Quiz Night

It must have been about 10 years ago that St. A's had its last Trivia Night event, where teams of 8 or so competed to see who knew the most about, well, everything and nothing. Our table of four couples had a great time, did some good-natured trash-talking with the other tables, and won. We basked in that glory for years.

When I say "we" I mean the guys, of course -- the women had fun, and contributed their share of answers, but didn't revel in the competition or the knowledge of arcana that the guys did. It's a funny phenomenon, and not just limited to sports trivia, either. If I told you I know someone who can name every state nickname and year of statehood, or every property value in Monopoly, or what album Santana released in 1970, or every world capital, you'd ask, "Who is he?" (The answers would be Tom Giella, Paul McMahon, Jim O'Donnell, and me.)

There's a place on the northwest side of Chicago called the Irish American Heritage Center, housed in a wonderful old converted grade school building. The organization hosts all sorts of Irish cultural stuff, including dance, music, Gaelic language lessons, a big "Irish Fest" in the summer, and of course St. Patrick's Day. The "Fifth Province" pub has live traditional music every weekend night. And to beat the winter doldrums there's a trivia night ("Quiz Night") once a month...

Last year Rach and I organized two outings to the Quiz Night at the Heritage Center, with mostly the same crowd (plus or minus a few couples) from our glory days at St. A's. We went in pretty cocky, and wound up getting schooled both times -- they were still fun social events, but we left chastened, and a little disappointed. How could this happen? To us, in all our trivial brilliance?

I got a group together for this past Friday night's event, and no fooling around this time -- I recruited six of the most trivial guys I know (including myself). We didn't do any formal training over the last few weeks, but I'm sure there were a few almanacs or reference books stationed in a few bathrooms at home. We met up at the pub for dinner, a strategy session, and a pre-quiz Guinness or Harp, and then moved into the quiz room with great purpose, where we were one of 20 six-person teams.

Competition was fierce over the next 3 hours. Who's Rebecca Pallmeyer? Which president was born on the 4th of July? What's the angle of tilt of the Earth's axis? Who composed the opera Fidelio? On what mountain did the Marines plant the flag on Iwo Jima? Who was on the first cover of Rolling Stone? What were the daughters' names in Pride and Prejudice? The scores were announced along the way, and our team (the "Redhawks") was right in the thick of it, either leading or in second place. There was great tension in the air, made bearable only by a few more Guinness.

The final part was the "Greedy Round" -- a set of 40 written questions in 10 minutes, where you could answer as many as you wanted, but one wrong answer would get you a zero for the whole set. So how sure are you, and how greedy? In this case it was a list of 40 products, and you had to name whether each was made by the Coke or Pepsi corporation. Fanta, Tab, and Dasani are Coke, sure, but Doritos? Tostitos? Life cereal? Aquafina? Mug root beer? Are you sure, or really sure?

We answered eleven, and got them all right, earning us the victory for the night. Woohoo!

The entry fee was $30/table, the Heritage Center kept a cut of that, and the top three teams finished in the money. Our winnings just about covered our dinner/bar bill -- kinda like the Blues Brothers at "Bob's Country Bunker". It wasn't about the money, of course, it was about -- well, I'm not really sure. But it was fun to win, and we'll do it again sometime.

The answers to the bold questions above, by the way, are "A U.S. District judge in Chicago", "Calvin Coolidge", "23 degrees", "Beethoven", "Mt. Suribachi", "John Lennon", and "Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia".

Pat