Many years ago, I played a game of Trivial Pursuit with Grandma. As sometimes happens, we struck a run of questions on a particular topic. Grandma had no trouble with this particular topic at all.
Of course, I knew she was better placed to answer trivial historical questions than I was. Many of them were from her lifetime. Still, it seemed odd to me that she would be so knowledgeable about early 2oth century Australian boxers! Yes, boxers. Not the dogs, not the underwear (at least not that she ever told me about), but people who punch each other.
I asked her how she did so well on those questions. Was she a closet boxing fan? The simple answer was that she knew the people in the questions. If only I could remember now who they were and just what she told me! All I recall is that all her answers were along the lines of “well so-and-so lived down the road from me and I used to see them at…”.
I guess if I want to pursue this trivia further I will have to dig out the relevant edition of Trivial Pursuit and start flipping through the cards... What’s the Evidence Explained source citation for that?!
If only I had taken note of what she said at the time. I might have been able to tell Sharon something about Jimmy Semmens…
It's amazing what one can remember out of the blue like that. As for Jimmy Semmens, you've reminded me to contact my dad about it (another Australian bantamweight title holder).
ReplyDeleteAll of a sudden I feel like playing trivial pursuit!
...and if I had listened to my Nana more closely I might be able to work out how she was related to her "cousin", Les D'Arcy the Australian boxer.
ReplyDeleteYes...your thoughts echo mine when I think of the conversations I had with my 90 year old Aunt Kate before she died last a couple of years ago. I did take notes sometimes but it was difficult as she had the beginnings of dementia and would get very suspicious. I do have gems of her memories but rue the fact that I could have approached things differently...there is a real art in gathering those precious threads.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my Grandma could have told you that... ;-)
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to know what to do with those vague little snips of memory once you've got them. I noted this thought down in my blog so I wouldn't forget, but I very much doubt that having some level of acquaintance with a few boxers would have been how Grandma would have defined her life!
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