Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I wrote a poem yesterday while walking the Greenbelt and the sent it to my wife, Kate. She liked it and suggest I use it in today’s newsletter. I thought I could turn it into prose (I did this once with a piece that ran in the Sacramento Bee), but then Kate said people should get over the fact that I’m a poet. So here’s a winter in Davis poem, starring familiar figures whom you know from past newsletters.
Winter Sunday on the Greenbelt
The most delicious part of my walk with Jukie
occurs when the French Bulldog notices
that we are too far ahead of her charge,
whom she has been taught to think of as
her brother, him seventeen years her senior.
When Margot’s herding instinct kicks in,
she cranes her wrestler’s neck behind us
to the spot where Jukie might have lingered,
amid or behind the municipal hedgerows,
momentarily lost in thought, wondering,
if this slight chill, this refreshing frosty dip
passes for winter in California.
If her quarry, her brother, eludes her,
sometimes she just sits right down, lodestonish,
refusing to budge until he reappears.
Meanwhile, Jukie prunes and preens the trees,
liberating individual leaves.
Removing a choice frond from a Sago palm,
trying its pokey substance upon
the texture of his feather down jacket,
singing a little song as it travels
up his arm and then down his arm,
whereupon he spins the frond unevenly
between his calloused thumb and forefinger:
Tip tap tap tip; tip tap tap tip.
He will never tire of this rhythm.
Everything is fresh – the world belongs to him!
He takes a dozen moments just to
notice: He notices the sky, the tops
of the green belt’s coniferous trees,
the encircling western meadowlark,
his own breath hanging like words in the air.
Sometimes far ahead he spies the distant
figure of his father, himself also
collecting arboreal images,
and holding the taut and unforgiving
leash of Margot, both leader of this pack,
compassion teacher, and patient herder.
I feel lucky every time we encounter a friend out on the Greenbelt. Perhaps once this winter break it’ll be you!
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on the following: gratitude, mosquitoes, Japanese stars, Christmas names, painters, car care, Google searches, Catholicism, old books, e-commerce, big countries, tragic figures, border studies, biological discoveries, high school graduation rates, continentals, green Shamrocks, Mona Lisas, the color orange, Peruvians, John Wayne, escapes in red, popular movies, polka, trainloads of flowers in Singapore, heartlessness, fake IDs, somber colors, robots, and Shakespeare.
Thursday night is Poetry Night at the Natsoulas Gallery. The talented local teacher, performance artist, and author Chris Erickson will be performing stories and songs from his annual holiday special. You should join us! We start at 8 at 521 1st Street.
Best,
Your Quizmaster
https://www.yourquizmaster.com
P.S. Here is the beginning of last week’s quiz:
- Mottos and Slogans. I’m thinking of a two-word store chain that has more locations than either McDonalds or Starbucks, and its slogan is “Save Time, Save Money, Every Day.” The second word in this store’s name is “General.” What is the first?
- Internet Culture. Last week pair of co-founders gave up control of what company? Google / Alphabet
- Newspaper Headlines. Caroll Spinney died yesterday at age 85. With what fictional character is Spinney most associated?
- Four for Four. Which of the following cities, if any, is closer to Davis than San Jose is to Davis? Fremont, Modesto, Oakland, Reno.
P.S. “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” John F. Kennedy