Dear Friends,
I am just tickled that a teacher has been chosen as a candidate for Vice President of the United States. Like many of us who have recently discovered Tim Walz, I admire his character, his eloquence, and his authenticity. I hope these qualities matter in the coming months of debates, discussions, and deliberations.
Another teacher who eventually went into politics, Lyndon Baines Johnson taught speech and debate at Sam Houston High School in Houston, Texas. One 1931 photograph shows the future president with members of his debate team. Just as Walz did with football, Johnson led a statewide championship in debating.
A great storyteller, Johnson told an interviewer in 1965 how he was offered a much-coveted teaching job at one of the state’s best high schools (in Houston) even though he had already promised to serve as principal at a much smaller rural school. Johnson turned down the plum job via wire, an indication of the sort of moral strength that would serve him well later in life. I will include here an entire paragraph of his reminiscing: it gives you a sense of President Johnson’s speaking style:
That night, I guess it must have been about a Friday, I had a date with one of the teachers and in the course of the conversation she asked me what had happened in Houston and I told her. Saturday night she had a date with the coach. The coach lived with the superintendent. I swore her to secrecy but it didn’t matter, she told the coach, and the coach Sunday morning told the superintendent. So Monday morning the superintendent called me in. I thought he was going to lecture me about it. He said that he understood I had an offer and I said, “Yes.” He said, “Do you remember our conversation when you told me that you would stay?” And I said, “Yes.” He said, “What have you done about it?” I pulled out a copy of the wire I had sent to the superintendent. And he said, “Well, I thank you and I appreciate it.” [He said] he thought that that was what I would do, that the coach had told him that he had heard from this lady teacher that I had told her that I had been offered a job, and it had troubled him over the weekend. [He said] that he had a young boy and that if some man in subsequent years happened to be superintendent and refused to release his boy when he had a chance to go into Houston and have the chance to move up, why, he would never forgive him. And [he said] he had thought about it so much that he thought that I ought to go take it. I told him that I couldn’t do it, I had turned it down and I was going to stay with him. He said, “I just feel like a criminal tying you here. I will be both superintendent and principal if I have to. But this is such a wonderful opportunity that I want to urge you to take it.”
Just as I can recount stories about favorite teachers like Jack Petrash, Marcia Clemmitt, Will Layman, Sir Christopher Ricks, or Sandra Gilbert, Johnson had all the details of his story about admired teachers ready for the interviewer. Like these heroes, Walz has inspired many young people, and he will likely continue to do so. As Henry Adams said, “A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
I hope you can join us on an especially warm evening for a pub quiz at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters are misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Ralph Waldo Emerson allegedly said, “It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” Tonight some will want to play indoors. I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week, and I expect that we will continue to do so throughout August.
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on shoes, layoffs, automobiles, big houses in California, detectives, Doja Cats, early Britain, vertebrates, dumb moves, delightful flowers, literature Nobel Prize winners, gold mines, punishers, dudes, people no longer named Eugene, AI, motorcycles, rain storms, crossover hits, mythical places, human body specialties, rappers and riders, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare. Sometimes a question is substituted at the last minute because of the day’s news.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscriber Sophie! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the scintillating Mavens who carefully take note of casual adjectives and precise pronunciations, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems). Congratulations to the team with a future Jeopardy! player among them — they have won two in a row! I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Find here three questions from last week’s Pub Quiz:
- Charades. Living from 1904 to 1986, what actor starred in the films Notorious, To Catch a Thief, Operation Petticoat, and Charade?
- Science. On July 31st, 2023, at Brights Zoo, in Limehouse, Tennessee, a distinctive giraffe was born, the only one in the known world with a certain trait. What makes this giraffe special?
- Current Events – Names in the News. We recently learned that a New Jersey elementary school will remove a home state senator’s name from its building after his conviction on federal bribery charges. Name the U.S. Senator from New Jersey who is not Cory Booker.