New Year's quiz sets guests' memories spinning in reverse

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

It was a party game, that's all it was. New Year's Eve, 1994. Our hostess passed out sheets of paper with 10 questions on them. She separated husbands and wives and created new pairs. Let's see how much you remember from 1994, she said. Piece of cake, we all thought. We were a group who knew our news. Lawyers, bankers, teachers, librarians, we devoured newspapers. We watched news shows. We subscribed to Newsweek or Time. Hit us with your toughest question, we thought. We were ready.

All of us had a different list of questions. If we didn't know an answer, we could trade with another pair, our hostess explained. We could barter. We could even create teams. We began by retreating in twos to a quiet corner. We read the first question, looked at each other and said, "What's his name?" We read the second question and said "What's her name?" And so it went. We did the alphabet thing and that got us some answers. Other questions were gifts. But there were some, which should have been gifts, that felt like Rubik cubes.

We sat there looking at each other thinking, I knew this. I should still know this. Where did this information go?

The night was young. No one had been drinking. We would have felt better if we could have blamed the hour and champagne. But this was not the case. We struggled as pairs, then created teams and after a while we all wound up in the same room reading the questions out loud, describing people whose names we couldn't remember. "I can see her. She has long brown hair." "He's bald." "You know. He's that kid with the big eyes who was canned?"

What this lack of immediate access to things that are somewhere in our memory banks proves, of course, is not only that we're on overload and unable to retrieve all the grisly news of the times; but that even the most horrendous news, names and events that stun us don't consume us. Yesterday's news is forgotten. Today's household word is tomorrow's "What's-his-name." There's salvation in this for all the notorious what's-his-names. But there's frustration in it for the rest of us. If we stumbled over these almost current questions, imagine how we'd do on Jeopardy.

In order that you, too, can share our frustration and feel just as dumb, here are a few of the questions. No skipping to the end and peeking at the answers, now. And no writing down "What's his name." What's his name doesn't count.

1. He wrote, "And the Band Played On, made into a movie prior to his death this year. Who is he?

2. What political foes made good bedfellows after the election?

3. Who was Jackie's live-in boyfriend for her final years?

4. Who was the "first mom" to die in 1994?

5. Her allegations of sexual harassment made front-page news, especially in the Post. Who is she?

6. What is the city of the most celebrated maternal crime of the year?

7. Who will probably not engage in vandalism ever again?

8. What book released this year by Wall Street Journal reporters Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson argued that Anita Hill told the truth?

9. Who is the other person OJ is alleged to have murdered? 1

0. From "LA Law" to "NYPD Blue." Who is he?

And the answers are: 1. Randy Shilts; 2. James Carville and Mary Matalin; 3. Maurice Templesman; 4. Virginia Kelley; 5. Paula Jones; 6. Union County, S.C.; 7. Michael Fay; 8. "Strange Justice"; 9. Ron Goldman; 10. Jimmy Smits.