May 29, 2020
Dear Everyone:
When all of this Stay at Home stuff started, naturally the Senior
Community Center in Martinez immediately battened down the hatches.
All of the gatherings were promptly cancelled until further
notice. Of course, they
found a way to continue with the daily lunches, upon which a great many
people depend.
The usual “donation” for the lunch is $3.00.
I tried it once, when I didn’t have time between some doctor’s
appointment and the weekly Craft Workshop meeting.
I have to say that the lunch was fully worth every penny of it.
Once the “Café” closed, they arranged for lunches-to-go for
curbside pickup. Did I
mention that the whole “Café” was underwritten by Meals-On-Wheels?
I know all this because I receive periodic email messages with
announcements of what is, and is not, going on at the Center, which is
still open for business.
Sort of. You can call for
information and advice. Once
each week, you can drive up and ask for a book or puzzle from the
Members Lounge, which includes a casual library.
There are also plenty of notices of online Bingo sessions.
Can’t expect old people to go without Bingo.
Lots of video-connected Yoga classes and other fitness things.
And I got a link to something the city of Walnut Creek had set up
for their Senior Center: A
weekly online Trivia game using a video-conferencing service called
Zoom.
There’s about a dozen or so “regulars” who connect on Friday afternoons
for an hour. The fact that
the meeting goes for an hour tells me that the city of Walnut Creek is
paying for a monthly subscription to Zoom.
“Free” subscriptions are limited to 42 minutes per session.
I joined at the end of April, when I found out about it.
Clearly the others had been doing it for longer as they knew what
to do. The session Host,
“Judson”, has a game on his computer that allows the user to display a
question and four possible answers.
Each answer is represented by a color:
Red, yellow (even though it looks more like orange), green and
blue.
At first, I didn’t realize how you identified the correct answer, but
then I found out that each player had objects to suggest each color.
The simplest was a card or piece of paper on which the contestant
had written the word “Red”, or “Yellow”, and so on.
“Judson” would share his computer with everyone and start his
game with the Question and four possible Answers.
Then he would count down about five seconds, at the end of which
each contestant showed their answer for the camera.
Then “Judson” would indicate which answer was correct.
As to whether or not you had the correct answer, that’s all on
the Honor System. Each
contestant keeps their own score.
Occasionally, there are disagreements.
One set of questions dealt with advertising.
Some of us felt compelled to point out to “Judson” that there is
no “e” in “McDonalds”. And
“Choosy mothers choose Jiff” requires that there be only one “f” in Jif
Peanut Butter.
Of course, we can’t expect “Judson” to spend all of his time searching
for challenging questions and answers.
After all, it would appear that he works for the city of Walnut
Creek and probably has other duties to occupy his time.
So he suggested that we all send him a set of questions and
answers each week.
Typically, this would mean that everyone would get at least one question
right: The one they sent in.
Although a few times someone has admitted that they sent in the
question, but couldn’t remember which was the correct answer.
Or indicated the wrong answer as correct.
Mistakes happen.
Many years ago, a group of us were spending Christmas with our parents
in their home in Oregon.
Someone had received the new-at-that-time board game, Trivial Pursuit.
We started a game with “Richard”, “Marshall” and “Jeannie” on one
team, Mother, Dad and me on the other.
One notable question was:
“Who was Nixon’s running mate in 1960?”
Mother was working in the kitchen.
Dad was doing something down the hall.
Mother shouted the question to Dad who yelled back:
“That idiot from upstate New York!”
This was ruled unacceptable for an answer as being not specific
enough. Consequently, we
lost that particular turn.
Later, “Richard” and “Marshall” received the query:
“Where did Yogi Bear live?”
One of them promptly sang out, “Yellowstone Park!”
Wrong.
Throughout the rest of the day, “Richard” could be heard muttering,
“Jellystone!” The correct
name of the Park that was home to Yogi and Boo-Boo Bear.
As for Nixon’s running mate in 1960, the year the Republicans lost to
John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, that would be Henry Cabot Lodge.
Later I found out about Joseph Kennedy, the patriarch of the
family, who couldn’t get any of the old Boston Brahmins to give him the
time of day, including the Cabot family and the Lodge family.
As a result, he was willing to pay as much money as needed to
take down a representative of both families.
Defeating Nixon was just icing on the cake.
I submitted that question last week.
I got it right, of course.
I have no idea how many of the others did.
Being Seniors, by definition, we were all there when it happened,
although some of us may not have been paying attention at the time.
Just like this week, when one of the themes was the decade between 2000
and 2010. Many of the
questions pertained to fashion and music.
I got eight out of 13 questions right.
Not because I paid much attention to either fashion or music
during those ten years. In
each case, I had a one-in-four chance of guessing the correct answer.
When in doubt, Jellystone!
Love, as always,
Pete
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