Valerie Reads & Writes

I like to read. I write here occasionally. I want a unicorn, but I own dogs and cats. I believe in the Oxford comma when I remember it. I like truth tellers.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

3 -4 hours maybe but 8 seems a bit long for 10. As a Gen X er I was allowed to do WILD stuff at 10 - take a horse out along country roads for long hours, ride my bike into the wild but I also had the skill set. So depends on if the kid has the skill set to figure out life for 8 hours.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@deewalkerbooks @AlexAndBooks_ I am running out of space!

[Echoes of War @EchoesofWarYT]

The richest man in America signed a document that could have gotten him hanged, and when someone sneered that he was safe because no one would know which Charles Carroll to come for, he picked up the pen and told the British exactly where to find him.

His name was Charles Carroll, and the colonies were crawling with men who shared it. His own father was Charles Carroll of Annapolis. So when the Declaration of Independence came to him for signing in 1776, a delegate made a cruel little joke. He said Carroll risked nothing by signing. There were so many Charles Carrolls that the King's men would never know which one to hang.

Carroll didn't argue. He leaned over the page and added three words to his signature: "of Carrollton." The name of his estate. His address. He was the only signer in the entire room who wrote down where he lived, and he did it on purpose, so that if the British wanted to come hang the traitor, they would know exactly which door to knock on.

That is who Charles Carroll of Carrollton was.

Here is what makes the moment even sharper. He was not a man with little to lose. He was the single wealthiest man in the thirteen colonies and the largest private landowner among them. While George Washington and John Hancock get talked about as rich men, it was Carroll who topped them all. When he signed, he was wagering the biggest personal fortune in America against a noose.

And he was the last man anyone would have expected to be there at all. Carroll was Catholic. In colonial Maryland, a colony founded as a Catholic refuge that had since turned on its own, Catholics could not vote. They could not hold public office. They could not worship in public. The most educated, wealthiest man in America was, in the eyes of the law, a second-class subject barred from the very government he was helping to create. He had spent seventeen years being educated by Jesuits in France and spoke five languages fluently, and back home he still could not legally cast a ballot.

So he became the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, putting his name on a revolution that he hoped would build a country with room for men like him. That was its own enormous bet, made by a man the existing system had already shut out.

Then he simply outlived everyone.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on the same astonishing day, July 4, 1826, exactly fifty years after the Declaration. When they were gone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton was the last living signer left on earth. For six more years he was the final human link to that room in Philadelphia, the last hand that had signed, a living relic of the founding that ordinary Americans traveled to see and shake.

He finally died in November 1832 at the age of ninety-five, fifty-six years after he wrote his address on a treason document and dared the empire to come find him.

The richest man in America. The only Catholic. The last one standing. He had more to lose than any of them, every legal reason to stay quiet, and he signed his full address anyway.

We remember the names we were handed in school. We forget the man who made sure his couldn't be mistaken for anyone else's.

Which Founding Father do you think history shortchanged the most?

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@homemakinghunny Number 1 with an ottoman added.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

Re-enchant the world with good stories.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@gorikfr Good to know! Thanks!

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

Along with a book collecting problem I have a plant collecting problem. I can keep most alive, and my orchids bloom regularly.

But now I want a pitcher plant. I saw one at a plant store recently and I am obsessed. Can I keep it alive?

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@BiblicalBeauty I never wanted to go to DC but this makes me want to put it on my bucket list!

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@gregcello I love this book. I can’t wait to read it to my grandchildren.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@grcastleberry Try Horatio Hornblower:

https://t.co/j25oPdZ6mC

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@CubsKatie @MattWalshBlog I agree. Telling good stories doesn’t need it to be explicit. It doesn’t also need to be corny. There is a middle ground where the camera doesn’t show it all. Mystery in a story is better than showing everything.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@MattWalshBlog This is an excellent book

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@Always_DianeT @TraditionSarah I never start a cheap hobby. Currently have about 5 in my house that I had to make space for.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@Rosie_Gamgee_ I have one on my mantel.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@omgsidewalks I loved Ludwig. Still waiting for next season.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@ALBDamn I remember we had a journal we kept track of things but I think I finally broke down and bought a hint book.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

@themanbearpigV2 @RaminNasibov Hardest game for adults! Then Riven.

[Valerie Reads & Writes @StoryandSpirit]

Yes. In general. We bought our average house in 1998 for $107k. Today it is appraised for $700k. We have done some upgrades but it’s not crazy. The area has just got wild pricing. The homes around us should be starter homes. Many 1940s homes that need upkeep or upgrade but still go for $550k or more.