Local Knowledge: Trivia from the “cruellest” month?

It was poet T.S. Eliot who hurled the most famous insult at April, calling it “the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

He could have thrown in a line about Income Tax Day. But he wrote that long before we could celebrate the best two sports weeks  — the NCAA Final Four, The Masters golf tournament and  the opening of baseball season.

Not to mention my birthday on April 9, so there’s nothing cruel about it to me.

Here’s to another round of “Local Knowledge,’’ with lots of sports trivia leading the way.

1. The annual Friends of the Library Old Book Sales will be held April 11-13 in the Round Building at Carolyn Crayton Park. The first sale was in April 1969 and was held at what location for the next 27 years?

(A) Westgate Mall

(B) Macon Mall

(C) Buc-ee’s

(D) Smiley’s Flea Market

2. At the time President Franklin Delano Roosevelt fell ill at Warm Springs on April 12, 1945, he was being visited by Lucy Mercer, his alleged mistress. After First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was summoned from Washington, Mercer was hurried to a waiting car and driven to Macon. She was accompanied by Madame Elizabeth Shoumatoff, the artist commissioned to paint FDR’s portrait. They learned of Roosevelt’s death upon arriving at which Macon hotel?

(A) Hilton

(B) Dempsey

(C) 1842 Inn

(D) Hotel 45 

3. Russell Henley will make his ninth appearance at The Masters next week. The PGA golfer from Macon tied for fourth place two years ago and has made the cut in each of his past seven starts at Augusta National. Which of these four Macon golfers appeared in The Masters five times as an amateur, finishing in the top 24 in 1952?

(A) Peter Persons 

(B) Arnold Blum

(C) Jerry Pate

(D) Jim Stuart

4. Speaking of golf, Macon-born actress Carrie Preston, now the star of the CBS series “Elsbeth,” appeared in which movie about golf in 2000?

(A) “Caddyshack”

 (B) “Tin Cup” 

(C) “Happy Gilmore” 

(D)  “The Legend of Baggar Vance” 

5.  Two years after former Macon Telegraph reporter Archibald Butts died on April 14, 1912, President William Howard Taft traveled to Augusta for the dedication of the Butts Memorial Bridge. What tragedy took the lives of Butts and more than 1,500 others?

(A) Battle of Little BigHorn 

(B) Crash of the Hindenburg 

(C) Sinking of the Titanic

(D) Flu epidemic

6. Macon native Gen. Robert L. Scott, who was born on April 12, 1908, was a member of the famed Flying Tigers during World War II and the subject of the movie “God Is My Co-Pilot,’’ based on his autobiography. Which of the following is NOT true of Scott?

(A) He once walked the Great Wall of China. 

(B) He was instrumental in the founding of the Museum of Aviation in Warner Robins, one of the largest Air Force museums in the country.

(C) He was born in the back seat of a Greyhound bus rolling down Highway 41.  

(D) A stretch of Ga. 247 at Robins Air Force Base is named in his honor.

7. Florida’s  Todd Golden, whose team is in the Final Four, is the eighth NCAA basketball coach to pick up his first NCAA victory with his team as the No. 1 seed. Former Mercer and Georgia College basketball coach Bill Hodges was first in 1979. Hodges was the head coach of undefeated Indiana State when it played Michigan State in the championship game. Who was the star player for Hodges in that game?

(A) Magic Johnson

(B) Larry Bird 

(C) Lebron James

(D) Meadowlark Lemon

8.  The Macon City Auditorium, which is celebrating its centennial this year, has one of the largest copper domes (152 feet in diameter) in the world. It was designed by Egerton Swartwout, a famous New York architect.  Which of the following did Swartwout NOT design?

(A) Roundabout at College Street and Oglethorpe near Tattnall Square Park

(B) Montsec American Monument in France 

(C) Yale Club in New York

(D) State capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri

9. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the tornado that hit Fort Valley in 1975, killing two people, injuring more than 50 and destroying  more than 300 homes. Which famous anchorman reported on the tornado for CBS?

(A) David Brinkley

 (B) Peter Jennings 

(C) Barbara Walters 

(D) Walter Cronkite

10. What downtown attraction opened in April 1999 and, with 43,000 square feet, is the largest of its kind in the nation?

(A) Georgia Sports Hall of Fame 

(B) Douglass Theatre 

(C) Cherry Blossom headquarters 

(D) Macon Rocks Climbing Gym

ANSWERS

(1) A (2) B (3) B (4) D (5) C (6) C (7) B (8) A (9) D (10) A

REPORT CARD: (9-10) Spring Fever (7-8) Picnic Weather (5-6) Flower Festival  (3-4) April Showers (0-2) Allergy Season