8. Signs

SURVEILLANCE CHICKENS!

Please do not disturb!
These chickens are used for surveillance against encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes that have been confirmed in this area.

We were floating in the doldrums between the crashing waves of changing our flight, extending our car rental, and checking back into the motel, and the distant waves on the sand bar: the upcoming filming of game 3 in six days. But, as the sign above showed, we were in an unfamiliar, surrealistic sea.

That sign next to the two caged chickens at the entrance to the walking tour at the La Brea Tar Pits, hilarious and at the same time deadly serious, told me that we should watch for mosquitoes as we walked. To Lynn, it was a sign exactly like the one from the Wizard of Oz: “HAUNTED FOREST! Witch’s castle 1 mile. I’d turn back if I were you.” So, instead of taking the tour, I followed Lynn the Lion (she hadn’t seen the Wizard yet) to the air-conditioned gift shop. It wasn’t that Lynn wasn’t brave; it was more that it was sweltering, Lynn knew my best friend’s teenaged sister had died of encephalitis from a mosquito bite, and she had read about the Tar Pits. She didn’t need visual, mosquito-infested proof that “hic sunt dinosaurum ossium!” ¹

There were many strange signs in those last 6 days in California. Some, like the warning sign above, and like so many signs in our lives, give us a binary choice: go on and take the risk or turn back to safety. Other signs are so subtle that we don’t even become aware of them until much later. Like when we were in the gift shop at La Brea Tar Pits: Lynn fell in love with a pair of amber earrings, but they were $85. Even though she’d just won $29,200, she didn’t buy them, and she wouldn’t let me buy them for her because, at some point in her life, there’d been a stark sign that said you don’t deserve expensive, frivolous things. She regretted not buying those earrings for the rest of her life. It was a sign I had trouble reading because it was partially hidden by the choking vines of her past.

When we got back to the motel (our old room had been booked but luckily they had another room available), it was after 10:00 PM. Since it was only 7:00 PM back East, we called our families, bosses, and realtor. Our families were thrilled; our bosses cheered Lynn on, telling us there’s no problem taking the extra time off; our realtor assured us she’d call the mortgage people in the morning and that we shouldn’t worry. Everything would be fine if we needed to take a little from the savings to cover expenses. It was a good sign, but we didn’t pay enough attention. Lynn hadn’t mentally prepared for this. It was hot and unfamiliar, and we were spending too much money. She was just getting comfortable after winning two games; now she had to wait and worry, for 6 days and feel her edge slowly slip away.

We went to the Tar Pits on Wednesday. On Thursday, we went to a mall, Westfield Fashion Square, over in Sherman Oaks because the one dress Lynn had brought to wear on the third show had a print that was too busy and created a moire pattern on camera. “Fashion Square. Beyond compare!” said the sign. She bought a couple of blouses, and on the way out, a friendly lady carrying a clipboard approached us. “Would you like to take a quick marketing survey? Only takes a minute? A ten- dollar voucher at the Garden Cafes?” (Everyone out here puts a question mark at the end of each sentence?) Lynn loved taking any kind of survey, so she said sure (read shore, NOT shur) and explained we were from Delaware — did that matter? “Delaware? Oh, that’s fine. The Delaware that’s in Pennsylvania? Or maybe Virginia?” Definitely a sign we were far from home! But, we had free burgers at Jack’s Classic Burgers in a Sherman Oaks mall.

The rest of the time, we stayed in the room. It was just too hot and expensive to go out. Every morning, I’d walk across the street to the donut shop and bring “breakfast” back to eat in the room. Every morning, the night shift of the ladies who worked in the evening along Vanowen Street (it was long and straight, which of course is the sign of a pun) would also be in the shop, although as Lynn pointed out, to them, it was dinner. Their clothes were a sign that what I had imagined Hollywood to be wasn’t the reality I found.

