Fear and Fake Rowing on the Campaign Trail:
The Dayton Sherlockian Convention of ’00

By G. Hunter Keefauver’s Uncle

The governor of Minnesota had finally made it to college when the “Sherlock Holmes for President” campaign bus finally pulled into Dayton, that Friday in early March of 2000. Jesse “the Body” Ventura had been rambling on about his drunken youth for about an hour and a half, interrupted only momentarily by Garrison Keillor pretending to be a former pro-wrestling governor and failing pretty quickly. What this all has to do with Sherlock Holmes is pretty tenuous, as Sherlock wasn’t exactly present in the Holmes campaign bus, which was, perhaps, our biggest concern at that moment, even past the fact that the campaign “bus” was actually a late model Honda Accord with an odd assortment of books-on-tape (including Jesse and Garrison) as the on-board entertainment.

Sherlock Holmes’s first speech in his campaign for our nation’s highest office (as announced in The Holmes & Watson Report’s March issue) was set for the Nineteenth Annual Dayton Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Symposium, which was an extremely odd choice. The timing didn’t correspond with local primaries, and that whole Conan Doyle “creator or literary agent?” question was baggage the campaign just did not need. But when I was visited by Sherlock, in the manner in which the detective always conducts his visitations (by the book), he seemed to be saying, “Take my speech. Go to Dayton. It will work.” Would it work? The campaign was already in deep waters, as something like 99.999999 . . . % of the media (or whatever percentage you get when you subtract The Holmes & Watson Report from 100%) was totally ignoring it. Having Holmes give his first speech in absentia did not seem likely to help the cause.

Luckily, the convention started with a reception with a bar. The reception was hosted by the Agra Treasurers of Dayton, nice friendly folk who know how to stock a very tasty sideboard. Almost immediately after entering the reception, we spotted the omnipresent Peter Crupe . . . the Sherlockian version of the dove with the olive branch that Noah saw, signalling that land was finally on the horizon. Peter was talking to one of Jesse Ventura’s loyal Minnesotan subjects, Julie McKuras, which seemed an additional good omen.

But I had scarcely had the chance to get myself a drink and start to converse when an equally ominous shadow loomed large over my relaxation, and the convention’s chairman, Greg Sullivan of the Danvers, Massachusetts Greg Sullivans (hey, it worked for Jefferson Hope!) pulled me out into the hall to ask a favor. It seemed he needed two more players for the reader’s theater of “Cardboard Box” the next evening, and he hoped my wife and I could fill in. We wouldn’t even have to speak, he told me, and, thinking that sounded pretty simple, I agreed (for myself and my wife —an act of daring not recommended for you husbands reading this at home). Somehow the slight discordance in the phrase “non-speaking role in a reader’s theater” didn’t hit my consciousness until it was too late . . . much, much too late.

After a drink or two’s worth of schmoozing, I snagged my ever-patient spouse and hustled her over to the Holiday Inn’s theater (an extra-ordinary concept, if ever there was one), where a rehearsal for “The Cardboard Box” was taking place . . . with real actors and actresses. Not “Gordon Speck as Mrs. Hudson” type Sherlockian actors, but people who actually did this sort of thing on real stages for totally non-Sherlockian reasons. With stage directions and “blocking,” which we soon learned, indicates where you stand at given points in a play. Because what we found going on in this Holiday Inn theater, without sets, props, or curtain, was actually a play . . . the actors were carrying scripts around, which meant that it could be called “reader’s theater,” but to someone walking in the door with no script and a non-speaking role, this was definitely a “play.” The Holmes was even a good Holmes.

And there was this other problem. This was a drama. Not an “oh, look, I screwed up, ha-ha” farce, but a serious adaptation of “The Adventure of the Cardboard Box.” Kathy (the patient spouse mentioned earlier) was to play Mary Cushing in a series of flashback scenes, and I was cast as Alec Fairbairn. We were playing unfortunate adulterers who get their heads cracked open with an oar, then get their ears sliced off. In the flashbacks, my spectral Alec Fairbairn mostly had to glare angrily at Greg Sullivan (which might have been easy, were Greg not so affable a fellow), who was playing Jim Browner. Later, I’d have to scurry off-stage and back on, pretend to row a boat, and fall over dead. Pretty basic, physical stuff. Kathy, on the other hand, suddenly found herself faced with things like wordlessly expressing feelings such as “expectation followed by disappointment,” and that was just one part of the range of emotions assigned her.

