That Saturday night bar-singing thing explained
BY SAMUEL PICCOLO The VOICE
Just after seven o'clock on Saturday evening, Paul Witterick's friends started to arrive at his house for the inagural Great College Street Christmas Scavenger Hunt.
"We were suposed to have closer to fifteen people," said Witterick. "But we had a few people cancel last-minute—Lynne's husband has to get up early to get to his bakery, and Henry's a volunteer firefighter and is on call tonight."
The remaining members of the group, sitting on couches in Witterick's living room, were still in high spirits. Witterick still lives on College Street, though many of his friends in attendance have since moved to other parts of town.
"We started getting together at Christmastime years and years ago," said Witterick. "We'd go out for dinner sometime before Christmas, and then on Christmas Eve we'd all gather together again. But this year I thought we'd do something different, so I came up with the scavenger hunt."
Witterick said that he'd done something similar in the ski village in Collingwood, and also drew ideas from the car rallies organized by an old slo-pitch team.
"I have a different package for each team," said Witterick. "They'll have to sing a Christmas carol, take some pictures, and answer some other questions."
"We don't even live on College anymore, and we still are part of this group," said one attendee, Steve, looking to his wife. "I've never lived in a place with more community cohesiveness than College Street."
Steve offered up a theory as to why this is.
"It's going to sound silly. But there are no garages on College Street. Everywhere else—where we live now on Stella—people drive into their garages and close the door, and go right into the house. But here they can't do that," he said. The rest of the room listen to him thoughtfully and nodded along.
"Is there going to be drinking on this hunt?" asked one woman, once the conversation had turned. "Because I signed up for a pub crawl."
Witterick laughed.
"Oh yes," he said. "There are four pub stops along the way—and you have to buy a drink at all of them. That's how I convinced the bartenders at each place to play along with our game."
Witterick wrote the names of the participants on small slips of paper and put them in a beer stein.
"We'll draw out two at a time," he said.
When he'd drawn the names, the group finished their drinks and put on their coats.
"Be careful going down my back deck," said Witterick. "You could go down there really fast, and that wouldn't be good."
"We might end up seeing Henry tonight after all, if he's the firefighter who comes to the call," said one woman.
"My lawyers will have to talk to your lawyers tomorrow," joked another. "The men in black suits will knock on your door tomorrow, with briefcases in hand. 'Paul, you better pack a bag, because when we're finished with you, you won't own this house anymore.'"
Witterick laughed.
"All right, all right. Just be careful out there, walking around," he said, handing them their hunt packages. "I've tried to arrange it so that two groups aren't at the same place at the same time."
The groups plodded off into the night, clutching their hunt papers between mittens. One pair, Lynne and Louise, turned the corner from College on to Station Street and walked south towards Emmett.
"We're supposed to find the Christmas decorations at the house on the corner of Station and Emmett. It says here that it looks like it's on Station but that it's actually on Emmett," said Louise, once they'd arrived at the corner.
"I think that it's this house, because it looks like it's Station. But it's not on the southeast corner," she said. "So is Paul just being an idiot and trying to trick us?"
"No," said Lynne. "It's got to be this one. Let's go up to the porch and check the decorations."
The next tasks on the sheet brought them towards Town Square.
"We have to count the construction pylons , and then we have to count how many orange stripes are on them," said Louise.
"But are they orange with black stripes, or black with orange stripes?" wondered Lynne. The two decided on black with orange, and hurried off to one of the pub stops. There they were instructed by the sheet to order a "shooter" drink.
"It's a good thing I had dinner," said Lynne.
"Yes," agreed Louise. "Otherwise I'd be looped by the end of this."
The bar was only half full, but still the two received a number of odd looks as they scribbled away at their pages, answering a question that had them add up the street numbers of various homes on College. They also tried to decide which drink to order.
"I don't drink 'shooters,'" said Lynne. "We'll just have to ask the bartender to make us whatever kind she wants." Lynne seemed to regret giving the bartender this power when they had been delivered with two "Porn Stars."
"I would not recommend those," she said, as she and Louise trudged through the snow. "It was so sweet...but also sour."
They stopped at the bandshell to count the number of minature buildings with religious relevance. In front of the nativity scene, Lynne was reminded of a story.
"Did you see that YouTube video of the school production? A girl takes the baby Jesus from his crib, so the girl playing Mary puts her in a headlock." Louise and Lynne laughed all the way to the next pub.
Most of the other hunters were also gathered there, finishing their half-pints of craft beer. They spread out across several different tables, shielding their answer sheets from view.
Witterick sat in the middle of the room, smiling broadly as his charges went up to the bartender to ask for the information they needed. He pointed to Lynne and Louise.
"They have to find a doctor to take a picture with," he said to Steve, of the "Garage Theory" of neighbour relations and his partner, Jody. "You two got off easy: you just had to find someone walking their dog.
"They were looking for a doctor?" said Steve. "And they had a drink called a 'Porn Star'? That's risky." Steve and his partner, Jody, were hunched over a sheet, trying to decipher the differences between two pictures.
"How many buttons are on that coat?" asked Jody.
"We need to keep working on our strategy," said Steve. "And work in all of our buzzwords: We have our 'Scavenger Hunt Ecosystem.' What's another good word?"
"How about leverage?" said Jody.
"Leverage, that's good," said Steve. "We're leveraging our existing knowledge to work within our 'Scavenger Hunt Ecosystem.' And we're going to win."
