Every now and then I think of one of us who left and never came back.
A lot of folks dabble in Sherlockiana when Sherlock Holmes is on screens and popular, or enjoy the community of a local club for a time when membership is fun, then decide the hobby just isn't for them. But there are always those curious few who come in so strong, hit so many of the goalposts that signal a Sherlockian for life, and then vanish from our ken.
There are those who undergo a major life alteration, like a marriage to a spouse who just won't have it. And there are those who push and push toward a goal they at some point decide they can never achieve in this hobby, or take some other hard hit. Understandable reasons, if regrettable. And then there are the mysteries, those folks whose stories we never know.
But there are always a few mysterious ghosts who remain forever in our memories, yet walked away from Sherlock Holmes like Watson with a wife.
I suspect those folk remain especially memorable just because of those unknown factors, like Jack the Ripper, who always got extra press over worse serial killers just because no one knew his story. We miss all of those who leave this community, for whatever reason, even those annoyances who become less so with the haze of nostalgia. But those mystery ex-Sherlockians . . . well, they're just unsolved mysteries. And as Sherlockians, we like our mysteries solved as well and good as Sherlock would.
As I head out to another gathering of Sherlockians, to see familiar faces and those that will become familiar, it's a time one remembers a lot of folks one met along the way. It's a little bittersweet, yes, but definitely more sweet than bitter. And it's a big reason that those of us who stay in this game don't wander off -- no mystery there.
Because losing touch with a few folks along the way is not nearly so bad as losing touch with all of them.
The ongoing investigation of Sherlock Holmes, reported from the Peoria, Illinois outpost of Baker Street's dirtiest half a dozen.
bit of technical difficulties! i wrote out a long comment and accidentally lost all of it before posting, lol. it's just a great coincidence to (re!)visit this blog to see if it still existed, find that you've been regularly updating since i first discovered sherlock peoria over a decade ago, and come across this as one of the most recent posts. if you happen to remember emailing with a weird, unknown reader way back prior even to the 2009 movie, that was my middle school self, who'd discovered action sherlock brain theater and, from there, the existence of sherlockiana via your blog. seeing as i was like, 11-13yo or something back then and am 25 now, it's been a minute and things have changed! admittedly, SH isn't as strong a passion as it was for me back then, when i'd finish classwork early and haul out the giant, ancient copy of canon i brought from home and was reading start to finish. (later got a newer copy that a friend brought back from the sherlock holmes museum on baker street!) i can be as intense with my dislikes as my passions, and bbc sherlock was so Disliked by me that it kind of put me off of everything SH by association, and honestly what might be a strong focus for me for years can eventually be set aside for a new interest to take the forefront. (i've cycled through quite a few since SH, and the current one i eventually stumbled across has been quite a goldmine! i've made the first best friend of my life, whom i've been talking to every day for a year, and realized a lifelong interest of mine that i never quite recognized for what it was until now. also, i've just been having a lot of fun, and been cheered up and distracted through some rough stuff.) but all past Big Interests never fully go away, and when a friend on twitter with an appreciation for the guy ritchie movies posted about some research he did into fascinating topics like "why a sequel's been delayed for ages due to the mcu movies" and "the woman who pretended to hold the copyright for SH for ages" and, while the sherlockian in me might be largely dormant, they're still in there. something today made me think of ASBT and this site - not for the first time, but for the first time i actually looked it up to see if it still exists. and it very much does, and i'm glad! and i have no better conclusion to all of this than by saying that i'm glad the Left Coast Sherlockian Symposium treated you well.
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