There was a time when I could tell you the longest river in Africa, or the leading crop or state bird of Montana. At least there was a time when I could ask you those questions, and check to see if your answer was correct. That time would have been in the evening, on a Saturday, while we ate take-out pizza, from the Pizza Nook. 

For many years growing up, the Times-Union newspaper in Albany, NY had a 5 or 10 question trivia quiz in the back pages, near the crossword and chess problem.  I think it was only a summer feature, though I have no idea why that would be. Our family loved doing those trivia quizzes. Naming Cy Young winners or President’s wives or whatever, honestly I have no recollection of those questions, because after a while, we started making our own trivia quizzes for Saturday night dinners. I suspect I probably annoyed my parents into doing the first ones, but soon it became a rotating responsibility.  Again, I suspect that I annoyed people with requests for “more questions” until they just made me make my own. My parents say I was eight or nine when I started to comb through the World Almanac looking for ten things I could ask my brother and parents. I recall tables of Gross Domestic Products, Presidential Birthplaces, and Best Actor Oscar winners and runners-up, and can see the little text under my fingers like it was yesterday. 

I have vivid memories of the distinctive scribble of my dad’s questions on his beloved 3×5 cards, and how thrilled I was when we replaced the 1976 World Almanac with one from ‘81 or ‘82. The eighties book had world flags IN COLOR! 

I think one of the most personally profound changes technology has wrought is that as a child, my prodigious memory was a huge part of what made me a successful student, and therefore a happy and successful person, since school was the defining part of who I was. Modern day use of the Google means that keeping facts stored in my brain seems a waste; the mental equivalent of keeping receipts from McDonalds. Anyone can seek information out faster with a keyboard, or a yell of “Hey Siri, Alexa, or OK Google”. Lot’s of my fellow olds may be uncomfortable with this, but I don’t mind that my superpower is no longer impressive.

I’m still an active trivia guy: A few years ago, Marsha Nagorsky invited me to join the Learned League, an online trivia/knowledge quiz that arranges people into groups of about 25 other folks with similarly spongy brains in head-to-head competition for about a month at a time, a few times a year. It’s enough fun that I’ve recruited a few others into the cult, and made some real friends among competitors.  It’s a wonderful way to frustrate myself for a few minutes each day, and the best part is complaining about the fairness of the questions, with my compatriots. The most impressive thing about it is that every day  you click a box as you submit the answers to the six questions, affirming that you did not cheat. Any community that trusts the honesty of 18,000 strangers is worth being a member of. We’re about midway through a season currently, but if you think it sounds fun, let me know. Another Rookie League will start in August. 

Nile, wheat, western meadowlark

Feel free to chime in with a favorite bit of trivia, OR your favorite pizza place.