Sixty-eight years later, Jim and Mary Bready were back at the Govans Library last weekend, as they are every year at this time, reliving the day they met in 1941.

Jim Bready was 22, a private in the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, recently transferred from Fort Snelling, in St. Paul, Minn., to the Edgewood Arsenal, in Harford County.

He hardly knew a soul, let alone a girl.

He paid a visit to the only person he knew in the Baltimore area, a newspaper man with whom he had worked as a copyboy in Philadelphia before joining the Army.

With the man was a female friend, who appeared to be nothing more than that, and who worked at the library in Govans.

She made such an impression on young Bready that he hopped on his bicycle one fine morning, June 21 to be exact, wearing his uniform, and rode 20 miles from Edgewood to call on her. But she had switched shifts with another employee. At the front desk when Bready walked in that afternoon was Mary Hortop, sweet 16.

"She made even more of an impression," Bready recalls. And he on her, although not exactly for the right reason.

"I thought, 'That's one hot man.' I meant that literally. He was wet. He was dripping."

Sweaty and sunburned under his hat, "he came in, sort of looked around and didn't see anyone he knew. I'm standing around looking official. I had a new dress on that day. He asked if so-and-so was there. I said, 'No, can I help you?'

"It turned out he didn't want anything from the library. He was looking for her. She wasn't there, so he found me."

Bready stayed until closing time and asked Hortop if he could walk her home.

"She said yes."

Some might say Bready was crazy, fresh, or both. But Hortop thought, "I'm 16 and he's a soldier and it's wartime. None of my friends dated soldiers. They had high school boys."

They married in 1943, and raised three sons. If Jim Bready's name rings a bell, it's because he enjoyed a 40-year career as a reporter, copy editor and editorial writer for the old Evening Sun, and an overlapping 61-year stint as a book columnist for the Sunday Sun. He wrote two books about the Orioles -- one, "Baseball in Baltimore: The First 100 Years" is still available -- and "This Parish Under God," about the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer, in Homeland, the couple's longtime church.

And if Mary H. Bready's name sounds familiar, it's because she taught French, History of Art and college entrance classes at St. Paul's School for Girls. She, too, wrote a book, "Through All Our Days: A History of St. Paul's School for Girls."

Now, he's 90, she's 84, and they're living happily in the Villages at Homeland. And every year since 1941, one or both of them have returned to the library to honor the anniversary of their first encounter, even in years when one was sick or military service kept Jim Bready away.

This year, their 68th, was no exception. But there were two significant differences. One was that they came Saturday, June 20, because the library was closed June 21.

The other difference was that there was a small crowd and an anniversary cake waiting for them in the library's meeting room.

In the audience were freelance writer Sarah Achenbach and freelance photographer Bill McAllen, who brought the Breadys' love story to light in "Spirit of Place," a 2008 coffee-table book about Baltimoreans' favorite places.

On page 9 of the book is the portrait McAllen snapped of the Breadys at the library. Accompanying it is Jim Bready's e-mail to the freelancers in response to their call for anecdotes about favorite places.

To help celebrate the couple's aniversary, and promote "Spirit of Place," Achenbach and McAllen held a book-signing and presented McAllen's framed photo of the Breadys as a gift to the library. The Breadys signed a few of the books themselves and were beseiged by 30 well-wishers, including George Wills, of Ruxton, who has known the couple for years.

"Beware these guys who pick up good-looking women at the library," he said.

Carla Hayden, executive director of the Enoch Pratt Free Library System, reminded the crowd of the Pratt's motto: "Your journey starts here."

For the Breadys, the journey always seems to end up there too.

And Jim, dapper and feisty in a red jacket and tie, told everybody, "If I'm too skinny to fill the grave, throw in a few books too, would you please?"

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