The One That Got Away
By Don Hobbs

In 1999 during the Internet boom, I was working as a consultant for a firm in Wheaton, Illinois. I had a gig in Peoria where I was afforded the luxury of hanging out with Brad Keefauver, Kathy Carter, his lovely bride, and Bob Burr, his across-the-alley Sherlockian friend. In those days, my contracts called for me to be at a client-site for six months. I had plenty of time to hang with everyone. At that time, Brad was still publishing The Holmes and Watson Report and started writing Mini-Reviews. I was also contributing regularly to The Baker Street Dispatch and working on The Unspoken Word, the journal of the Diogenes Club of Dallas. I decided I should write something and submit it to The Baker Street Journal.

My workweek as a consultant consisted of home and me flying out on Monday on Thursday.  I was sitting at home one Friday watching MSNBC when I noticed the stock symbol CREE roll across the bottom of the screen. I did not know what company used the symbol of CREE and went to my computer and did a quick search. I soon discovered that CREE was the symbol of Cree Magnetics, the largest manufacturer of magnets used in the production of MRI scanners. That intrigued me and I wanted to know what other companies traded under the symbols of the Canon. After searching the sixty abbreviations for the Canon, I found twenty-eight other “Canonical-companies.”

I wrote a paper entitled the “Sherlockian Investor” and sent if off to the editors of The Baker Street Journal. The companies I found were diversified. I bought a mythical 100 shares at the selling price a year before and then calculated my return. Amazingly, my portfolio was up about 32%. My article included stock graphs, tables that broke down the stocks, and charts showing how the individual stocks were doing within their own industry. I was extremely pleased when I received a letter back from the journal saying they had accepted my article. Then the stock bubble burst.  In 1999 the Dow-Jones was still trying to break the 10,000 mark for the first time.

 I waited every quarter but the article never saw the light of day. I have talked to Steve Rothman, editor of The Baker Street Journal, and we have both decided that the article is dead. I thought it was dead and gone until this week. No, it is still not going to be published in the BSJ.   I was going through some files in my desk when I came across a copy of the article. Paper-clipped to the copy was the original acceptance letter from the BSJ. Finding it brought back a momentary thrill. I remember that exhilarated feeling of opening the letter and reading the congratulations for having the article accepted.

I have had two articles published in The Baker Street Journal since then, both related to my study in foreign language translations of the Canon. These were good articles but much more sterile than the Sherlockian Investor. This article was full of the whimsical humor that Sherlockians are known for. For the one that got away, there will always be a special place in my heart.

Happy Collecting!!