Our store is in the process of phasing-out the 'ye-olde' accoutrements of yesteryear --namely : cash registers! It's all changing over to I-Pads, darlings, who carries cash, nowadays? Anyway, I just happened to casually mention that I was building a dollhouse and was blogging about its progress and in a whirl the I-Pad was produced and the next thing I knew my blog, Merriman Park, was staring us in the face.
I think it's safe to say that Patric is perhaps even more Obsessive-Compulsive Disordered than yours truly --he collects decorative carrot objets, for god's sake! (I'm not judging, I'm just saying)! He peppered me with a barrage of questions: "what year was Merriman Park built? Oh, that was during slavery days--how many slaves are indentured to Merriman Park? What? Oh, no, Merriman Park is most-definitely not a Newport residence, if its not Virginia, it's South Carolina...."
All this forced me to decide, once and for all, Merriman Park's history. I guess I've harbored pretensions that Merriman Park was a European residence, but Patric's grilling of me made me realize that it is undoubtedly and unabashedly American. I mean, the architecture of Thomas Jefferson inspired it! And Thomas Jefferson was from Virginia and the houses that I modeled Merriman Park after, Edgemont and Bremo are both located in Virginia. So that means if I accept the idea that Merriman Park is an antebellum Southern house, there were most definitely slaves afoot.
I'm having a hard time adjusting to this reality!
Am I making too much of a big deal over this? I'm not one of those 'politically-correct' types, but it does make me think a little about my 'hero,' Thomas Jefferson, who wrote so eloquently that 'all men were created equal' --except, I guess --his chattel!
