Cultural Quiz??

When I worked in the restaurant business, I loved to ask employees about history. You don't know how little people know until you ask them  Here are some examples.

Ask high school and college students about the Fourth of July. One year, I had to ask seven people before I found a winner. It would have probably taken more people for a correct answer if it had not actually been July 4.

Ask about Veteran's Day. No one under 50 will know that it used to be Armistice Day. Only about one in a hundred will know that the Armistice started at 11:00 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month. You've hit the lottery if you find someone who knows that the shooting continued right up until 11:00 as everyone tried to improve their positions.

Memorial Day? Just talk to yourself and save the frustration. In Greensboro, if I asked a teenager about Memorial Day, the answer involved something  like "that is the weekend the city pools open". Does anyone remember Decoration Day? Does anyone remember Doris Day?

If you ask restaurant employees about Labor Day on Labor Day, the response always involves, "Why are we laboring on Labor Day?"

Rather than ask about Thanksgiving, it is quicker to just show the Charlie Brown show about Thanksgiving. It is more historically accurate than what they teach in school now anyway..

Martin Luther King Day? For several years, I would ask the kitchen staff to tell me all they knew about "Letter from the Birmingham Jail".  The first person with the correct answer could take the day off. I did this for eleven years. Never a winner. I would always explain it, nobody remembered or still worked there the next year.

Religious holidays are out of the question. Easter involves coloring eggs, rabbits,  and Cadbury candy, Palm Sunday is about a tree, and Christmas is about electronics. One year, I asked about Yom Kippur and actually had a winner. It turned out that he had worked for a Jewish guy the year before.

So if you are bored one day, ask your kids about things like this. Make sure that you are sitting down when you ask.