Sherlockian Peorian

There once was a guy, Sherlockian!Whose address was quite Peorian.He rhymed those two words,Just like "birds" and "herds,"And tried not to mention Janis Ian.

Without language, humans wouldn't think nearly so many thoughts. Thoughts like "Hey! 'Sherlockian' rhymes with 'Peorian'! What does that mean?"

Not too much, really. A person who lives in Peoria who identifies as Sherlockian.

Jim Hawkins suggested "Peorian Sherlockian" as the correct order, which would indicate a Sherlockian with the qualities of someone living in Peoria, but what are the common qualities between those of us that live here? Like any town, we're all over the map.

In the past, fellow Sherlockians have told me that not wanting to travel to this function or that made me like fellow Peorian Bob Burr for his unwillingness to leave town very often. But, hey, just back from Portland, and while I rarely go to New York, that's between myself and NYC, not that I can't leave this city on the river. (For the record, not fond of Chicago either, for exactly the same reasons.) Nothing against the people who live or gather in those places -- Sherlockians are Sherlockians no matter where they hail from, which is why creating little temporary communities as we do on Sherlockian weekends is so much fun. Those are the times where we live in a place we dream of living all the time, at least at the end of such weekends.

And though I may be the only Sherlockian Peorian that some know, I'm hardly representative of that entire group. Melissa Anderson, Philip Jose Farmer, Mary O'Reilly, George Scheetz . . . like anywhere, the diversity of personality of Peorians who are or have been Sherlockian is fairly wide. Yet even coming up with a nice rhyming pair of words like "Sherlockian Peorian" does make one want to look for commonalities . . . which isn't a long search.

Sherlock Holmes. Peoria.

And we might even be from Arizona.