It’s Saturday afternoon. I’ve already taken care of my morning chores, now it’s time to drive to the Capital Hills Golf Course and participate in a very special trivia event.
Nearly two dozen of the Capital District’s top trivia teams set aside their Saturday afternoon plans and joined me. Because we’re all playing a trivia game to assist one of our ow.
This was the “Post Time for Paulie” event, a benefit trivia game for Paul Harseim, who is currently battling Stage IV tonsil cancer. And in support of whatever it took to help Paulie get through this ordeal, teams paid an entry fee, they bought 50/50 tickets, they wrote down bids in silent auctions, and they played a very spirited trivia competition.
My friend Jeff, who played on a trivia team called Get That Poison Out, joined me for the afternoon. As far as we were concerned, this was not only a trivia event to help defray Paulie’s medical costs; it as also an event to get together, as we hadn’t seen each other in a long while. And let me tell you this. Jeff is an expert on motion pictures, in that we were able to nail several multi-point trivia questions involving the last four women to win the Academy Award for Best Actress (Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Natalie Portman), which really helped us in the tournament.
The final question, involving the identity of a legendary rock guitarist from Milwaukee who just turned 70 – threw everybody for a loop. Several teams said John Fogerty, several teams said Alice Cooper, there were even a few guesses that were WAY out of the box – Cat Stevens? Really?? – but the answer, which nobody got, was Steve Miller. In other words, nobody got any of those funky kicks going down in the city.
But the final answer didn’t matter. Here’s what REALLY mattered.
Paulie arrived at around halftime of the fundraiser. He shook hands, he took pictures, he looked good. He’s a fighter. He will beat this cancer. He has to. And in the end, between all the prize money, the raffles, the 50/50, everything – Paulie saw the trivia teams and hosts and friends and family raise over $6,000 for his medical costs. Even the team that won the trivia event – Tap This! – dumped most of their prize money back into the till. So did the winner of the 50/50 raffle.
And in the end… that’s all that really matters.
We came together to help one of our own.
And that works in any event, time, day or date.
Chuck The Writer 