#150. Lisgar 175 (Friday, May 4, 2018)

What was your best day…of seeing an old best friend after the longest time away?

My alma mater Lisgar Collegiate Institute is the oldest high school in Ottawa. As some basic arithmetic with the title would tell you, it was founded all the way back in the year 1843—i.e., more than two decades before the country its situated in. That’s ancient.

And for this momentous occasion, Lisgar held a celebration. It had a lot. It had exhibits set up across the classrooms with famous news clippings and historical artifacts (like the guns from when it was an artillery range during World War II). It had all all the local news stations gathered. It had a special assembly that featured a band performance (conducted by my old music teacher), a speech by the mayor of Ottawa, and a performance from semi-well-known impressionist and alumnus Rich Little¹.

One thing it didn’t have, for most of the night, was the attendance of anybody I knew from Lisgar. Almost all the alumni that were there must’ve been at twenty years older. As classy and historic as this event was, a high school reunion this definitely was not.

Except, as a late-night extension (after the old folks had gone to bed), Lisgar did host one more event. The type of event it was mandated to host, because it was the school’s greatest extracurricular claim to fame.

A trivia night.²

A few days before this, my old quizbowl captain Nigel Healey (#14, #9, #1) had reached out to me (on Facebook, naturally) for the first time in five years asking if I was going to that trivia night. Well, if he was going, so was I. No fucking question. Were we going to team up again to win it all like the last Reach of the Top game we ever played (#1), or would he get his revenge for that lone one-on-one quizbowl victory I held over him (#20, in the last NAQT tournament we every played)? Plans were not settled, but I was excited. And I sensed, so was he.

My friendship with Nigel had naturally hit its stopping point a month after our life-defining national championship win (#1), as we both graduated and went to different universities. He attended the Royal Military College studying engineering, spent years at postings across the country, and had recently gotten married to one of his former classmates. But we had completely lost touch; I didn’t even know he was back in Ottawa.

So, as I walked into our old cafeteria and caught his eye right away, all of that nostalgia came rushing back. (Note I hadn’t actually seen him in person since our high school graduation ten years ago.) There he was, the guy who had defined so much of my high school years, who had kind of fallen into the role of my best friend by sheer proximity and gradual respect, whose incomparable intelligence might very well have been a key motivator for what I ended up becoming (and could still become). We shake hands, give a hearty embrace, and get ready to do our favorite activity in the world. Just like old times.

It turns out, a lot of the old Lisgar trivia crew is there. Several members from the recent 2017 and 2015 National Championship teams (their only two wins since ours), as well as a few I faintly recognize from earlier. As well as the part-time coach Ms. Coakley, who’s now retired. And my old history teacher, Mr. Muller, who has taken over (and who had paved the way for my trivia breakout with an assignment extension eighteen years earlier, #11). It’s not a large crowd, probably forty or so in total, but seems like they’re mostly legit trivia players—who’ve been active much more recently than Nigel or I.

Nigel and I automatically team up. We’re joined by two guys who recently graduated (one of whom I find out halfway through is the son of one of the top officials at my institutions³). And as the questions come and go, it’s obvious that our trivia instincts and knowledge base have fallen off substantially. But with the help of the other two, it feels like we’re still able to perform at that high level that used to be so familiar to us.

And in the end, we win. A much smaller win than our last one, but what other outcome could have been possible?

N.B. I do meet Nigel for a drink near my office a week later. Turns out he’s been back in Ottawa for a few years, designing helicopters for the government, though he expects to be relocated soon. We spend an hour just chatting and sharing insights about foreign reserves and helicopter design⁴ like old friends, and make a vague promise to do this again sometime. But we never do. With a friend whose past shared world is just so infinitely deeper than anything that could naturally bring your lives together now, all you want, and all you need, is that one moment to remind you of how things used to be.

Other famous alumni of Lisgar include the actor Matthew Perry, former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, and former ABC news anchor Peter Jennings. (Rumors are that Tom Cruise attended briefly, as did inventory of basketball James Naismith, #3, but they’ve been mostly debinked.)
Fine, maybe I’m exaggerating, but I didn’t see any other clubs host anything for the school’s dodranscentennial celebration.
I tell him I’m an economist at my institution, and he casually tells me that his dad also does economics at that place. Before I ask who his dad is…
Extremely difficult. Apparently, the margins of error in that industry are inconceivably miniscule—one small measurement error, and the aircraft could collapse upon itself in the middle of the air.