The Night of the Aged Gatekeeper.

Tonight, the Pope of American Sherlockiana ordains the newest set of priests to the First Predominate Church of Irregularity.

Don't cotton to that metaphor? Let's try another.

Tonight, the benevolent dictator of Irregularia pins medals on the chests of those members of the citizenry who have distinguished themselves in the Sherlockian arts and sciences.

Okay, one more just to round out the set.

Tonight, Santa Claus hands out golden tickets to the children who made the top of his naughty/nice list.

Defining what exactly happens the Yale Club tonight is very simple on the surface, yet deeply complicated if one wants to pull back the curtain and get to the whys and wherefores. Decades and decades of whys and wherefores. The much fresher Daintiest Bee Under Your Bonnet Charity Ball, held last night, is a lot simpler and more sense-making, just due to its relatively uncluttered newness on the Sherlock Holmes Birthday Weekend scene. Or maybe I just fancy it because I've had a bee under my own bonnet for a very long time.

Too long, in fact. But the nice thing about our world is that we all grow old eventually, we all pass on eventually, and our out-moded mindsets, built for surviving in an early day, pass the reigns to another generation as well. Even in my fifties, I can see stuff rattling around my head that serves no good purpose in this time, and I can't imagine how bad things are in the brains of those elderly folks in jobs people never retire from: Congress, Supreme Court justices, Popes, Billionaire Sports Team Owners. Sometimes one of them flames out and we see a bit of that old wiring flaring up. Mostly they keep it quietly under their 1940s style hats.

Tonight, the single point of entry to the Baker Street Irregulars of New York has its night of power once more and announces a bunch of things. This may not make that much of a difference to most of the 2015 breed of Sherlockian, growing up on the internet instead of the local bookstore, and not having been schooled by Baring-Gould's Annotated that they're supposed to find the group of central importance to the fandom and finding their own centers, their own non-scionic connections. But to some of us old-timers, even though we're not supposed to care if we do not attend according to some, it still holds its accursed interest.

So, whatever you're doing tonight, enjoy it. And don't let the old guys, even this one, have any influence upon that enjoyment. It's always your choice and no one else's, even here on Planet Sherlock, no matter who is handing out the golden ticket-medals of the priesthood.