Special Trivia for Memorial Day

“Heroism is latent in every human soul - However humble or unknown,
they (the veterans) have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken
all the self-denials - privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sicknesses, mutilations, life..."

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, (1828-1914),
American college professor from the State of Maine,
who volunteered during the American Civil War to join the Union Army.

Memorial day was first celebrated on May 30, 1868. It was observed by placing flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers during the first national celebration. Gen. James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which around 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there.

Since the late 1950’s on the Thursday just before Memorial day, around 1200 soldiers of the 3d U.S. Infantry place small American flags at each of the more than 260,000 gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery.

On Memorial Day, the flag should be at half-staff until noon only, then raised to the top of the staff.

Moina Michael came up with an idea of wearing red poppies on Memorial day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need.

In the year 2000 the National Moment of Remembrance Resolution passed. At 3pm on Memorial Day all Americans are asked to voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a moment of remembrance and respect by pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to Taps.

The south refused to honor the dead on Memorial Day until after World War I when the meaning of Memorial Day changed from honoring civil war dead to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war.

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“Grilling, broiling, barbecuing - whatever you want
to call it - is an art, not just a matter of building a pyre
and throwing on a piece of meat as a sacrifice to the gods
of the stomach.”

James Beard, (1903-1985), American chef and food writer.

BARBECUE

The first barbecuers may well have been prehistoric cavemen. Anthropologists say they may have started roasting meat some 1.4 million years ago.Language development didn't occur until 200,000 B.C. or later.Other sources say this originated in the Caribbean where the native Indians used wood gratings over a slow fire to cook strips of meat.

According to the Indiana Propane Company, the most common barbecue items (beside ribs) are: hamburgers, steaks, hot dogs, and chicken breasts.

Three out of 4 American households own a grill and they use it on average of 5 times per month.

Lexington, North Carolina is known as the Barbecue Capital of the World. October is Barbecue Month there, with a month-long Annual Barbecue Festival. The city's first barbecue restaurant opened in 1919; there are currently over 20 barbecue restaurants.

People in the Northeast U.S. are the heaviest barbecuers in the nation. The next most frequent barbecues are in the North Central region of the U.S., followed by the South and then the Western U.S.

The word "barbecue" may have come from the French phrase "barbe a queue" (from whiskers to tail-The term refers to the original method in which a whole animal was cooked on a spit over an open fire), or the Taino Indian word for their method of cooking fish over a pit of coals (barbacoa).