Chattanooga
April 11-13
2008
The 4th Annual Gathering of
Southern Sherlockians!
Chattanooga
April 11-13
2008
As most of you probably know, there are very few Sherlockian scions or societies in the Southern United States. This, alone, makes the Gathering of Southern Sherlockians remarkable. The fact that several southern scions have come together to produce this,the fastest growing Sherlockian gathering in the country, make this meeting certainly unprecedented and, at least in our experience, unique. Left to right, above, we have Kent Ross (the major honcho and manager of The Gathering), Dennis Sullivan (representing the Atlanta Confederates of Wisteria Lodge) and David Milner (representing Greenville, SC's Survivors of the Gloria Scott) all offering their greetings to the august assemblage. The other sponsoring group is The Scholars of the Three-Pipe Problem (and the Fresh Rashers) from Nashville (whose presence will be made quite clear later on this web page). Birmingham's Genius Loci, which was a founding sponsor of, and has been an active participant in, The Gathering, had no members who could attend this year - their presence was missed.
BTW: Kent is continuing to manage The Gathering in spite of the fact that he has changed his residence from Atlanta to Springfield, Ohio where we have seen him at meetings of Dayton's Agra Treasurers.
Dignity was added to the beginning of The Gathering by the appearance of Chattanooga's Deputy Mayor Anita Ebersole offering a formal greeting on the behalf of her city. (BTW, after her greeting, Her Honor was seated at a table near ours where she listened to some of the proceedings. We are delighted to report that we overheard her say, "This looks like fun!" Yes, Your Honor, it always is!!

The "lead-off" paper "What Ever Happened to . . ." was presented by Carolyn Senter (left), in which she presented some interesting speculations about what might have happened to various Canonical characters after Holmes solved their cases. Carolyn's presentation was followed by "A Bouquet of Violets" presented by the eminent Sherlockian, Dr. Marilynne McKay, ASH, BSI (right) in which she discussed the various Violets (and violets) in the Canon.
(Sorry for the fuzzy photos, ladies.)
Regina Stinson presented "The Moving Sherlock: A Study in Flim." A really interesting overview of the history of Sherlockian movies rich with illustrating film clips (including the classics "Sherlock Holmes Baffled" and the 1930 filmed interview with Sir Arthur).

Nashville's Bill Mason's (left) presentation was listed in the program as "untitled," but it turned out to be some interesting insights into Mrs. Neville St. Clair's views concerning her husband's giving up his occupation as a mendicant which dovetailed nicely with "Whatever Happened to . . ."
Kenneth Carr (right) discussed some of the many aspects of Sir Arthur's literary style in his presentation, "Sidelights on Doyle: The Enjoyment of His Literary Style in the Canonical Writings."
Socializing

Left, David Milner (Survivors of the Gloria Scott), Robert Brown (of the Baskerville Hunt Club) marvel at Carolyn Senter's incredible Sherlockian jacket. Right, those assembled for The Gathering 4 settle down to hear Kent Ross introduce the the Saturday evening's program.
At your left we show the cast of the feature theatrical event for Gathering 4, "Sherlock Holmes Hee Haw!" We have to admit that we approached this idea with some trepidation, but the show was well written (a collaboration between Bill Mason and other Nashville Scholars in cooperation with Peoria's illustrious Brad Keefauver and, it was most well received by the audience. We fear that both Kent Ross and Joel Senter (left and 4th from left) were a bit overdressed for the occasion, but we were both last minute additions to the cast. To your right is Nashville's living legend, Billy Fields, still in costume from his performance. This was one of those "side splitting" evenings!
Sunday Morning
David Milner (left) brought up some interesting reflections re: "Thor Bridge" in his "Bridge over Troubled Waters." (This really isn't a picture of David giving his presentation, but the one we took was even worse than the one at your right, so we just inserted a better photo we had of his greeting The Gathering). To your right, Joel Senter (see arrow) presents his "Sherlock Holmes's Greatest Joke." (AKA "Silver Blaze"). Gathering 4 was adjourned with a reading of "221 B" by leader, Kent Ross.
"The Gathering of Southern Sherlockians" is a great, fun gathering. Although it was originally designed as a regional meeting, it is rapidly attracting wider attention and extra-regional (and we might add, distinguished) attendance. For articles devoted to past Gatherings, we do invite our readers to go to http://www.sherlock-holmes.com/chattanooga2007.htm or
http://www.sherlock-holmes.com/chattanooga2006.htm. We have been informed by Kent that the dates for the 2009 Gathering have already been set for April 18,19 2009. Please email Kent Ross for further information.