Monthly Archives: December 2019

Time You Can Touch.

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Think back to the past – who was a person you knew personally and touched during your life who was born the furthest back in time. For this exercise, assume the people you know have the genetic disposition and will be fortunate to live a long and happy lives of 85, 90, 95 or even 100 years of age. If you were born in 1956, your lifetime under this exercise could reach to the years 2041-2056.

Let’s say the furthest you can go back in time with was your great grandfather, who was born in 1877. You knew and hugged him in his rocking chair when you visited him as a child and he passed when you were six years old in 1962. He goes the furthest back in time that you touched.

Now think forward into the future. Your children. Your current or future grandchildren. Your current or future great grandchildren.

If one of your children was born in 1995. Their lifetime can reach to 2080-2095. If they have a child when they are 30 years old in 2025 and you at 69 years old lovingly take a selfie while holding and touching that child shortly after they are born. Your grandchild’s life could reach to 2110-2125.

If that grandchild has a child when they are 30 years old in 2055, and you, now at 99 years old sit in your rocking chair and lovingly hold and touch that child shortly after they are born. Your great-grandchild’s life can reach to 2140-2155.

So those are the years you touched during your lifetime across the generations from the furthest back born in 1877 to the furthest in the future, yet to be born in 2055 who will live a long and happy life until 2155.

278 years. That’s the “Time you can touch”.

Merchant’s Hope; North Georgia’s Colonial Curiosity

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Here’s the new ‘There’s History Around Every Bend’ video just in time for the holidays. 

There’s been lots of discussion about this interesting colonial curiosity since it was renamed ‘Inola’ at the beginning of 2019. This video tells the history of how it came to be starting in the mid-1980’s. It also gives insight into the meanings of the different buildings by telling the history of their Williamsburg counterparts. 

In the North Georgia mountains, near the town of Blue Ridge, Georgia; a man who was obsessed with all things colonial set about to create a twin of Colonial Williamsburg in the mid-1980’s.

He named his village ‘Merchant’s Hope’ and it was inspired by Colonial Williamsburg and Merchant’s Hope in Hopewell, Virginia. Meticulously recreated using 17th century building techniques it was constructed in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. 

Because even though you’re in the North Georgia mountains, you might do a double take and swear you stepped back to 1776 proving once more that “There’s History Around Every Bend”. 

Produced, written, directed and edited by Steve Procko.

Postscript: For the last 20 years the property has been closed to the public. 

In 2019 this amazing colonial property was reopened to the public when it was acquired by developers Rick Skelton and Susie Council. Now you can once again visit the Georgia versions of the Wythe House, Wetherburn Tavern and more.

Merchant’s Hope has been renamed ‘INOLA Blue Ridge’, an indigenous Cherokee name meaning ‘black fox’.