The ’49ers

45 Replies

This week at the Carrot Ranch, Charli Mills challenged writers to In 99 words (no more, no less), write a story about “the ’49ers.” Who or what are they? What is the significance of the number? Do you follow the Gold Rush history or venture into new territory? Go where the prompt leads!

Here’s a bit of trivia to introduce my story in case, like me, you weren’t aware of the term forty-niner. Forty-niner refers to miners and others who took part in the 1849 gold rushes in California. Charli does say we can go where the prompt leads, but I hung around looking for a nugget. I hope you enjoy it.

The ’49ers

The history buffs needed a name for the trivia competition — nothing mundane and overused like ‘The No Hopers’ or boringly obvious like ‘Work Mates’ — something meaningful, not overly obvious, but not too obscure.

“How about The ’49ers?” one suggested.

“Perfect!” the others agreed.

No one thought too much about the monikers of others, but was it coincidental that each week The ’49ers scored exactly 49?

Another team scoffed. “Should have been ‘Clueless’.”

“They’re certainly not all 49.”

“Forty-nine and more, I’d say.”

When the night’s theme was the gold rushes, the researchers showed their mettle and panned the gold.

Thank you blog post

Thank you for reading. I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Note: The collection of stories made in response to the previous prompt The Wish I Made can be read at the Carrot Ranch here.

45 thoughts on “The ’49ers”

  2. Pingback: The ’49ers Collection « Carrot Ranch Literary Community

  6. Jules

    Norah, I really enjoyed where the prompt took you.
    I’m a big fan of the trivia show here called “Jeopardy!”
    For those not familiar with the show there are two rounds of many questions ending with a bonus question. I’m over the moon when I know the answer to the Final Jeopardy question clue!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      We watch ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ here, and we do a big quiz in the Sunday paper each week (40 questions). I love it when I get some answers correct. It’s still fairly rare though. 😅 I’m pleased you enjoy Jeopardy. I’ve heard of it but never watched it. I’m not sure that it’s aired here.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
      1. Jules

        Just resently one contestant had a run of winning 40 games in a row!! That isn’t common.

        “Amy Schneider is an American engineering manager and game show contestant. She had a 40-game winning streak on the game show Jeopardy! from November 2021 to January 2022, the second-longest win streak in the show’s history, behind only Ken Jennings, who hosted the show as she competed. Wikipedia”

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓
          1. Jules

            That program used to have a 3 or 5 game max win in that program. But then they shifted to as many as you can win. Amy S will be in the ‘Jeopardy’ Tournement of Champions for sure!! 🙂 She’s behind Ken for the most wins on that show.

            One of the new hosts (since Trebek passed) – Ken Jennings (was once a contestant)…’He currently holds the top spot with a whopping 74 wins’

            Ken is now on other game shows too, but because he is one of the Jeopardy hosts he can no longer compete in any of the special tournements. But Ken did play once against an IBM Computer ‘Watson’.

            “Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM’s DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM’s founder and first CEO, industrialist Thomas J. Watson. ” (Wiki)

            Liked by 1 person

            Reply ↓
  11. petespringerauthor

    I suppose the desire to get rich quickly will always be around. I think that’s why so many people play the lottery—clever job on the prompt, Norah.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
      1. Book Club Mom

        Sometimes – there are other ways to score in American football – touchdowns which are either from running or passing into the end zone, score the most points (6), then a kicked extra point and kicked field goals (3 points).

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓
  15. D. Avery @shiftnshake

    I’m glad they struck gold at last.
    Yes, this is a home field prompt perhaps, but you came through! The prospectors in the Yukon Gold Rush (1898) were called Sourdoughs for the bread they made.
    You reminded me of the Trivia nights that some of the locals would have BC. (before Covid) It was fun to get a team together. At one place the goal was to come in second because the custom was for the winners to buy everyone a drink and usually the winnings didn’t cover that cost. Price of being #1.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓
    1. Norah Post author

      The Sourdoughs would be a good name for a trivia team too. Thank you for that additional information.
      I understand why no one would want to win if they had to spend their winnings on drinks. Did they all battle to come last? I think it would be difficult to ‘try’ to come second.
      BC = before covid – I like that. 😅

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

I appreciate your feedback. Please share your thoughts.

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.