Sherlocking In Texas
By Don Hobbs

Wow, what a novel concept - visiting my own Sherlock Holmes Library. I mean the one in Flower Mound, Texas, like the one where all of my books reside. The one I have not been in for nearly a month.

I flew home on Friday from the San Francisco Bay area.  I am home for a whopping five days. I have nearly a month's worth of acquisitions that is in need of sorting out and cataloging. There are neat little piles of Sherlockian stuff winding their way up the staircase leading to my collection. This is where everything accumulates when I am gone. My last time home was so brief that I never ventured upstairs. I just created a couple of new piles on the stairs.

The bulk of stuff is the Sherlockian journals that regularly arrive in my mailbox. I also have the new Chinese editions I bought in Chinatown. They  need to be scanned and entered into the Galactic Sherlock Holmes database. There was also a large package of books from Argentina that was finally delivered. My friend Gustavo de Menditte collects Spanish editions from Argentina and sends me a parcel a couple of time each year. We have been dealing together for several years now.

The nice thing about the South American editions is their vast difference from the European Spanish editions. Some of the most interesting covers I own come from South American Spanish editions. The picture is from a Chilean edition published in the 40's.

I was able to catch up with my Sherlockian correspondence. Letters and emails can get out of hand in a hurry if I do not stay on top of it. It is getting rarer all of the time that an actual typed letter has to written. I think nearly everyone I know now uses email. I have to construct a letter for the "Sher" holder of The Great Whimsical Sherlockian Tour of Oklahoma and Texas. I have the videos ready to be sent. This week will be the first opportunity I have had to get them out.  I appreciate everyone's patience during the past year.

The monthly meeting of the Diogenes Club of Dallas was today but I played hooky. I have had so much catching up to do that I simply chose to not attend. I hope this does not p***-off the Sherlockian Gods but I just needed to concentrate on other issues. This is not like me but I was more productive in my Sherlockian solitude, getting all of the new stuff put away in the library. I can now head back to the next stretch of being away without being too concerned about things I need to do when I am home.

I will leave on Wednesday for Montana with a clear head and a good feeling that the library is back in order.

Happy Collecting!!