Over the last few days I’ve been throwing myself into sorting through my ‘To Be Sorted’ folder. It’s only been years in the making. In fact I’m taking it a step further and cleaning out my whole second hard drive. I’m just starting with the ‘To Be Sorted’ folder. I have higher ambitions though. I want an organized computer and I won’t quit until I get it!
However, yesterday I took a break from the sorting, and I finally read a book I bought at a Cecil’s Country Store in town (I love that store!). You can read the St. Mary’s County Tourism blog’s press release on the book. I will admit that I don’t read many reference books. Most times I start getting lost in the technical jargon. However, that didn’t happen with this book. I don’t know if it’s because I took architecture classes in high school or if it’s the book, that doesn’t matter though! I haven’t read all of it yet, but I’m definitely going to make a concentrated effort over the next few weeks to read more bits of it.
While yes, the book is mostly about the architectural history of the county, it’s also an actual history of the county. I was very surprised by how much information is packed into this book.
There are tons of historical and newer photos littered throughout the book while the history of the county is given.
Remember my San Souci Shopping Cemetery post? Not only was the cemetery listed in the book, there are also many references to the Hammett family. The index is so easy to navigate that every time I thought of another place in the county, I was able to easily find it in the index and then from there go to the part of the book I needed. You’ll also notice the SM-489 that marks the cemetery’s entry in the book. Every historical site has a similar number. In addition to the regular index, there is also an index by SM-#.
Overall, I have to say I LOVE this book. I can’t believe it’s been sitting on my bookshelf since March and I hadn’t read it yet. I was even talking about it on Facebook yesterday and a lot of my local friends were inquisitive about it. So I told them where I got it and I hope they take the time to buy it because it’s such a great way to open our eyes up to the history around us in this area.
To be honest with you, I’m thinking about visiting a lot of the sites over the summer. A lot of the places I never knew they were even there and I definitely want to rectify that.