Buckets of Beer and Touch Screen Trivia

The Hexagon Lounge, the Park's bar/restaurant, was a popular apres-shift destination during the winter seasons. One of the main draws was the Bucket of Beer. It retailed for $5 and was composed of five random bottles left over from Beerfests past. Sometimes there were gems stuffed in there, but more often, the bottles were merely (or barely) drinkable.

In addition to the cheap beer and good company, the bar had a touch-screen trivia machine. While my fellow drunks would watch football or try to best each other on the virtual skier video game, I would feed dollar after dollar into the machine. I soon became the reigning music and TV trivia queen of the Hex.

One evening, I walked in to find several members of the Park's security staff belly up to the bar. Ed, an older gentleman, was looking rather morose. When I asked what the matter was, he told me nothing. A few minutes later, he spun around on his stool and exclaimed, "You know, I don't have much. I've got a shitty job, no girlfriend. All I had was my TV trivia high score. And YOU took that from me!!"

Damn! I had no response to that. Ed spent the rest of the season trying to best my high score, though I don't think he ever did. In any case, the trivia machine, the ski game, the left over beer, and rest of the Hex perished a couple of years later, when the entire lodge burned to the ground.