Trivia Dominoes II — Play Off the Last Bit of Trivia — continued! (Part 1)

U.S. President Harry S Truman kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office, which read “The Buck Stops Here,” referring to the idea that the President has the ultimate responsibility for decisions which are made. The phrase became associated with Truman in popular culture.

When he became President, Jimmy Carter arranged to borrow the sign from the Truman Presidential Library, and displayed it on his desk.

It says “I’m from Missouri” on the back of that sign. Carter, from Georgia, saw that every day on his desk.

While at Annapolis, Carter was hazed by upper-classmen for refusing to sing “Marching through Georgia”

Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia lies along the Annapolis River and about 5 miles away from the Bay of Fundy. The Garrison Cemetery in the town is the oldest formal cemetery in Canada. The oldest English gravestone in Canada is among the graves, that of Bathiah Douglas who was buried in 1720.

The Bay of Fundy is known for its particularly extreme tides – it has an average tidal range of 16 meters (51 feet), and the tidal flow is particularly powerful. The Annapolis Royal Tidal Station, upstream from the town of Annapolis Royal, is the only tidal power station in North America, and derives its power from a reservoir which is filled each time the bay’s tide rises.

In 1606, Samuel de Champlain founded the Ordre de Bon Temps (Order of Good Cheer), at Port Royal, on the Annapolis Basin, then in Acadie, part of New France. The purpose of the Order was to keep up the spirits of the small garrison during the winter, and by encouraging each member to put on a meal and entertainment, prevent scurvy, which was a serious threat to the early French settlers during the winter.

The Battle of Port Royal was one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War, in which a United States Navy fleet and[United States Army expeditionary force captured Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, located between Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina, on November 7, 1861. While the Union committed 13,000 troops to the effort, most of the fighting was done by the U.S. Navy, who bombarded Forts Walker and Beauregard until they were abandoned by the Confederates. The area remained under Federal control until the end of the Civil War.

Charleston, South Carolina, was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King Charles II. Its original location was abandoned ten years later and the town moved to its present site. By 1690, it had become the fifth-largest city in North America.

Today Charleston is the largest city in the state and the 200th largest in the United States.

The World Grits Festival has been held annually in the town of St. George, South Carolina (population 2,084) since 1986, usually in April. The festival features a parade, cooking competitions, live music, and the “Rolling in the Grits” competition, in which participants roll around in a kiddie pool full of wet grits, attempting to leave the pool with as much grits (measured by weight) adhering to their bodies as possible.

(All of the above is absolutely true – I attended the festival when I worked on Quaker Grits, which was a sponsor of the event. My co-workers tried to convince me to compete in “Rolling in the Grits,” but rolling around in wet grits on a cold April day did not sound appealing. :smiley: )

"Grit is a tabloid newspaper catering to a rural readership, omce delivered by 30,000 schoolboys, over 80 percent in small towns. It is published in Topeka, and still has a bimonthly readership of 150,000

Topeka is the capital city of Kansas. With a population of about 127,000, it is the fifth-largest city in the state. Its name is derived from a Native American phrase meaning “a good place to dig potatoes”.

Rich Williams, longtime guitarist for the rock band Kansas, lost his right eye in a childhood fireworks accident. He wore a prosthetic eye for many years (including during the height of the band’s popularity in the 1970s and 1980s), but now wears a eyepatch instead.

Ray Sawyer, the original lead singer for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show, lost his right eye in a car accident at the age of 30. He wore an eyepatch and cowboy hat, often rhinestone studded, while performing.

In 1933, Peter Picknelly started a bus company in Springfield, Mass., named “Peter Pan Bus Lines” after his children’s favorite bedtime story, Peter Pan by James Barrie. To this day, the company’s buses are identified not just with numbers but also with names based on characters, places and events in the book, including Captain Hook.

Peter Pan is an American brand of peanut butter that is produced by Conagra Brands and named after the J. M. Barrie character. The product was introduced by Swift & Company originally through their “Derby Foods” subsidiary in 1920 under the name “E. K. Pond” and renamed in 1928. It is still being produced today.

Author J. M. Barrie was the primary force in popularizing “Wendy” as a given name for girls and women in England and other English-speaking countries, with his character of Wendy Darling in Peter Pan. Barrie’s inspiration for using the name came from Margaret Henley, the young daughter of Barrie’s friend, poet W. E. Henley. Margaret had difficulty pronouncing her “Rs”, and referred to Barrie as her “fwendy-wendy.”

Debbie Reynolds was responsible for the overnight popularity of two names – Debbie, her stage name, and Tammy, which was the title of her chart-topping song and film. In fact, that 1957 event started a rush of cutesy names for girls that persisted for a generation…

Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, TX. She got the stage name “Debbie” from Jack Warner.

El Paso, TX, and Cuidad Juárez, Chihuahua, are one pair of 15 ‘sister cities’ along the US/Mexican border. Others are San Diego, CA, and Tijuana, Baja California, Nogales, AZ, and Nogales, Sonora, and Laredo, TX, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas.

Fidelina Martinez was a fifth-grader in Glendale, Arizona, when a classmate got a crush on her. He called her Feleena, and made her famous decades later as the beautiful Mexican girl, in whose arms Marty Robbbins died in El Paso.