Who is the man immortalized in this statue on Baltimore’s Mount Vernon square? I see this statue often, so I wondered: just who is Severn Teackle Wallis?

I had never heard of Paul Jennings until we encountered him on a Nerd Trip to Montpelier, home to our fourth president James Madison. Jennings was a slave who served as Madison’s personal assistant during the White House years and afterward. Jennings is a fascinating witness to history, writing the first White House memoir, called “A Colored Man’s Reminiscence of James Madison,” published in 1865. I bought a copy at the Montpelier gift shop.

“Behold The Man,” that’s the phrase on this American folk art watercolor I discovered today at the Maryland Antiques Show. The painting shows George Washington with his arm extended in the style of the famous Gilbert Stuart painting.

Happy Birthday to George Washington. The “Father of Our Country” was born February 22, 1732.

There are lots of places with connections to George Washington, so you know we’ve encountered him on a Nerd Trip or two!

The original idea of Nerd Trips started with visits to presidential homes, birthplaces, burial sites and libraries, so Presidents Day seems like something we should acknowledge!
I enjoy visiting these places because you learn about our presidents as people: their likes and dislikes, hobbies, quirks, families and even foibles. Here are a few random facts from the places we’ve visited.

Now for a look inside Southfork, a real house that’s been redecorated in the spirit of the TV show “Dallas,” with rooms dedicated to several of the characters. The decor, however, fits the specific year 1970 when the real house was built. The show debuted in 1978 and ran until 1991. Just go with it.

This post picks up our tour of the Southfork Ranch, home to the TV show “Dallas.” We already established that the house is smaller than it looks on TV. Many visitors are apparently surprised at how small the pool is, but it’s actually about as big as I thought it would be. Our guide told us the actors would have to go back (the crew may have pulled them back) to swim the same short lap over-and-over again to get the scenes completed. T