Every two or three months or so, the Albany chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians hosts a Saturday night trivia game. It’s a buy-in game; $5 per team is the buy-in; and the top three teams win some money.
So on Saturday evening, a friend I went to the Hibernians Hall, had dinner – she enjoyed the chicken and vegetable soup, said it was “homemade and delicious” – and then we waited as the Hall filled with trivia players and teams.
Like every trivia hangout, there are house teams that are the stars of their local establishment – and in the Hibernian Hall’s case, those teams include such stalwarts as “We Know Nothing,” “The Alexander Guinness Stout,” and a legacy team from the old Hooters trivia days, “Sky Hawk.” Good teams, all of them.
Baker’s the host, there’s 20 questions on the table, and we’re ready to go.
We started off bad, missing a ten-pointer by not knowing which team the Yankees faced in the first round of the playoffs last year (I thought it was the Rangers, but they faced the Rangers in the second round). So that’s a ten-point deficit right off the bat. We also whiffed on the double bonus, not knowing the states of birth of George HW Bush or George W Bush (we said Maine and Texas; apparently it’s Massachusetts and Connecticut – d’oh!)
We also had miserable luck with the pull-tabs. If you’ve never played with pull-tabs, they’re a type of gambling device in which you put a dollar in a vending machine, and out comes a little cardboard folded game. If you pull open the tabs and you get a certain combination of images, you receive money. However, we did not receive any money. The Hibernians did receive our money. Which I suppose is okay. Sorta.
But we pulled forward, with my friend knowing that the Pelican State was Louisiana; while I was able to name at least three of the last four British Prime Ministers – I did not know the current one, Cameron or something, but I did nail the other three accurately. We also knew the winner of the U.S. Open men’s tennis tournament (Novak Djokovic), as well as the decade when TIME Magazine had a cover story of “Is God Dead?” (1960’s).
By the 20th question, we were only 8 points off the lead. The final category was “Actors.” Since the top three teams at the Hibernians Hall trivia game would win cash money right then and there, we bet conservatively, figuring that we could at least take home $25 for third place.
The question was read.
“Tom Cruise was born in Syracuse, New York – in what year?”
Now comes the deductive reasoning part of the show.
I figured that since Tom Cruise was a young adult in Risky Business, I estimated that he was born in 1959. My friend, however, disagreed.
“He can’t be older than George Clooney, who just turned 50,” she said.
So I recalculated everything. Risky Business came out in 1982. If Tom Cruise was at least 20 years old when he made that film, then it’s likely that he would have been born in at least 1962. And with our bet as it was, we would still earn a few dollars even if we finished in third place.
We wrote 1962 and handed up the slip.
Three teams wrote 1964; three others – including us – wrote 1962. Sky Hawk, who was in the lead at the time, bet a conservative amount – and wrote 1963.
Well, apparently Mr. Cruise was born in 1962 – and because we figured it out step by step, we not only got the answer right, but we also finished in first place, snagging $75 for the win! Go Street Academy!!
Now if you want to play at the Hibernians Hall for the next round of competitive team trivia, their next game is scheduled for “Black Saturday,” November 26, two days after Thanksgiving. It’s a $5 buy-in, they do serve food and beer – and pull-tabs as well.
Chuck The Writer 