Dave Taylor Makes the Morning News

[Dave Taylor]

Thank you all for your kind words. This opportunity just sort of fell into my lap when, on Friday, I got a call from Tim Morgan the Tourism Chief for Charles County. He had met me only the week before when I was at Rich Hill giving the history of the house and Booth's time their for Charles County's Lincoln 150 weekend. He said that Fox 5 had contacted the state of Maryland Tourism division asking if someone could come in on Sunday to talk about Booth and his escape. The state passed it down to Tim and Tim invited me along in case they wanted some greater details about Booth that he couldn't speak to. I ecstatically agreed.

I woke up at around 4:30 am on Sunday, drove to La Plata and then Tim and I carpooled up to the Fox studio in northwest D.C. To be honest, we still weren't exactly sure what they were going to ask us about when the anchor sat down, introduced herself and the guy behind the camera said, "And we're live in 5, 4, 3, 2..." I think we managed pretty good even though we had no preparation. I tried my best to hit all of my favorite museums (Tudor Hall, Surratt's, Dr. Mudd's) and was not planning on trying to hawk my website until the anchor mentioned it. That was a pleasant surprise.

Yes, the crutch behind me is the same one created by Rick Smith and his friend Patrick Dunigan. You can also see my Booth diary on the table in front of us.

After the interview I ran down to Port Royal, VA where we unveiled the Surratt Society's new highway marker at the Garrett farm site. Myself, KateH, and Lindsey are all in the Free Lance Star paper in Fredericksburg today regarding that unveiling: http://www.fredericksburg.com/features/h...8b777.html

There was also a local radio guy who recorded most of the speeches at the unveiling: https://soundcloud.com/tschubel6/booth-in-caroline

Needless to say it was certainly a busy day on Sunday (and the last two weeks overall). Still, it was all tremendous fun and while the real John Wilkes Booth might despise April 26th, it was one of the greatest days for me.

Thank you all again.

Dave