Amanda roused me out of hermit-dom Sunday, for which I am eternally grateful, for I got to nose up in the historic Annesdale-Snowden estate, which hasn’t exactly been open to the public very much in its prolific history. And what a history it has. The place is enormous, and features all the weird old leftover idiosyncrasies of Southern aristocracy we’ve grown to love and appreciate (dingy servants’ quarters, anyone?). It felt more than tacky rifling through a dead man’s things — down to his wheelchair and bathroom box of bandages to wrap around his cracking, diabetic skin — but everything, everything was for sale. I gawked it up for $5 like everyone else. Part of me expected to find something amazing and cheap to take home with me, but let’s face it: The stuff in that house outclasses my kind by thousands. $10,000 bookcases and the like. So I took a piece of history for posterity and will call it even.
I hope that house doesn’t just sit there and rot like so much else in this town. It’s got stories to tell. Let’s all listen.