Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I was just three blocks away from President Ronald Reagan when John Hinkley shot him and three others on March 30th, 1981. The T Street exit of The Washington Hilton was directly across the street from the donut and bagel shop where I had lunch about two hours previously. At 2:27, when the shooting took place, I was in one of my final 9th grade classes of the day on the second floor of The Field School, 2126 Wyoming Avenue. I took a DC Metrobus home that afternoon, not having heard about what had happened until I turned on the evening news that night.
No one that I knew in our inner circle had voted for Ronald Reagan, but we were all less partisan then, and more circumspect about our voting habits. Despite our political leanings (Reagan earned 13% of the vote in Washington DC in 1980, which might be compared to Trump’s 4% in 2016), we all felt deep sympathy for the president after the assassination attempt, and for the others who had been shot, especially Press Secretary James Brady. We recognized the symbolic importance of the office, and we all wished Reagan to be safe from harm.
Donald Trump has also been laid low, but under different circumstances that make it difficult to create parallels. Reagan was a staunch advocate of gun ownership; however, unlike, say, Vice Presidents Burr and Cheney, his firearm practices did not put others in danger. With all the times he had played cowboys in the movies, many Americans still likened Reagan’s interest in guns with a sheriff’s wish to keep order in a wild west full of outlaws. (In the America that some saw as “Reagan’s ranch,” many friends of my parents enjoyed seeing themselves as ideological outlaws.) Most Americans who didn’t own guns did not begrudge Reagan his love of hunting or his nostalgia for TV westerns.
Comparisons between Reagan’s attitudes towards gun safety and President Trump’s attitudes towards COVID-19 safety invite an absurd tone, but as a poet, I have been known to traffic in absurdity. Let’s give it a try.
Imagine a world where Reagan fired his gun up into the air during New Year’s Eve celebrations, not caring where the stray bullets might fall. Imagine Reagan inviting a dozen or so friends to go hunting in circular formations, so that one couldn’t tell if it was a deer or a wealthy businessman who was crouched in the brush. Imagine a world where Reagan mocked those hunting buddies who wore orange safety vests, suggesting that to do so was a sign of weakness. Imagine him forbidding the use of sunscreen or insect repellant, or insisting that no one get tetanus shots after being scraped up by rusty barbed wire on a hunting trip. Imagine Reagan encouraging secret service agents to play Russian roulette with his antique gun collection. Imagine if Reagan were to bring a frequently-misfiring gun to a fundraiser in New Jersey. Imagine President Ronald Reagan sending out a public memo that reads, in part, “DON’T FEAR BULLETS!!!”
More than 100 people die every day from firearms in the United States. Daily, COVID-19 kills more than ten times that in this country. As we all consider what President Trump’s illness might signify about him, his presidency, and our nation, the families of those 1,100 are too grief-stricken to interpret the trends, the statistics, or the symbolism. As bad as the gun violence epidemic and the AIDS epidemic were in the 1980s when I was growing up in Washington DC, today when we consider the lives lost, what Donald Trump in his inaugural address called “American carnage,” 2020 seems our darkest year yet. As I write this, the COVID-19 death count in our country is about that of the population of Salt Lake City, more than three times the entire population of Davis, California. As I try to fathom this, I look forward to a time in the future of greater clarity, greater transparency, greater honesty, and greater adherence to scientific recommendations.
I wish the President a steady recovery from the coronavirus that has felled so many. I also look forward to American democracy and our citizenry recovering from this dark period in American history. We would all benefit from some better news and, speaking personally, better leadership.
I hope you get to see tonight’s Pub Quiz, which our subscribers on Patreon will receive soon. I will gladly send you a copy. Tonight’s Quiz will feature questions on topics raised above, and on binary choices, terabyte acronyms, regrettable consultations, anchors, old jobs, chemistry labs, the 2018 World Atlas, hammers, kiss frontmen, international visitors, Nobel Prizes in Literature, “debates,” athletics, French and German people, oceanography, witches, European countries, African singers, gangsters, working-class protagonists, Denzel Washington, U.S. presidents, Bible stories, organizations, Academy Awards, questions of Canadian citizenship, wrap-ups, Spartacus, timing with phones, happiness, and Shakespeare.
I’m grateful for all the friends that I’ve made from the Pub Quiz over the last decade, friends I would likely not have met in other circumstances. One family that I just adore is the Nedwin family, people who have brought great competitive exuberance and bonhomie to the pub over the years. I’m grateful to count the Nedwins among my most recent subscribers.
Speaking of our Pub Quiz Patreon page, did you know that I frequently share individual quiz questions there for visitors to noodle over. Visit https://www.patreon.com/yourquizmaster a few times a week to see what I mean. Right now there’s a question about the Spanish Flu that I bet you will answer correctly. One thing I can tell you: The Original Vincibles will always be in the Winners’ Circle. Thanks, OV, for being the top sponsor of The Pub Quiz!
Stay safe, everyone!
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Know Your Flags. The five oldest flags still in continuous use all have the same primary color in them. What is that color?
- Countries of the World. Lemurs are the flagship conservation species of what country?
- California Cities. Starting with the letter M what South Bay city is found north of San Jose and south of Fremont, and is the 99th most populous city in the state?