#scav1992

[rogueclown]

Chicago Flag!

back to the 1992 list, and back to the theme of Chicago trivia:

280.  What do the symbols on the Chicago flag signify?  (10 pts)

this is one of those items that i'd get jazzed about...not because it's a hard question, but because it's something i'm super passionate about.  i love the Chicago flag.  i love it because i love the city, and i love it because it's a clean and beautiful example of vexillological design.  i love it so much that it was my first tattoo:

the design is simple, and everything on it represents something about Chicago.  the white fields signify the north, west, and south sides of the city.  the blue bars signify the north and south branches of the Chicago river.  the four red stars signify four significant events in Chicago history: the battle of Fort Dearborn, the Chicago Fire, the 1893 World's Fair, and the 1933 Progress Exposition (the second World's Fair in Chicago). 

interestingly enough, although that is the chronological order of the events represented by the stars, this is not the order in which they were added to the flag as stars.  the original flag only had two stars -- one for the fire, and one for the 1893 Fair.  third came the star for the 1933 Progress Exposition.  last added, though the event was first in time, was the star representing Fort Dearborn.

according to the City of Chicago, each point on each of the stars represents something in particular, too.  i think that's a little crazy, really...the simple design of the flag, with each object representing something, has a certain beauty to it.  having parts of parts of the flag representing something else (especially when the entire star has a specific meaning) is, in my opinion, taking it too far.  though, for the sake of completeness, the points of the stars mean:

the Fort Dearborn star (six virtues or characteristics of the city):

transportation

labour

commerce

finance

populousness

salubrity

the Chicago Fire star (six more virtues or characteristics of the city):

religion

education

aesthetics

justice

benificence

civic pride

the 1893 World's Fair star (six jurisdictions under which Chicago has existed):

France - 1693

Great Britain - 1763

Virginia - 1778

Northwest Territory - 1798

Indian Territory - 1802

Illinois Statehood - 1818

the 1933 Progress Exposition star (from what i can tell, they're now just grasping at six random mottoes or nicknames or blurbs that apply to the city, or applied at one time...):

world's third largest city [at the time, anyway...]

Urbs in Horto [one of the official mottoes of the city, meaning City in a Garden in Latin]

I Will [another official motto of the city]

Great Central Market [an early 20th Century nickname of Chicago]

Wonder City [a term for the city which seems to have derived from Eugen Seeger's book Chicago, The Wonder City]

Convention City [yet another term for the city]

i feel these meanings that the city attributes to each point clutter the meaning of the flag as a whole.  still, i love this flag, despite the city's attempts to muddle it.

[rogueclown]

Emmett Till Road

most Scav Hunt items are just plain amusing or absurd, but as anyone who either reads lists or had read this little corner of the interwebs for any length of time knows, some of the items satisfy my inner trivia nut by teaching me interesting little facts about the city that i never knew before.  another case in point, this item from the 1992 list:

226. Who was Emmett Till and what street is named after him? (3 pts)

i knew the answer to the first part, because one of my favourite bands ever since i was in high school is Emmet Swimming -- a reference, albeit misspelled, to Emmett Till.  he was a boy who lived in Mississippi, whose 1955 lynching (and the ensuing acquittal of his killers) acted as a catalyst for the civil rights movement.  however, i didn't know of any streets named after him.

turns out, he was from the south side of Chicago, and had just moved to Mississippi only about a week before he was lynched.  in 1991, the city dedicated a section of 71st Street here in Chicago as "Emmett Till Road".  since then, there have been other things named after him...Emmett Till's old elementary school in Chicago, as well as a section of highway in Mississippi.  however, these were both renamed later; this is the only street named after Till at the time of the 1992 Scav Hunt.

[rogueclown]

oatmeal and absurdity

back to the 1992 list:

182.  A box of Quaker OatsTM with Hanna Gray's picture on it in place of the Quaker Oats man (3 pts)

Wilford Brimley has his own absurdist charm.

Hanna Gray (president of the University of Chicago from 1978 to 1993) has her own absurdist charm...or, at least, the painting of her in Hutch Commons does.

nowadays, Mr. Brimley is known more for his work endorsing Liberty Medical than for his work endorsing Quaker Oatmeal.

however, the lack of a walrus moustache makes Hanna Gray far less suited for the Diabeetus meme.

actually, i stand corrected.  the cotton candy colours of her academic robe make this a perfectly cromulent version of the meme.

