Trivia

Did the two Canadians who came up with the idea of Trivial Pursuit anticipate the wild popularity of the board game?

In 1984 Americans purchased over twenty million Trivial Pursuit games— a phenomenon—akin to the hula hoop sales of twenty-five million in the first four months of production.

In 1984 I couldn't find one Trivial Pursuit game in the Boston area. I bought a game in Philadelphia for scalper's rates.

Everyone became a trivia fanatic. You learned American social history simply by osmosis —or memorizing some of the cards.Who knew that The Perils of Pauline, 1933, was a remake of a silent twelve episode silent film? Or who knew the name of the author of Bring 'Em Back Alive?

Some of the questions scraped the bottom of trivia possibilities. I never knew any of the television questions.

One of my favorite questions—"What did Walter Raleigh's wife carry in her bag for twenty-nine years?"

The answer—her husband's embalmed head. After Sir Walter was beheaded his body was buried save for his head. His wife, Elizabeth Throckmorton, kept his head in a red leather bag. When she died their son became the caretaker of the head. The story continues. Eventually the head is returned to its rightful owner.

It wasn't that Sir Walter Raleigh received specialized treatment. The embalming of the head of someone beheaded and the subsequent presentation of the head to the wife was a common practice in the early 1600s.

Of course there's still speculation about where the head really resides.

All this knowledge gleaned from a game—and a little reading.