I am informed by the all-seeing eye of the Interwebs, that the phrase “let bygones be bygones” is at ;east 500 years old, and its original meaning was “Let’s forget about unpleasant events of the past and be friends.” That second bit has become the main meaning nowadays, and two friends are sometimes described as “old bygones”.
It is a saying more hopeful than truthful, because people do NOT forget the unpleasant past. Even before the Interwebs discovered there was big money in not allowing wounds to heal, there were several major industries dedicated to reviving memories. No, I was NO thinking of politics. I was thinking of the trivia quiz world.
I’m sure I have mentioned that I was handed MY first quizbook somewhere around 1964, and some years later, in college, I edited a trivia column for the campus newspaper. When I tried to turn this column into a book, the country was in the grip of a major nostalgia and trivia boom, and there was simply too much competition. I considered turning it into a board game, but was informed by several editors that this had been tried before and simply didn’t work. Once people had read all the questions on the board, the game was no fun to play again.
So I gave up, and somebody else thought of printing the questions on cards, and the Trivial Pursuit craze washed across the country. And I went on not getting million dollar checks in the mail.
However, I also went on reading trivia quizbooks and built up a nice little collection. I believe the oldest one dated to the 1870s, as wise guys posing questions they figured you couldn’t answer knows no age. Trivia quiz books, however, do. Quizzes fall prey to the advance of history, scientific research, and general apathy. Which led me to another idea which never made me a million dollars but which I see no one else out there doing. So maybe, as has happened before, someone will come up with a way to print money with this notion.
I recently turned up a building newsletter I edited about twenty years ago. Aside from enjoying some bygones I had forgotten (NOBODY suggested names for the plastic owls mounted in trees out front to scare away pigeons and crows), I found one of the quizzes added to entertain readers. For these, I took a fine old quizbook from my collection and said “Forget about today’s answers. What was the answer to these questions in 1927?” The player has to readjust, consider the passage of time, and come up with simple answers to these questions:
1.Which state in the United States has the longest coastline?
2.What is the largest stadium in the United States?
3.Within 50,000, what is the authorized number of soldiers in the regular army of the United States?
4.Who are the most famous movie stars who are married to each other?
5.What is the current value in American money of the a)British pound b)Italiab lira c) French franc?
The answers, as you have already peeked ahead to see, are below, but let me first correct something. ONE resident of the building, a movie fan, had suggested The Terminator and The Enforcer for our fake owls. But, I told residents, as these kept coming loose and blowing away, t might be better not to become too emotionally involved. Anyhow, I had been informed, we did not have pigeons, but Rock Doves. Ah, bygones!
ANSWERS
1.Florida
2.Grant Park Municipal Stadium in Chicago holds 100,000 people
3.380,000
4.Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford
5.a)$4.83 b)$0.20 c)$0.20
