Matching Wits With a 12-Year-Old Computer Whiz

At an age when I was reading “Andy the Acrobat,” my 12-year-old grandson, Casey, is into computer programming.

It may be that the computer will save his generation from what sometimes seems to be a lack of interest in literacy.

After dinner Casey demonstrated his latest coup--a trivia quiz he programmed. It was called “Too Hard Trivia.” He gave the test to me and his brother, Trevor, 8, who obviously had taken it before, because he knew some answers that I didn’t. To answer a question, one must type in the answer.

When the respondent answers a question correctly, the computer praises him; when he doesn’t, it is rather brutal--sarcastic, to say the least. That, of course, is Casey’s work.

The first question was “Who won the National League rookie of the year award in 1967?”

Trevor knew the answer. It was Johnny Bench. I’m not that much of a sports buff. I don’t even know who won the World Series in 1967.

“Very good, kid,” was the computer’s patronizing answer. “But they’ll get harder.”

Question: “What U.S. city makes millions of baseball bats a year?”

We both knew that. Louisville. But Trevor didn’t spell it right.

The computer is unforgiving of minor errors. “Wrong,” it said. “The correct answer is Louisville. Told you they were hard.”

Q: “Which author wrote ‘Watchers,’ ‘The Bad Place,’ ‘Midnight’ and ‘Lightning’?”

Trevor couldn’t remember. I wasn’t familiar with the author or his works. We struck out.

“Wrong,” the computer scoffed. “The correct answer was Dean Koontz.”

“Who’s Dean Koontz?” I asked, embarrassed by my ignorance of what I assumed was contemporary literature.

My son explained that Koontz is a popular novelist and Casey’s teacher had urged him to read one of his books. Which he may or may not have done. Even though I didn’t know the answer, I was pleased that the computer had asked a literary question.

Q: “What is the square of 13?”

I am mathematically illiterate, but I remembered that to get the square of a number you multiplied the number by itself. My problem then was that I was too slow in multiplying 13 by itself. So was Trevor.

“Better study your math,” the computer sneered. “The answer was 169.”

“I knew that,” I told the computer, but it wasn’t appeased. A computer reacts only to what you type into it.

Q: “Which island in San Francisco used to be a jail?”.

We got that one. Alcatraz, of course.

“Awesome,” the computer conceded.

Q: “Who says that Lucky is still the low-priced leader?”

That stumped us.

“You don’t watch enough TV. The answer is Stephanie Edwards.”

I should have known that. I’ve heard the Lucky ads often enough on my car radio. They say Lucky’s prices are lowest, and that you can’t trust the other markets. Trouble is, the other markets say the same thing.

Q: “What is a nickname for a left-handed pitcher or boxer?”

That was a cinch. Southpaw.

“Spectacular, man!” the computer applauded.

Q: “Who owns the Central Library building in downtown L.A.?”

Trevor was stumped. So was I.

“Wrong,” the computer spat out. “His name is Arnold Schwartzenegger. You dummie.”

I had Casey at last. Schwarzenegger has no t . But I was amazed that his spelling was so close. My son explained that he had looked it up in the movie ads, but didn’t quite get it, evidently.

I also wondered how he knew that Schwarzenegger owned the building.

My son explained that Schwarzenegger owns the Spring Street building in which the library is temporarily housed. He and Casey had gone downtown to get a book and a librarian friend of my son (my son used to work in the library) told them that Schwarzenegger owned the building.

So that’s how you learn. Experience is learning.

I found the quiz encouraging. I was embarrassed that I didn’t know who the National League’s rookie of the year was in 1967, and that I didn’t know who owned the temporary library building.

However, with Trevor’s help, I scored pretty high and didn’t get too many insulting rebukes.

As for Casey, his questions show an eclectic interest in the world around him--sports, literature, mathematics, geography.

As I say, when I was his age I was reading “Andy the Acrobat,” a book about a boy my age who ran away and joined the circus. I did not run away and join a circus, but I did get interested in reading.

I soon discovered Dickens, Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and the wonderfully romantic crime stories of Frank Packard.

If Casey is reading Koontz it can’t hurt. Maybe he’ll get lucky and go on to Kurt Vonnegut, J. D. Salinger and Ray Bradbury. They’ll stretch his imagination, expand his horizons and verify the suspicions he doubtless holds that the adult world is absurd.

Even “Andy the Acrobat” wouldn’t hurt him.