AUGUST 31, 2017 // 11
Geddiss, who no longer works Trivia
Night, said it’s enjoyable when someone
realizes they know an answer.
“It’s fun to fi nd those things that people
have squirreled away in the back of their
brains,” she said.
The questions don’t just get read off
verbatim; Goodrich likes to add visual ques-
tions as well.
“I think sets that us apart from the rest
of trivia nights. Lots of silly pictures and
throwbacks to our childhood selves,” she
said.
The prizes add another element to the
silliness.
Goodrich asks bonus questions between
each round and those winners get to select
something from a collection of what she
calls “exotic prizes” lining a table at the
front of the room.
“Even if you don’t win you might take
home something fun,” Goodrich said.
“Sometimes it’s a house plant, sometimes
it’s a toy or candy. Terry has even wrapped
up stuff so they have to roll the dice picking
from a pile of unknown things.”
On this night, the table was lined with an
array of cassette tapes, old pictures, toys and
a puzzle.
I was eying a cassette tape knowing I am
probably one of the last people in the world
with a working tape player in his car.
A participant writes down an answer to the
latest question during trivia night at the Merry
Time Bar and Grill in Astoria.
‘IT’S FUN TO FIND
THOSE THINGS
THAT PEOPLE HAVE
SQUIRRELED AWAY IN
THE BACK OF
THEIR BRAINS.’
Secret of Nimh” (Don Bluth).
We redeemed ourselves by correctly
labeling the continents in size from largest
to smallest and naming all of the secondary
colors, but by then we were deep into the
third round and fi ghting to stay in serious
contention.
Trivia fever
The time to play had arrived.
Most teams were at full capacity, leaving
the two of us outnumbered but undaunted.
Seated at the table next to us was a four-
some of college-age kids who were only too
happy to show the waiter their IDs.
I leaned over and asked them what
brought them here; the consensus was the
cash prize. Also, as one of them confi ded,
“We’re really into stupid facts.”
I asked them if they planned on buying
the house a round if they won, but they just
laughed.
The game commenced — “No using
phones,” Goodrich admonished — and the
festivities kicked off with a relatively easy
round of sports questions featuring team
nicknames.
I got lucky and drew a couple of baseball
questions, including “What team from the
1970s was commonly referred to as The Big
Red Machine?”
The Cincinnati Reds, of course.
This was followed by “What team was
known as the Purple People Eaters?”
Born and raised in the Midwest, I instant-
ly recognized the Minnesota Vikings. Long
live Fran Tarkenton!
We ended that category with a perfect
score. Trivia fever was settling in. I had no
doubt the Disciples Of Vader would reign
supreme.
The Merry Time Bar and Grill in Astoria is the site of a trivia night event held every Wednesday
where teams compete for a variety of prizes.
A team ponders a trivia question at the Merry Time Bar and Grill in Astoria during a recent trivia
night event held every Wednesday starting at 7 p.m.
Then it got tricky.
We missed on the scientifi c term for the
narwhal (mondon monoceros), forgot the
name of the singer who performed “Take
This Job and Shove It” (Johnny Paycheck),
fl ubbed on the fi rst National Park (Yellow-
stone, not Yosemite), and drew a complete
blank on the director of the 1982 fi lm “The
There can be only one
The fi nal question in the last round
offered a glimmer of redemption, and my
confi dence surged as Goodrich asked, “Who
served as President of Iran until 2013.”
Eureka! I knew this one!
As I prepared to scribble the long,
multi-syllable name, cold water rained down
on my picnic.
“Only full name and spelling count,” she
said adamantly.
Groans went up around the room and we
bent over our scoresheet, arguing over how
many ‘j’s’ there were and where they went,
and repeatedly sounding the long name out.
In the end, only one team correctly
spelled “Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”
Still, it was a bitter pill to swallow as the
last prize from the table was claimed, that
worn cassette tape I had coveted.
As the evenings’ fi nal tally was an-
nounced, Disciples Of Vader, out of 11
teams, ranked in the middle of the pack.
The cash prize, a little over $30, was
claimed, and the winners — a group decked
out in Oregon Ducks apparel — celebrated
loudly.
Disciples Of Vader would not be trivia
champions this evening, but we vowed to
return for a rematch. We also took solace
from still being in better shape than the Red
Sox third-base situation. CW