Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
Just over 40 years ago, my mom took my brother and me to Colonial Williamsburg, the historical district in the (William and Mary) college town that was once capital of the state of Virginia. Sensible people would have checked the weather forecast first (by listening to the radio?) before making the two and a half hour long drive from Washington DC along 1-95, because as we increasingly discovered, the weather during our curious odyssey was awful.
We drove over inundating rivers, and at one point saw in the distance that the Atlantic Ocean was roiling. As Marvin Gaye would say a few years later, “the waves were rising and rising.” The torrents of rain that descended upon southeastern Virginia on that day would have dissuaded most of us from traveling, but the colonialists showed up to work in their period costumes, despite the downpour. Unlike the employees of that place (hearty blacksmiths, silversmiths, coopers, etc.), and unlike my mom and brother and me, all the tourists wisely decided to stay away from Colonial Williamsburg on that day. We had the place to ourselves.
Seeing the sheets of rain that would be a welcome blessing in northern California this month, and looking up and down the muddy streets that were being negotiated by horse-drawn carriages and wagons, I was reminded of that scene from a science fiction film that had been released only a few years before, Logan’s Run, in which the protagonists visit an abandoned post-nuclear Washington DC looking for answers to questions about the surface world that they were seeing for the first time. I found it strange to see a place I knew so well emptied of people.
So, what does one do with an important place that has been deserted? Often we delight in the perspective offered by such an opportunity. The UC Davis campus never seems more magical than on Christmas night when I finish my Wednesday evening radio show and then ascend the stairs from Lower Freeborn Hall onto North Quad Avenue, a street that is usually bustling with fast-moving bicyclists and texting pedestrians. On one holiday night, I instead saw nothing but the Tule fog and my own breath fogging up my glasses. I smiled to myself and then broke into song when I realized that I had the whole campus to myself.
My mom taught Oliver and me to embrace such fortuitous circumstances. It definitely wasn’t a disaster that we were getting soaked in Williamsburg, she told us. Instead, we made a game of counting women’s bonnets, jumping the enormous puddles, and walking in the soggy steps of the locally-shod horses in front of the reconstructed Raleigh Tavern on Duke of Gloucester Street. Williamsburg seemed to be free of constables on that day, so we acted as strangely as we pleased.
As the place was ours, we could interrupt the solitary work of any local craftsman. For example, after standing around in silence in one drafty workshop, I asked the cordwainer (leather-worker) if I could have a piece of scrap-leather from the basket at his feet. With the word “nae,” he denied my request, saying that those bits of leather would be valuable for the nearby thonger who could transform them into leather straps for saddles and laces for Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie’s riding boots.
I wanted to say, “Dinwiddle? Hey bub, drop the act. Your audience is two antsy boys and their mom who just drove to your insufficiently-refurbished and leaky 18th century shack in a Checker Marathon. We don’t want a history lesson right now. Just give us some leather-worker swag, man.” But I didn’t say any of that. Back out in the rain, we just talked about the strange words used by the proud re-enactor, and then went to visit the blacksmithery, where at least it was warm.
Sitting in an empty Davis café on Sunday evening as I write these words, I am grateful all over again that my mom was brave or silly enough to take us out into the rain. What would you do if you were to have a place to yourself? Would you have feelings of delight, concern, or loneliness. Soon, in our era of social distancing, you may have a chance to find out.
Tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on the following: breakfast toasts, plusses and minuses, Bohemia, road trips, expired records, Sean Connery, promises, physics, the body parts of mammals, waltzes, resilient obstacles, the freshest of tomatoes, movies in which Tom Cruise runs, sorry states, equatorial differences, commemorations, fortuitous bathtubs, locations of coffee in South Davis, waterfalls, Italian tractors, Orson Welles, football clubs, people born in Canada, unfair trials, powerful claws, pouches, beautiful valleys, St Petersburg, spurned invitations, heartbreaking stories, science fiction, people named Rick, micro-peddlers, mathematics, and Shakespeare.
Take care of yourselves. As Thomas Carlyle said, “He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything.”
Perhaps I will see you this evening.
Best,
Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
P.S. Here are three questions from a previous quiz:
- Current Events – Names in the News. General Electric’s most famous ever CEO died yesterday at the age of 84. Famous for having received the largest severance payment in history, what is his name?
- Sports. Last name Williamson, what is the name of the Pelicans rookie who scored 35 points against the L.A. Lakers yesterday?
- Shakespeare. How many Shakespeare plays have the name “Richard” in their titles?
P.P.S. I am coming up with some new ways for you to support the Pub Quiz. Stay tuned!