On Gunston at Night
Gunston Hall is the magnificent Georgian Home of George Mason, father of the Bill of Rights (as he is often called), abolitionist, and one of the chief architects of the Constitution as it stands now. Last Night I went to an evening dinner and candlelight tour of the grounds. I was bowled over.
Unlike Mount Vernon, which has more extensive grounds and funds, Gunston Hall is a relatively small operation. However, there was much more to do at this tour than at Mount Vernon. After dinner, we (my MIL, my Son, and me) went out into the balmy evening (20 degrees or so) and toured the house. We saw three scenarios--dancing in the parlor, a display of colonial delights in the dining room, and a surgeon removing a tooth in the downstairs bedchamber. On the back porch George Mason greeted his visitors. Samuel, of course, gave him a hug and thanked him for the dancing and the eels.
We followed up the brief house tour with a short carriage ride, laprugs and all. Then we retired to the kitchen yards where open hearth cooking was demonstrated. They had available for sampling, pork, eel, and Great Cake (a forty egg cake the size of normal people's kitchen tables). The laundry workers were also demonstrating their work. In addition they had warm cider and ginger snaps for everyone to eat.
Overall, this was a spectacular display for a relatively small, lesser-known attraction. Those who live in the area would do well to avail themselves of this opportunity in future years. We tend to grow myopic regarding the wonders that are near us. When I lived in Virginia, I never gave these places much thought, they were always nearby, and I could go at any time. Living at some distance, I now prize each opportunity to visit these historic places. By such visits, if you carefully ignore the scripts of many of the docents and ask the right questions, you can restore a proper historic perspective unalloyed by the idiocies of multicultural demands for people to not be people of their times, and PoMo victim theory. You can recapture the spirit of the times and realize how incredibly miraculous our present government and way of life are. God has been very gracious to us as a nation. Indeed, God has "shed his Grace" on us. At one time, we were a Godly people, following Him and relying upon Him to a degree not fully understood today.
