This was one of the Maryland fall weekends whose praises might be sung in print and text, if any author in the last eighty years had considered Maryland the sort of place one might want to write about.

Clear blue skies prevailed, with a snappy little breeze and a generally Gemuetlich air. Although I spent most of today paying social calls and comparing party lists—social season officially began this weekend—yesterday was a small adventure in itself.

I journeyed to Montgomery County, that once-pastoral land now turned suburban Gomorrah. (I always pity Gomorrah. It must have been every bit as evil and as interesting as Sodom, but Sodom is the town that gets its name tagged to interesting vices. It’s that final consonant sound of “Sodom” that does it…it’s just less convenient to refer to “gommorah-izing” or “gommorrahomy”.) The county’s seat, Rockville, was not so long ago a sleepy courthouse town. Lately, it’s become undesirable—suburban sprawl enveloped it, built it up, and is starting to leave it behind. Even so, what’s left of the old town center is charming. It’s the final home of one nomadic soul, listed in the records of St. Mary’s Cemetery as Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. Poor Mr. Fitzgerald tried for so long to embody both the frenzy of the Jazz Age and the hauteur of Old Maryland. No wonder, then, that I’ve always lionized him; I hope it pleases his shade a bit those times that I’ve visited his grave with gin and Chesterfields in tow.