[rogueclown]

Farm Toys R Us

behold, from the 1992 list:

177.  A farm toy from Dyersville National Farm Toy Museum. (30 pts)

hmmmm, that sounds vaguely familiar.  Farm Toy Museum?  Dyersville?  scratching my head here...

yup.  no idea.  never been there before, and it definitely wasn't an item on the 2012 Scav Hunt list, as part of the epic Iowa road trip:

46.  At the National Farm Toy Museum, The Sturgeon Mary tries to exorcise the demon living in the Tru-Scale button on the second floor. John Deer acts interested to the John Deere Barbie, but in his heart of hearts, feels conflicted. In the county fair diorama, Buddy Holly finds the van inviting him to join in on the fun of the 60s, but sadly, knows that he never can. Corn cowers in fear, surrounded by the tools of Corn’s destruction. [16 points]

actually, we almost missed this item.  it wasn't on our list, and i think it just slipped everyone's minds.  however, we were at the Field of Dreams, which was also in Dyersville.  there were brochures for tourist attractions in the area -- including the National Farm Toy Museum, where we promptly hightailed it once we were done goofing off on the baseball field.

[rogueclown]

134.  A can of BudwineTM (20 pts)

this item was significantly less scary than i expected, once i researched it.  i saw the name, and was afraid that this was going to be Another Ridiculous Anheuser-Busch Product, along the lines of Natty Up (which has never been a Scav Hunt item, BUT TOTALLY SHOULD BE) or the dreaded Chelada Style Bud and Clamato. 

however, it's actually neither Bud nor wine.  it's a variety of cherry pop, which survived only a few years past Scav Hunt 1992 and came in charmingly old-school cans.  i never saw it growing up...though maybe that's largely because i grew up in North Carolina, where the official wine-that-wasn't-wine was Cheerwine.  Budwine was more of a Georgia thing, and i've still never set foot in the state of Georgia.

[rogueclown]

Great CTA Bus Race?!

in reading these old Scav Hunt lists, most of the time i look at the fact items, and think that the Internet made them too easy to be modern-day items.  however, sometimes i see items that are fascinating -- and in which my googling skills (or the information on the Internet) meet their match.

121.  Which bus won the great CTA Bus Race on May 15, 1992?  (2 pts)

i've got nothing.  seriously.  i wish i did, because the mental image of CTA buses racing cracks me up.  i wish i did, because any place where Scav Hunt intersects with public transit (specifically Chicago public transit) is a place that piques my interest.

and yet, i've been able to turn up no information about a bus race, and nothing that could be construed even sarcastically as a bus race.  there was an article in the Trib dated May 15, 1992 that pertains to bus transit, but it has nothing to do with races -- just with getting Pace buses out to the then-new Sears headquarters in Hoffman Estates.  the only other even vaguely pertinent link i found was a result...that linked back to the 1992 Scav Hunt list, with this item on it.

yo dawg, i heard you like useless information.

i don't know how many people will actually read this...but if you stumble across this and have any idea what this item may have been talking about, please do drop me a line.  i really want to know the origin of the item, and what this bus race may have been.

[rogueclown]

74.  Who is the world's greatest athlete, Dan or Dave? (explain your answer in an essay 50 words or less) (100 pts)

on one hand, this item made me laugh because it's been about twenty years since i've thought of the Dan and Dave ad campaign.

on the other hand...really?  a hundred points for a fifty-word-or-less essay on this topic?  that not only seems inflated pointwise, but seems to have discounted the hilarity of giving the topic the full University of Chicago academic treatment it deserves.

[rogueclown]

giving a new meaning to Check Kiting...

37.  A kite with 20 blank checks attached to its tail. (5 pts)

for five points, they better not have been asking for much, here.  they better not have been asking for the checks to be real, tied to valid bank accounts.  they better not have been asking for the checks to be signed.  they better not have been asking for the kites to be flown.

i consider myself a relatively hardcore scavvie.  there's not much i won't do for scav, especially nowadays.  my range of items i would do has expanded over the years -- for example, though i didn't do the tattoo item in 2004, i would definitely do one if one ever showed up on the list again.  however, literally tossing my blank checks to the wind?  no way -- especially since i've tried to stop payment on a check before, and not only is the fee ridiculous, but they only promise some silly "best effort after a few days" malarkey.  umm, no.  i'd like to be able to buy food the day after Mother's Day, thank you very much.

though, i wonder if there was any poor, trusting, common-sense-lacking kid who happily signed twenty blank checks and put them on a kite.