By the time we left the rehearsal, Kathy and I were starting to wonder if we were going to double-handedly destroy Dayton, Ohio’s first, and possibly only, theatrical production of “The Cardboard Box.” (I want to emphasize my terribly distraught mental state at this point in the narrative, just to establish an alibi for any slightly embarrassing game performances which may follow shortly.) Rejoining the reception that was still going on in the Wilbur Wright room (or the Kitty Hawk room or some other room with a name commemorating a short flight that came awkwardly back to earth), we found ourselves arriving just in time for the quiz game “Who Wants To Be A Sherlockian?” Who wants to be a Sherlockian? Well, before you say “I do!” let’s see how you do with the first question the host threw my way: “Mad magazine started publication in comic book form. In their Holmes parody ‘Shermlock Shomes,’ who is Sholmes’s arch-enemy?”

Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock. Got the answer? Then maybe you do want to be a Sherlockian. Me, I’m sitting like a stunned summer squash at this point. Down the row of intrepid contestants, people were getting questions like “If you followed the Bruce-Partington Plans, what would you make?” and “Name the immediate sequel to The Seven Per-Cent Solution.” Me, I’m getting questions like “Explain to my satisfaction why Disney would take a wonderful title like Basil of Baker Street and change it to the annoyingly generic sounding Great Mouse Detective.” Huh? Eventually, Peter Crupe proved that he’s been paying attention at all the Sherlockian functions he’s attended over the years, answered some tough questions, and took the top prize — a custom-painted Dayton Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle Symposium Hot Wheels car, mint in its original packaging. Sounds strange, but it was actually a very nice little collectible.

The rest of the evening is something of a blur at this distant point. I remember helping stuff attendance packets. I remember hanging out with the usual suspects until some wee hour. Basically, the usual symposium pleasantries that make one oversleep, miss meeting people for breakfast as arranged in the wee hours the night before, and wind up absorbing the nutrients from a Payday candy bar as one busies onesself with Higher Purposes.

My Higher Purpose at this point (this point being Saturday morning, just before nine a.m.) was setting up the “Sherlock Holmes for President” campaign booth. Mike Cook, the head graphics guy for the campaign, had come up with some really neat signs and banners, and I’d managed to come up with a number of “Holmes for President” magnifying glasses and skimmer hats for anyone I could recruit to the cause. By the time Holmes’s speech came around that afternoon, I’d need to have somebody ready to cheer for the candidate . . . especially since he wasn’t going to be helping the cause any with his absence.

But there’s nothing like a completely lost cause to make you feel really alive. Well, either that, or knowing you’re going to have to actually “act” for the first time in your shy, bookish existence later that evening. Between the two conditions, my stomach was really grabbing every nutrient it could out of that Payday.

When Kathy showed up to take over the campaign booth, I had a moment to wander the Sherlockian dealers, catching up on buying all the things I had failed to mail order in the last six months, as well as picking up those beautiful trinkets you can only get at symposium dealer’s rooms, like hand-painted porcelain or little metal Baker Street people. Somewhere far across the room, a video of “The Sleeping Cardinal” with Arthur Wontner was playing on a big screen, but since I wasn’t watching it, I bought a copy for later viewing. Can’t pass up Wontner.

While a Sherlockian dealer’s room is an almost excruciating test of one’s control of one’s wallet, there are still moments of infotainment to be had as Ralph Hall or Joe Eckrich pulls out some obscure bit of Sherlockian or Doylean printed matter and explains a little-known fact or a cool detail about it. Putting together a symposium composed entirely of dealers explaining exactly what was on their tables might actually make for a quick-and-easy way to avoid half the organizing at one of these things . . . kind of a live-on-stage Holmes Shopping Network. That and intravenous feeding tubes are two innovations no one has tried at a symposium yet. Attaching a glucose drip to all of the participants would end those awful meal-scheduling quandries, and it leaves more available cash for the dealer’s room, since you can charge it to your medical insurance.

