May brings its own specials, as so many months do.  It holds the end of school years, which , in turn, holds graduation s. Graduations from every level of school, and the one time we can clearly see generations lined up and marching through, year by year.  It’s been a long time since we’ve seen what you would call “a Sherlock Holmes generation,” hasn’t it? That’s what  I thought.

The Sherlock Holmes generation was undoubtedly those original readers of the Victorian era whose enthusiasm carried the detective to all those to come later. They recognized something in Sherlock Holmes, something they admired and found worthwhile.   He was both amazing and very human . . . someone they could see actually existing, a mix of the professional man and the multi-discipline genius.  He was, at once, the ultimate man of his times and a man far ahead of his times, a hope for the future that they could see now.

In the generations that followed, a lot of us found inspiration and joy in Sherlock Holmes. All you have to do is look at how many accomplished fans he has. Doctors, judges, writers, succesful businessmen, all still looking at Holmes and thinking,  “Here is a marvelous fellow!” and taking Holmes-like traits into their chosen fields. And yet, while those fans of Holmes still exist, have we seen anything lately that we could call a Sherlock Holmes generation?

Among Sherlockians, one always encounters the worry that  our hobby will pass on if no young people come into it. It’s hard for us to entertain the possibility that it might pass on into history and no longer be an active, living hobby like we’ve known it to be in our lifetimes. It’s a horrible, unbearable thought,  that we may have foolishly wasted our time on something that would, in the end, prove meaningless.   Almost makes one want to sink into a black mood the likes of which Sherlock Holmes himself  would have a hard time competing with on his worst day,  doesn’t it?

But this week, I got a little surprise, a surprise that made me step back and look at the bigger picture.  The good Carter had called my attention to the local newspapers.  One of my nieces is graduating high school this year, and had made the top ten list for her class. The newspaper carried a picture and a little profile of all the school’s top ten graduates, including where they were going to college and what they planned to study.  While I had heard about my niece’s school of choice, and already knew all the other details included about her, the one bit I hadn’t heard was her planned course of study:  forensic chemistry.

Forensic chemistry?  Could there be a field that practically screams “Sherlock Holmes” more than that one?  While it would be a lovely thing to say that my niece’s choice was based on the direct inspiration of Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself, placed there and nurtured by an uncle with a long enthusiasm for the detective ,  I cannot, in all honesty,  claim that. I’ve never been and evangelist in the hobby of Holmes, and where my nieces and nephews are concerned, I just love sitting back and watching what directions  their talents and ambitions may take them.  Forensic chemistry, however, wasn’t even on the map.

I’m going to have to talk to my niece this afternoon and find out just how that interest came about, but it’s not too hard to see. She and her siblings grew up watching  “C.S.I.” and the like. We now live in a world where forensic chemistry is a legitimate field of endeavor, not just something made up by a rebel investigative genius. While my niece may not have come to her chosen course of study through the direct inspiration of Sherlock Holmes,  she grew up in a world that is how it is through all sorts of inspiration from the Great Detective.  Sherlock Holmes helped make this world, even if future generations forget his name and don’t grow up reading his stories.

It’s an oddly happy thought.

Once Sherlock Holmes was the anomaly,   a child who grew up with enough leisure and education to devote himself to studies that would advance the art of detection while other children worked hard just to help their families put food on the table.  And while the poor and struggling are still with us, more and more children are growing up with the freedom to pursue such dreams, doing things like going to college to study a field that Holmes himself would have loved to see on the curriculum. Which brings me to my ultimate happy thought:

What if the next generation had no more Sherlockians, but a whole lot of actual Sherlock Holmeses in it?  Should we mourn a lost hobby . . . or celebrate the fact that our long-loved dreams are becoming reality?

Maybe I’m just an uncle filled with pride at one of his many remarkable nieces and nephews.   But the future is a funny old thing, and I hope that their world, with whatever our friend Sherlock Holmes has brought to it, is even more fantastic than the one I’ve seen so far.

Your humble correspondent,

Brad Keefauver