I just finished reading the latest Dan Brown novel "The Lost Symbol" and wanted to share my thoughts. I've read all of Dan Brown's novels so far and I have to say this one is pretty good. There were definitely some twist and turns that I kind of expected as well as some that were a little surprising. I won't give anything away, but I think intelligent readers will figure most of it out pretty easily.

What was interesting to me was that the whole plot takes place in a limited geographical location and over a very short time period. This is a testament to Brown's writing ability because the characters are very well developed and you still get sucked into the plot easily. I also had a feeling that he wrote the book almost like a screenplay, I guess that would make it easy to eventually make this into a movie at some point in the near future.

I love how you never know what's real and what's fiction in Brown's books. Although he mentions that all locations are real, you still have a strange feeling that some of it has to be fiction. Could these images and places actually exist and be out there in plain sight for all to see? I guess so.

This novel revolves around the Masonry and Freemasons. I've somehow always been aware of this fraternal group, but never gave them a lot of thought. Just a bunch of guys in aprons sitting around and talking about religion, right? Well, not according to this book or any of the numerous conspiracy theories out there. You can find a lot of information (and mis-information) out there these days. You just have to Google it.

While scanning some cemetery photos a couple of weeks ago I noticed that my wife's 2nd-great grandfather's headstone had a Masonic symbol on it:

I then went to check out his obituary:

Atlanta Constitution - 1/12/1910 - Rev. Milton B. Tuggle died at a private sanitarium yesterday afternoon. He lived at 17 Ashland Avenue. He is survived by his wife and five children, Mrs. Mary King, Mrs. Vining, Dave G. Vining, Mrs. Princey Mines and Paul L. Tuggle. The funeral will be at 2:30 pm from Barclay & Brandon's chapel, the Gate City lodge, No 2, Masons, being in charge. Interment will be in Oakland Cemetery.

So I did a quick Google search for Gate City Lodge, No 2 and found out they actually have a website and a blog. You can navigate those pages and see who the current members are as well as the history of the lodge and more. Apparently they have been in the news lately for filing a civil suit against the Grand Lodge of Georgia:

The Grand Lodge of Georgia Free and Accepted Masons, a fraternal organization, is being sued by an Atlanta chapter and its senior officer who say the group’s state leaders are trying to disband the local affiliate because it accepted a black man as a member.

You can read more about that here. Anyway, they withdrew their suit and all is well I guess.

I also found a contact email and sent them an email to see if they have any information about Milton Tuggle that they could share. I have never gone down this path before and not sure where it will lead just yet, but I hope I can get some more information this way.

Do you have any Masons in your tree? Any interesting stories or experiences? Let me know in the comments.