A Full 60 Years of History!

Welcome, independent reader, as the US celebrates 244 years of the freedom to elect Presidents of the calibre of the current incumbent. One of my favourite political signs around these parts calls for "any functioning adult" to win the race for the White House in 2020, but given the highly public protests against any kind of restriction designed to control the pandemic in some states, it feels like that might just be a bit too much to ask. Anyway, we look forward to fireworks and celebratory gunfire tonight, safe in the knowledge that the former is illegal, and the latter isn't. It all makes perfect sense.

So first up, this week we got our COVID test results, both testing negative. Reading around, it's quite possible that during the second week of infection, a throat swab tests negative because the virus is all in the lungs. Anyway, the book is now closed on this, and I'm getting very much better.

This week, as my recovery continues, we've been enjoying a planned staycation, as Google gives us a couple of days off for the 4th of July. One of the first things we did is visit our local stately home, Filoli, as featured in the opening credits of Dynasty:

As we waited to start our socially distanced tour of the house, we got chatting to the member of staff nearby. Now hold on to your seats readers, especially those of you in the UK: our friendly staff member boasted with some wonder that Filoli has a full 60 years of history as part of its backstory, having been a family home continuously from the 20s until the 80s. 60 years, people, imagine that! A stately home with 60 years of history! Part of me wanted to respond, "60 years isn't history; 60 years is current affairs" but somehow I resisted. For the locality, being able to plot 60 years of history like this is unusual. It's no wonder these people flock to Europe for their holidays.

That 60 years of history is actually pretty interesting. The family that built the house made their money through gold mining, then bought up one of the big water companies serving the city of San Francisco, thus the situation of Filoli just up the San Andreas fault from one of the big local reservoirs which serves the city and parts of the Peninsula. Indeed, our walk in the grounds took us across the fault, moving from the North American plate to the Pacific plate. Later, they sold up to the family that owned a large transportation company, who eventually gave the house over to something like the US National Trust.

The house documents that full 60 years of occupancy. The first family loved their ballroom and put on various small concerts and soirees in the 20s:

The later occupants loved to entertain too, staging balls in the 60s for their debutant daughters and granddaughters:

But perhaps the best part of Filoli is the garden, which has various formal and not-so-formal sections, and is still well looked after:

Overall, the place is pretty small compared to what you might think a stately home should be like in Europe, and clearly the centuries of history are condensed into decades. That said, it's a well-presented house and a lovely garden, with some interesting stuff about the history of gold mining.

I'll leave it at that for now, as the famous Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, that 4th July staple, is on TV. When in Rome...