, and Mike shouted out, “True!”
Well, he was right.
Ken had asked me to stop in his room afterwards to see some new photos of his wife Betty, who died recently. His stepson had visited and brought a box of family photos, Ken said, and they’d spent two hours going through them. Ken picked his favorites, and his stepson fashioned a collage of snapshots and put others in bigger frames. Ken’s favorite-favorite sits on the shelf right at the end of his bed, and shows Ken and Betty together. They both look amazingly young and happy.
“How nice that you can see that as soon as you wake up and right before you go to sleep,” I told Ken.
“That’s exactly what I do,” he said. And as I left, he was looking at it again.
My goal today was to get to the Soldiers Home in time for Trivia with Mike—naturally, I got there just seconds before it started, and I was lucky to find a seat. It was packed—the most people I’ve ever seen at Trivia.
Mike was on my left, and Billy moved up to sit on my right. Bob started Trivia with the Super Quiz from The News Tribune, and Billy was on a roll. “He read the paper this morning,” Mike whispered to me.
But then Bob moved on to a Trivia book, and Billy was still on a roll—so much so, he asked at one point when he’d get his Cadillac prize.
Billy moved, and Ken Levick took his place. I was leaned over talking to Ken, and Mike was punching me as if we were missing a nuclear evacuation.
“Yes?” I sneered.
“It’s punctuation!” Mike said. “The category is punctuation!”
Well, why didn’t you say so? Finally! After Air Force Academy, General Science and Harriet Beecher Stowe, I was ready for some punctuation.
Residents got the first few questions right, but then Bob asked something about a failed punctuation mark: What was the interrobang? Nobody else answered, so I ventured a guess. “A question mark followed by an exclamation point,” I said.
Seriously, everyone at the table, around the perimeter and throughout the room turned and looked at me as if I had just ordered a nuclear evacuation.
“Well,” I stammered … “if ‘interro’ means question, like ‘interrogate,’ and ‘bang’ is ‘emphasis,’ maybe it’s a question mark followed by an exclamation point.”
I was right. Mike beamed as if I’d won Miss America.
In Bob’s Trivia book, each section begins with a declarative paragraph about the topic. Also in Bob’s book, a lot of the questions are true/false. Together, these two simple facts combined into the biggest laugh of the day—Bob was reading the no-need-to-answer introductory statement, and Mike shouted out, “True!”
Well, he was right.
Ken had asked me to stop in his room afterwards to see some new photos of his wife Betty, who died recently. His stepson had visited and brought a box of family photos, Ken said, and they’d spent two hours going through them. Ken picked his favorites, and his stepson fashioned a collage of snapshots and put others in bigger frames. Ken’s favorite-favorite sits on the shelf right at the end of his bed, and shows Ken and Betty together. They both look amazingly young and happy.
“How nice that you can see that as soon as you wake up and right before you go to sleep,” I told Ken.
“That’s exactly what I do,” he said. And as I left, he was looking at it again.
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