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Earth Day (a day early) – Washington Square Park – April 21, 2018

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I raked some lawn; I swept some sidewalk; I talked to Howard, who moved here a month ago from China, and whose English is a lot better than my nonexistent Chinese; I had my picture taken as part of the group, but didn’t stay for the pizza (though I did have two donut holes); and I got some exercise and a t-shirt for my efforts.

This was the third time I’ve helped clean up the park and lived to tell about it (not even any soreness the next day), which is good because I signed a waiver that I didn’t read. (Where was there a lawyer when I needed one?)

My best waiver story is from a race I ran in many years ago. The waiver included a clause that said I would be liable for the race promotor’s attorney’s fees if I were the plaintiff in a suit against the promotor as a result of anything arising out of the race. I added language to the effect that I would not be responsible if I were such a plaintiff as a result of being part of a class action. No one challenged my addition, probably because they didn’t even notice it.

One of the other helpers in the park was a young lady who dances in Hamilton and raked before heading for her Saturday matinee, whereas I raked before taking a nap.

Given that the theme of this year’s Earth Day was End Plastic Pollution, it was odd that they had plastic bottles of water for the helpers and were putting garbage into plastic bags, but we’ve only been celebrating Earth Day since 1970, so maybe they’ll get it right in the 50th year, next year.

Trivia Nights – Ongoing

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I competed in intramural trivia contests when I was in college and law school, and was on the team representing the University of Illinois in what was billed as the first National Collegiate Invitational Trivia Tournament (or something like that). In those days I studied the almanac. There was no internet or social media. Countries weren’t changing their names every ten minutes. There weren’t 1780 television channels. No Star Wars characters to learn. No Harry Potter to study.

For the last four months or so my friend Bill and I have been going to a weekly trivia night (Brain Sportz) at a local establishment. Based on the results of our first excursion into this highly-competitive underworld, we named our team Dead Last, which, I’m proud to say, has turned into a misnomer, mostly.

Bill and I know almost nothing anything about music (who the hell is Richard Cheese?) or pop culture (I’ve never watched the Simpsons) from the last 30 years. But, and this is important, I’m a really good guesser.  It’s a skill that helped me get good scores on standardized tests in my youth, which in turn got me into school so that I could enter collegiate trivia contests (unfortunately there was no major offered in trivia – law was as close as I could get).

These days we usually finish third, typically out of five or more teams. We’ve risen to second a couple times and miraculously finished first once! The categories that night were in our sweet spot – old stuff.

A couple of the other teams have six members, Millennials all. With two players (we’ve lately expanded to three), each of you must be a jack-of-all-trivia, whereas with six players you can specialize. I asked one of the other teams about this, and was told that one of their members specialized in Andy Samberg movies. Who? What? We are in desperate need of Millennials on our team.

Random Acts of Fun in the Parks – 2017

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Every year the Newberry Library, in conjunction with its annual book fair, puts on a celebration of free speech in Washington Square Park (Bughouse Square), which for years had been a popular spot for soapbox orators. I went on July 29, not so much to hear the speeches, which are mercifully limited in length by the organizers, but once again to enjoy the performance by the Environmental Encroachment brass band, a ragtag group that for some reason amuses me.

I also spent the morning of April 27, Earth Day, in Washington Square Park helping prepare the park for the summer. Okay, so this wasn’t actually fun in and of itself, but by reminding me that the other 364 days of the year I don’t have to do any yard work because I live in a condo, it nevertheless brought a smile to my face.

I spent many other days in various Chicago parks during the year, in particular Millennium Park for the concerts and a taping of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, featuring ex-Cub Ryan Dempster as the special guest (when I heard that he was the guest I figured they must have gotten to the bottom of a long list of possibilities, but he turned out to be quite entertaining); Lincoln Park for the zoo and the golf course (where one day I got put in a foursome with three guys associated with Second City, which made for an unusual day where the banter was funnier than my golf game); Polk Brothers Park at Navy Pier for the outdoor water-related movies (I saw Jaws and Splash, but missed Sharknado – what a shame); and the park adjoining Adler Planetarium, where I joined several thousand of my closest friends to observe the solar eclipse on August 21. As we used to say in college – any excuse for a party.