Lynn was bored, hot, and anxious when Monday finally arrived—probably just like the chickens. We followed the same routine at the studio, although this time, as Lynn told me later, she was separated from the newcomers and waited in the lunchroom/dressing room until their studio tour was over. I wandered around Hollywood again for a few hours in the 100°, 20% humidity; hatless, clearly a sign that I was not on Jeopardy!. In my quest for something cool to drink, I turned a corner and was surprised to see that the area just two blocks from the studio was residential. I walked a few blocks more before turning north, still looking for that soda. Los Angeles was like that: unseen doors. First, you’re in Hollywood, and then you’ve walked through an unseen door into someone’s yard. Or you’re in a donut shop, and people are mainly wearing blue, and you walk a few blocks through an unseen door into a sea of red. You’ve gone from Crips to Blood without noticing, and you’d better be wearing the right colors. The desk clerk at the motel warned us earlier in the week to watch what colors we wore while walking around.

Things that are unseen can be crucial to gaining a complete understanding of something. More on that later.

I finally found the door that led to the soda and was soon going through the door into the studio to watch Lynn film her third game.

Lynn played well in the Jeopardy round in game three. John Harris and (The Evil) Brett Geer were her opponents. During the Double Jeopardy round, Lynn got the first Daily Double early on. She was leading by $1,000 at that point. She bet $1,000 and got this clue in the category “Authors”:

She had no idea and answered (incorrectly), “What is John?”

It was a sign, ‘though no one noticed it but me. Lynn was unprepared for the “not knowing.” I could hear it in her voice and see it in her body language from that point on, and it was just enough to keep her from signaling in before Brett.

The second Daily Double in the round was the last clue on the board, and it went to Brett. He had $12,500; Lynn had $8,100; John had $1,100. Brett wagered $4,000. The category was “Famous Scientists:”

I had no idea. Brett remained silent for a long time. I was sure he didn’t know. If Brett got it wrong, Lynn would have a chance to win the game. (Lynn later told me she knew the correct question.) Brett, The Evil One, got it right.

By the end of the Double Jeopardy round, the score was Lynn $8,100, John $1,100, and Brett $16,500. The only way Lynn could win would be if Brett bet incorrectly and got Final Jeopardy wrong. Lynn told me later that at the end of the game before Final Jeopardy, even if Brett didn’t come up with the right question, she knew he would bet correctly and win, so she was determined to come in second and win the trip to Montreal.

The Final Jeopardy category was “Word Origins:”

Mr. Harris didn’t know and bet everything, leaving him with $0. Lynn knew and bet $1,000, guaranteeing a second place finish with $9,100, and winning that trip to Montreal—and lovely parting gifts. Brett, The Evil One, wrote down the wrong question. If he was greedy and reckless, maybe he wagered everything. He bet $299, giving him the win with $16,201. (He would have won by $1 had Lynn bet everything.)

And it was over. An unseen curtain came down.

As you read about Lynn on Jeopardy! and watch the videos, what you’re reading and seeing is a sign, maybe not as obvious as “SURVEILLANCE CHICKENS!” OR “HAUNTED FOREST!” but Lynn was giving us a sign.

For me, and I think for many of us, competing on Jeopardy! would be a significant accomplishment. I don’t know about you, but passing the tests, then thinking clearly while standing on a box in front of television cameras, Alex Trebek, and a live audience would be impossible for me .For Lynn, the sign she was showing us was that it was as natural for her as breathing—literally, a matter of fact, or more accurately, facts. Her entire life was a struggle to overcome her past; on Jeopardy!, she was free, she was herself, without fear, with no need to be defensive or stifled. (My mind relates things to music: I’m thinking of a line from Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”: “‘till you spend half your life just covering up.”) Being on Jeopardy! for her wasn’t so much an accomplishment, but a sign of who she really was, of who she could have been, a sign kept hidden from everyone.

So many signs. The death of Alex Trebek: of people lost forever, set adrift until they disappear on the vast ocean of time; Lynn’s scholarship to Smith: of things that could have been, maybe should have been, but never were; her ambition when we first met to be a systems analyst at the Defense Department: of things tangled in the weeds of circumstance.

Jeopardy! taught me what Lynn had known since the first time she opened a book and asked why: life is full of answers, but you have to ask the right questions.

A simple sign—JJeopardy!—says so much to me now.

But there are still things unseen.

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