Getting "Owned" at the Winchester Trivia Bee
When I drove around Winchester, MA, just before we moved here ten years ago, I was shocked to see a man waving to us while pushing his lawn mower. It was such “unusual” behavior, I immediately asked John, “Did you just see that?” When we moved in, neighbors brought us wine, food and even offers to watch our kids. Maybe in the friendly south and other parts of the country this neighborliness is standard, but from our recent experience in a town in PA, it was only our mailman that landed on our stoop each day – not once in the ten months we lived there did an immediate neighbor “come calling”.
In this town, our children run back and forth between houses, neighbors watch each other’s children and we buy lemonade from the multiple lemonade stands that pop-up on the street corners on the first warm summer days. Through our window I hear the kids playfully and competitively saying, “I owned you!” and “Oh yeah, in your face,” while playing basketball or a game on our trampoline. While I sometimes wish they’d tone down the trash-talk, they assure me it’s all good fun. These are just some of many examples of why I love our town.
Perhaps I’m having a sentimental moment because I recently participated in the 7th Annual Winchester Trivia Bee. It’s a fundraising event for a great organization called The Winchester Foundation for Educational Excellence (WFEE) that raises private funds to supplement our educational system. The people who run WFEE are a stellar group who care deeply about our schools and children, and host fun and interesting events to raise money for the cause. Years ago, we watched “Born into Brothels” (a documentary about children growing up in the Red Light District in India) and then attended a lovely dinner/dance under a big tent in the center of town. This past spring, they held a “prom” and residents came out in droves with beehive hairdos, hideous blue eyeshadow and ruffled pink tuxedo shirts. Neighbors got on stage between band sets and belted out songs while high school students served food donated from localrestaurants.
This recent WFEE trivia event was special because it was our very first “bee”. Our team signed up at the last minute because a dear friend named Sue offered to sponsor our team. Within a few hours of getting her invitation, I gathered my sister-in-law Helen and a good friend Kathy and we became “The SixSeeds Bee-Attitudes” (what I’m sure was the first all Asian-American Bee team in our town!). After creating some homemade purple “Bee-Attitude” hats and donning our SixSeeds t-shirts, we were ready to compete against 48 other teams for the coveted “Bee” trophy.
First, teams of 5th graders from the five elementary schools played a round of trivia to kick off the whole evening. The winning question answered by the Lynch Elementary School 5th grade team was “What is the name often given to the journey of Africans who were brought to America as slaves?” Answer: Middle Passage. The Bee-Attitudes were not smarter than our winning 5th graders.
And when we watched the first round contenders up on stage answering all kinds of obscure questions, we knew we were in trouble. With hesitation, we took our spot on stage for our round of seven questions, playing against six smart-looking teams. Whichever team answered the most questions correctly would continue to the final championship round (7 out of the original 49 teams). Miraculously (I really mean miraculously) we were the only team in our round that managed to get all the questions right – even though 3 of the 7 we quite hesitantly scribbled on our white board. We finished our round by answering the question, “Which country has the world’s longest coast land?” with the correct answer “Canada” while most others wrote “Australia”.
Unfortunately, “Canada” was our peak moment. When we got back on stage for the championship round, we were completely “owned” by the six other teams and it was The Winchester High School faculty team that took home the trophy (which makes me feel pretty good about the educational system we’re supporting).
After each question we missed (which were quite a few), I peered down at the audience and saw face after face of friendly people, many whom have not only “come calling” on my stoop, but have also been in my kitchen and in my life these past years. The right and left balconies held my son Christopher and his friends and Kathy’s family cheering us on. So, as humiliating as it was when we had no idea how the signal fire was started in Lord of the Flies, or what gymnophobia is, or how many of King Henry VIII’s wives were executed, our deficiency was mitigated by the good spirit and friendly competition in Winchester Town Hall that evening.
In the end, the boys had a point - “getting owned” by neighbors is just good fun.