All this week Jeopardy is going to be showing the last shows of Alex Trebek. I never knew him personally. I was never on the show. I have a hard enough time coming up with the answers . . . I mean the questions . . . at home sitting in front of the box. I don’t know what it was about the show that made it so addictive. I have a feeling that much of it was Alex Trebek himself. I know he had the answers (or the questions) written out in front of him, but still. His pronunciation of all the foreign words seemed flawless - and probably was. And he always had bits more to add to make each subject just a little more interesting. And there was his wonderful smile and quick wit. And when a contestant was really doing well, raking in the dough, risking it all like playing high stakes poker, it certainly made viewers want to come back for more. It was wonderful, calm, challenging entertainment guided along by a very nice man.

What an odd concept for a game. I’ll give you the answer and you have to come up with the question! In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, it says that the meaning of Life is 42. If that was in Jeopardy and they just put 42 up there the question would be, “What is the meaning of life, Alex?” Wow. Or if the clue was lost . . . “Where are my keys, Alex?” I wonder if Alex has all those answers . . . . er questions . . . too?

When we had babies quite a few years ago, we would often feed them in front of the TV at the end of very tiring days, watching Alex guide his contestants through all the answers, looking for the questions. Our kids have grown up now and have kids of their own. Will they find a piece of gentle sanity like Alex Trebek in the kinder gentler world he asked for?

The answer is, “The host of a game show called Jeopardy for 37 seasons.”