Earth Day
By Don Hobbs

Yesterday was Earth Day and I celebrated it with my wife in San Luis Obispo, California. When I say celebrated, I  mean I wandered into town and looked at a bunch of old hippies who had mostly seen  better days. The downtown area was cordoned off for the scene of Earth Day Celebration. Gravity and time has not smiled on this group of people too well. Maybe their chosen life styles gives them a healthy mental attitude but personally, I think men over sixty with ponytails that contain six or seven strands of gray hair should consider a make-over.

Please, don’t take me the wrong way. I think we all should recycle more and conserve energy and resources as much as possible. There is nothing wrong with any of their ideas or philosophies about life, love and the pursuit of a greener environment. It is just like they are living in a time-warp without mirrors. I mean, I have not seen so much tie-dyed stuff or earth shoes in one place in decades. Maybe it was because this was the first Earth Day I have spent in California in a long, long time.

The idea of a keeping Mother Earth a green place is very similar to being a Sherlockian. It is the role of any good Sherlockian to keep the memory of the Master green. For the most part, Sherlockians do not live in a time-warp like these old hippies do. We do not dress in Victorian costumes except on very special occasions. I know that some of the hippies I saw yesterday dress in their earth shoes and tie-dyed t-shirts 24-7.

At the Earth Day celebration, I saw some really great things but I also saw some extremely left-field things as well. I especially liked the vendor selling “Solar Clothes Dryers”. They came in small, medium, and large capacities. These were either 15, 20 or 25 foot long rope to be used to hang your clothes on, so they could dry in the sunshine. This was one of the things I liked most. There was also the conspiracy theorists who were purporting that the World Trade Center was an inside job perpetrated by the Bush Administration. This was one of the most oxymoronic ideas I have seen in a long time. These people think George W. is not smart enough to tie his own shoes but was capable of planning the destruction of the World Trade Center after being in office only a few months. If these people were Sherlockians, they would most likely be the ones who think that Doyle was somehow more than simply the Literary Agent.

Joyce and I do our part. We switched our electric company to one that uses wind energy, we recycle all of our newspapers, bottles, and aluminum cans. We walk to the post office and  to the store when feasible. I also do whatever I can to keep the memory of Sherlock Holmes green. Could I do more on both fronts? Yes, but I still hope to keep with the times and not get lost in a time-warp. I burned my tie-dyed shirts and cut my pony-tail off years ago. I choose to fight the battles I feel I can win and every week I churn out some kind of article for Sherlockpeoria with the hope that someone will read it.

Happy Collecting!!