Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
I’m sitting in the shade at one of our favorite parks. A slight breeze cools the 81-degree day at noon. Children are playing Frisbee golf with their parents, while my sons climb a large structure made of ropes and metal fasteners. Sometimes a truck can be heard on California State Highway 113, but at this distance, the freeway sounds almost resemble surf. From all the joyous yelling, I have learned that two of nearby dogs are named “Bullet” and “Chainsaw.”
A professor of English walks by with his 13-year-old son, and refuses our offer of raspberries, kindly adding that at home they have been eating them by the “Costco cartful.” He tells me that he is enjoying his Frisbee golf victories while he can, for soon his son will beat him in all physical games. The boy nods.
My sons and I enjoy a Safeway brunch of bagels, berries, and mango protein drinks at a picnic table. At the far end of the table sits a black leather purse. We wonder what its story could be. Moving students have been known to abandon furniture on the streets of Davis on the 1st of September, but not usually purses. After 15 minutes, one of the Frisbee players, a blonde woman with tattoos walks towards us, smiling, to grab her purse. She asks if I am writing Pub Quiz questions. “The newsletter,” I respond.
The redwood trees that encircle this park are taller than the nearby apartment houses. They offer significant shade in the aggregate, rather than individually, for all their growing energy seems to be devoted to producing height alone, rather than to creating a canopy of branches. They invest in the long term, these redwoods. John Muir once said, “As soon as a redwood is cut down or burned, it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful shoots, which, if allowed to grow, would in a few decades attain a height of a hundred feet, and the strongest of them would finally become giants as great as the original tree.”
Sometimes the cycle of life, and such prodigious growth, takes decades, but in the park this afternoon, the process seems to have been sped up. I glance up at my friend the English professor just as his son threw his yellow Frisbee at a target from 20 yards away. The sound of the plastic hitting the chains means that he improbably hit his mark, even from such a distance. My friend heard me applauding, looked over to me, his mouth still open, and remarks, “It has already begun!”
Inspired by my time in the park today, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on familial relations. Expect also questions on Sweden, division I, Italy, ampersands, Scott Simon, politics, ecology, the word “monatomic,” cows, women of the world, transplants, people named Isaac, Cheers, wireless in Manila, court sports, cable hawks, pride of the USSR, boats, British physicians, mild invectives in pop songs, American cities, national teams, presidential politics, big cities, gadgets, and Shakespeare. I also have yet to write a few of the questions. Perhaps some of these hints will not apply. All of us should expect surprises.
Happy anniversary (Wednesday) to my wife Kate. Our marriage is the same age as Daisy Ridley.
Happy Labor Day! I look forward to seeing you and your teams this evening.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are three questions from last week’s quiz:
- Internet Culture. Google moved into its current headquarters in 2004. Name the city.
- Newspaper Headlines. It was 50 years ago today on Aug. 29, 1966, that a certain rock band played what turned out to be their final ticketed show, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Name the band.
- Four for Four. California leads the nation in the production of which of the following? Cheese, cotton, lettuce, strawberries.
P.S. Tune into Capital Public Radio Wednesday morning during the 9 AM hour to hear me talk with Beth Ruyak about my new poetry book, In the Almond Orchard. And then Thursday night at 8, I will be reading at Luna’s Juice Bar in Sacramento. You are invited.