Illinois Trivia

When you do anything regularly in the same places over a long stretch of time (say 15 years or so), you tend to see many of the same faces over and over again.  This is surely true in the “Trivia Circuit” around Springfield.  Any regular can walk into any trivia event in town and spot the handful of teams that will be near the top at the end of the night.  Trivia is a strange thing to entertain yourself with, so the people you meet who share this interest are usually memorable.

There are people I’ve seen around trivia night fund raisers since the mid 90s, and even in a town as small as Springfield, I don’t see them anywhere outside of trivia events.  More recently with the bar trivia scene warming up over the past 2 or 3 years, I’ve spent more time with the same bunch of people playing and/or hosting trivia than most people spend with their best friends and family.   In my email contacts, they’re grouped together as “Trivia People”.  In Facebook, they’re tagged as “Trivia People”.  When I talk about trivia, I talk about the “Trivia People”.

The last few days have put into perspective the “People” part of that classification.  Last Thursday, June 20, Tom Boesdorfer passed away after a long fight with cancer.  He was only 45.

I didn’t know Tom was already sick when I first met him at the first ever pub quiz at Willy P’s downtown a couple of winters ago.  You couldn’t tell.  He was a mountainous guy – in stature and character.  I remember him playing that night with Chris and Torrie Buchanan and I squeaked out a narrow victory for some Illini tickets after a close battle.  He played the next few weeks with the Buchanans and a few others who became trivia regulars, and every week I knew he would be tough to beat.  He had a mind like a steel trap, even while his body was betraying him.  For long stretches at a time, Tom wouldn’t be at trivia.  I didn’t know at the time, but this was because of treatments and during spells when he wasn’t in good enough health to make it out.  Then when Torrie started doing her Monday night trivia at Third Base, there was Tom.  Even as recently as a couple of months ago, Tom was there – looking great, playing great, lighting up the room, and having fun.  It was always fun to play when Tom was there.  It seemed we knew the same kinds of things, and being a little older than most of the other players, we also didn’t know the same kind of things.  🙂

I guess I assumed that he was doing ok.  I couldn’t know for sure, of course, because I didn’t really KNOW Tom.  He was one of the “Trivia People”.

It surprised me when I found out last week that Tom had passed away and that I felt a definite sense of loss.  His giant brain – and even bigger personality will be missed.  Like the hundreds of people recalling their memories of Tom on his Facebook page though, I’m glad I got a chance to meet him.

The day after Tom passed away, we put on a big trivia night fund raiser for Habitat for Humanity at the Firefighters Lake Club.  This is an annual event that’s done in partnership with WQLZ and their morning show, The Free Beer and Hot Wings Show (who actually drive down from Michigan to emcee the event).  Since I just provide the questions for this event, and don’t have to do much microphone work, it lets me get out into the crowd and check out the teams.  Most of the tables this night are there because of the radio station and the morning show.  There are maybe 6 or 7 regular trivia teams there, tops.  One of them I know will be there at the end of the night.  It was Kim Learned’s team.

Kim’s team over the past few years has played tons of my events and always ends up in the money at the end of the night.  I could always spot them in the room because of Kim’s motorized wheelchair and blonde hair.  When I had them and another great team or two in the same room, I knew it would be a fun night – and would probably require a tie breaker to get a winner.  Friday, I knew there was potential for a good one.  I spotted Kim’s team early in the night and stopped by at halftime to see how they were doing.  Of course they were leading, and cautiously (humbly) optimistic.  After ten rounds, I was right.  It would come down to a tie breaker.  Another team of regulars – who play both weekend events and my weekly pub quiz – had pulled even with Kim’s team.

99% of the time, a tie can be broken with a quick 5 question speed round, and we can announce the winners in less than a minute.  Not this night.  Both teams went 5-for-5 in the first tie breaker….and the 2nd.  Both 4-for-5 in the 3rd, and perfect again in the 4th.  It took an epic FIVE tie breakers before Kim’s team finally missed one more question than the team that plays more than any other team in town.  It wasn’t 2nd place – it was 1st B.  And it was a great way to end the night.  I had fun, and Kim Learned’s team made it fun for everybody there to root along.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I found out why Kim was in the wheelchair.  She had Muscular Dystrophy.  On Monday, she was hospitalized and never left St. John’s.

Spotting her face in the crowd let me know it would there was a great team in the house.  She was one of the “Trivia People”.

This is the kind of week that makes me appreciate the PEOPLE I get to see every week, or every month, or even every few months because of this silly hobby.  We’re lucky, I suppose, to have a common interest that keeps us running in the same circles.  There are some extraordinary PEOPLE out there.  Get to know them.

In memory of Tom and Kim…

https://donate.cancer.org/index

https://secure.mdausa.org/donate/