Location: Judge Fisher Apartments
Date: Tuesday, May 05, 2015; 6:30-8:00 pm
Last month’s project over here had been cancelled since they
were using the apartment common room as a polling station. That must have been something, because I’m
sure the seniors did not appreciate the government interfering in their Bingo
fun. I arrived to see that Jason was already
there with 3 other volunteers as were the 2 fun ladies who are always the life
of any party. The gentleman with whom I
had sung Sinatra songs arrived and he recognized me, saying that he was still
pleased about seeing "My Way"
on ‘Youtube’ and added that he had a
great memory. I was pleased to see that
he had managed to secure some earphones and a music player, something that he
was longing for the last time we had met. I looked at the prizes Jason had bought,
and there was everything ranging from the usual soap etc. to a bag of potpourri
and even stuffed animals. But we had a
problem.
 |
| There would be no Bingo this evening |
Jason had bought some milk and cookies for snacks, but there
were no cups or plates, meaning another trip to the ‘Dollar Store’ for me. I came
back to see that Jason was already conducting the quiz and when he went to get
the snacks ready, I took over. I put
in "Trivia for seniors" as
a search term on my phone and chose a link that had both, easy and difficult
questions. I started with the easy and the first one was “Which is the largest state in the USA?” Many said “Texas”,
which was not the right answer, though some did say “Alaska”, which was of course correct. Our problem though was that people were
yelling out answers without raising their hands and so it wasn't always easy to
point out who was right and who should go get a prize. Fortunately people were not being too feisty
today.
I had my choice of questions and did some like "Oldest US President to take office”,
the answer to which was “Ronald Reagan at
the age of 69”. Other questions were
"The year 'Titanic' sank", "The largest freshwater lake",
"Who invented airplanes"
etc. I saw a difficult question and said
that whoever comes close without going over would win. The question was "What is the height of Mount Everest" and even I did not
know that. People started at 25,000 feet
and went up to 52,000 feet. The correct
answer is 29,029 feet and so I gave it to closest answer at 28,000 feet. There weren't many questions remaining on
this site, and so I was looking for other webpages. I found one which did not have any answers, but I
knew some of those for few of the questions and plus we had only a few prizes
remaining. Speaking of prizes, one lady
took a bag of Oranges as a prize, till we realized that they were actually
meant as snacks for everyone! There
were some questions on movies, like "What
song did Doris Day sing in ‘Man who knew too much’" – “Que Sera Sera” - and "Who won academy award for 'To Kill A
Mockingbird'" – “Gregory Peck”.
Finally there was one prize remaining
and so I just had to ask, "Which
band came to the U.S. in 1962!!"
The prizes were done, but the residents seemed to be
enjoying themselves - though we had lost a few. So we said that we could continue the trivia
for fun and they agreed. Another
volunteer took over and I sat next to my “Sinatra
friend”. There were several
questions on Astronomy and I was able to get them because...well, because as an
‘Adler’ volunteer I should! As an answer to number of planets I said I
will count ‘Pluto’ since I studied
that in school. Then for something where
‘Uranus’ was the answer, I asked if
anyone could name one of its satellites. I said that that I would give them a
hint – They are all named after female characters from ‘Shakespeare’. It was
another useless fact that I had picked up at ‘Adler”. I also learned that
there is a difference between a ‘Hog’
and a ‘Pig’. Someone said ‘Pig’s’ are females, though I am sure that women would disagree
with that!! It was a lot of fun and all
of the remaining residents were enjoying themselves – including my buddy. At one stage there was a question related to the
‘pH scale’ and he remembered that I had
studied ‘Chemistry’. Wow, he really does have good memory! We were getting close to the end and one of
the funnier things about the evening was that the residents knew all the
answers when it came to questions related to medicine or diseases. That was amusing and poignant at the same time.
All good things come to an end and so did our “Trivia Night”. I thought we had a great time, but before
leaving, the residents said that Jason should ensure that we play Bingo
next time. Ouch, you can’t win them all.
As we wrapped up my buddy asked what religion I believed in. I said that
I believe in science, to which he replied that science cannot explain everything. "True", I said. But I had spent a lot more time studying science
and none whatsoever on religion. So
while I was not disparaging religion, all I was saying was that I do not understand
it as much as I do science. He asked if
I had been to the ‘Moody Bible Institute’. I said that it was funny that he should ask that, since I was going to attend
a session with them at my project tomorrow.
I left after a nice evening and even though the Bingo had not gone our way, it
had still been a lot of fun.
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