Players pit their knowledge against ‘the answer man’

By Laura Hipshire
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Quick—how many pennies did Dick Whittington pay for his cat?

Ponder on that for a while, as do the 20 or more trivia players each week answering similar questions at the Dearborn community of Henry Ford Village.

The American Heritage Dictionary, defines trivia as “something or things that are unimportant,” lists many synonyms for the word— fiddle-faddle, frippery, frivolity, froth, minutia, nonsense, small change, small potatoes, trifle, triviality.

No matter what you call it, everybody has some sort of trivia tucked away, never knowing if they’ll ever need to recall it again.

Fun and fierce competition
Once a week, though, noggins are working overtime at Henry Ford Village. Community member Bob Wurdock hosts a Trivia Team game for one hour, where the competition is both fun and fierce at times.

Wurdock, who moved with his wife Gloria from Ferndale, has been moderating the games for the past three years. Wurdock compiles a list of 24 questions in diverse categories for the competition. He combs through various editions of the game Trivial Pursuit for most of his official game questions.

“I’ve always enjoyed trivia,” he says. “I watch Jeopardy religiously.”

Dressed dapperly in a black and white bow tie, Wurdock rivals Regis Philbin on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with his tonguein- cheek banter with the audience. “They yell at me when I ask them a question that they don’t like,” he says.

‘You’re absolutely wrong!’
Before the one-hour games begin, players draw numbers so they can be assigned to a random table of four. There are also those who play who don’t sit at a particular table. “We call them ‘outposts,’” Wurdock says.

After a question is read, players raise their hands, taking turns giving answers. Eventually, Wurdock gives the correct one.