Speaking of things medical makes for a nice segue to the symposium’s opening set of speakers and papers, all of which were in tribute to the late Al Rodin. If Rodin’s name appears on your bookshelf, it is probably alongside a second name (Jack Key on The Medical Casebook of Doctor Arthur Conan Doyle and Roy Pilot on The Annotated Lost World being the most likely among them). But as that afternoon’s speakers quickly demonstrated, Al Rodin was a unique and giving individual who not only made life a lot more entertaining for those who knew him, but also passed on a great enthusiasm for Conan Doyle at a time when Doylean studies were just starting to take off. Fortunately for the “Holmes for President” campaign, Al was not running against Holmes that afternoon, as I don’t think Holmes would have gotten any votes.

You’ll have to excuse me for the monomania that comes from one’s involvement in a presidential campaign. While others can sit back and enjoy presentations like the Rodin tribute and the following talk, Ruthann Stetak on cocaine, the dedicated campaign worker must weigh everything by the effect it will have on the voters. Cocaine is an especially fearful subject in the Holmes camp, but Ruthann Stetak eventually proclaimed that Sherlock Holmes was obviously NOT a cocaine addict, and I began to relax for a moment . . . at least until Regina Stinson was introduced to speak on “Sherlock Holmes’s Other Woman.” Luckily, that other woman was Mrs. Hudson, and Regina did a great job of mixing facts on the true Mrs. Hudson with Hollywood’s portrayal of her, none of which involved any illicit relations with Sherlock Holmes. Finally, just as it was almost time for Holmes’s campaign speech, Cathy Gill spoke on “The First Church of Sherlock Holmes.” While mixing church and state seemed another worrisome area, Cathy’s light-hearted look at the study of Holmes as a religion wound up warming the crowd up nicely.

Then the “Sherlock 2000” styrofoam boater hats came out, the “We Can But Try” and “Holmes for President” signs appeared throughout the crowd, and another red, white, and blue campaign sign got stuck on the front of the podium. Showtime at last! While the very vocal crowd was disappointed in Holmes’s absence, they did at least sit still for the reading of his speech. The voice might have been mine instead of Sherlock’s, but the words were all his:

“It is always a joy to meet an American,” he began. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. American, as you perceive. I would offer you a sovereign. I am inclined to run. I am in hopes of getting it. That is why I am here.”

The speech continued as Holmes made clear his desire to be a working president, cleaning up the disorder that currently exists in government: “If a herd of buffaloes had passed along, there could not be a greater mess. Crime is commonplace. Logic is rare. We seem to have fallen upon evil days.”

The crowd seemed quite agreeable as Holmes continued, speaking about President Clinton, Al Gore, George W. Bush, and others, using words that might have come directly from the Canon itself. (Well, actually they did come from the Canon itself. The real Holmes doesn’t say much else.) While it might be argued that promoting Holmes at a Sherlockian/Doylean symposium is like preaching to the choir, every campaign has to start somewhere, and for a good fifteen minutes, Sherlock Holmes was well on his way to the Oval Office.

Of course, once it was done and Chuck Kovacic got up to speak on 221B Baker Street (subject of his forthcoming “last word on the subject” book), the crowd was probably thinking Holmes should be back at that famous London address. Kovacic’s presentation showed a dedication and depth of research on 221B that made those gathered eagerly look forward to his book’s publication (and his out-of-the-blue Jeremy Brett impersonations didn’t lessen the entertainment factor of his talk, either).

At that point, what could be left but cocktails, dinner, and . . . oh, yes . . . that play. Well, suffice it to say that Mary Cushing Browner and Alec Fairbairn both died horribly in a manner that did not seem to evoke inappropriate reactions from the crowd. While it was hard to get the full effect of the reader’s theater while being hidden off-stage for eighty percent of the production, it still seemed one of the better versions of “The Cardboard Box” I had heard.

The next morning, symposium attendees gathered for coffee, doughnuts, and “Brain Buster” quizzing. I don’t know how many hung-over Sherlockians had their brains busted by the mammoth quiz that Robert Cairo administered that morning, but Regina Stinson proved her mettle by being the only student of Holmes who would have scored an “A” if it were a test in school. Prizes were generously awarded in any case, and very few quiz-takers went home empty-handed, just as very few attendees of the symposium went home without a memory or two. Maybe they remembered tales of Al Rodin. Maybe they remembered Holmes and Watson in “The Cardboard Box.” And maybe, just maybe, they remembered who the hottest new candidate for president of the United States will be in the November elections.

As the candidate himself says, “We can but try.”