Awake

I'm trying to wind down for bedtime by watching King of the Hill, as usual. The accents may be Texan, but somehow they remind me of that Greenbrier County twang. Anyway, in this particular episode, 13-year-old Bobby joins the Quiz Bowl team as the pop culture expert. Of course, the other kids on the team are uptight nerds who are accompanied by Stanford-pushing, pageant parents who view losing as a sign of academic desolation. In my Quiz Bowl days, my parents were supportive enough to break out the mini-van at 4 a.m., but thankfully stopped short of pushing Mountain Dew and caffeine pills.

In fact, while any other similarities between Bobby's Quiz Bowl team and mine of years past are nil, the episode nonetheless remind me of competitive trivia tournaments. Even though I was never the best answer-er, I loved the thrill of the chase, the honest-to-goodness adrenaline rush each time a new round began. And I definitely loved knowing the answers to those literature questions, not to mention that one time I answered a math question correctly before any of the kids from P. South reached for their buzzers. Of course those victories are overshadowed by a memorable incident in which I confused Stephen Douglas with Kirk Douglas and shouted, "Spartcus!" in response to an American history question.

Now, much of the skills and facts I learned from quiz bowl are obsolete, save my Jeopardy! battles with Dad or Lacie. I wish there was a way of harnessing the energy I had back then, just the pure enjoyment of competition. Perhaps when I finally get to the dissertation stage(s) of my degrees, the feeling will be similar, but I still miss sitting at a long table with the guys, and fixating on red or green buzzers, which usually rang in fifths (intervals, that is).

Anyone else have cool/interesting/quixotic/random memories to share?