Being an avid reader, when I was less than ten I remember reading every Sherlock Holmes mystery that I could get my hands on, and that was literally every one of them since I was often hanging out at the library. Yes, I was that kid. You'd catch me walking from 2212 N. Mueller to the corner of 35th and Mueller so I could be at the Bethany Metropolitan Library, and you know, I loved it. It was MY hiding hole. I would find a good spot to sit in, usually up against the wall and on the floor between aisles of reference books since no one ever went there. I would bring my pillow and to my surprise, one of the staff members said I could keep one up there so I didn't have to drag it back and forth with me. What a thought! I did that.
When I was less than a teen I was in the spot where I found such peace, and I had in my hands the hardcover bound book titled "The Hound of the Baskervilles". I remember the story. It was ONE hound. It wasn't the HOUNDS of Bakerville, as some people would call it. My freaking teacher called it that and YES, I corrected her. I know, I'm not really supposed to do that, but I did. I was in the 5th grade when that happened and my mom was called to the office to speak to me. Can you imagine if that were to happen today? A kid corrects a teacher, and then their parent is asked to come up to discuss it? No. That is what is WRONG with our society today. I was in the wrong for trying to openly and publicly correct my teacher. I get that now. I don't know that I got it then. I was right. I knew I was right. My mom even told me I was right, but it wasn't the best practice. It was in fact, WRONG to correct the teacher the way I did it.
What I remember about the entire event is that our school media center didn't have that particular book as it was considered too scary or something for elementary kids. We had other books, but not those written by Sherlock Holmes. That was the year I found out (I was corrected) that the books about Sherlock Holmes were actually written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!! WHAT? I knew him. I knew he was a writer too. I just hadn't put two-and-two together until the 5th grade. It was likely because when I went to the library to get the books they were all in the same area (Thank you, Dewey Decimal System), and all the books I was looking at said "Sherlock Holmes" on them; so naturally, my ten-year-old brain assumed he was the author. Also, I was flat upset about the fact that Holmes didn't narrate the books, his friend Dr. John Watson did. I couldn't figure that one out either.
So, here we are so many hundreds of years later, and I am still correcting people when they bring up the book in conversation; or they make a reference to it. They almost always say "The Hounds of Bakerville" as if Baskerville is a place and there were multiple hounds. Nope. It was ONE big dog, and the Baskervilles were a family who lived in a fictional manor on a fictional moor. It's kind of funny really. I mean, I am wrong, absolutely wrong, about so many things. I'm not as wrong as I could be because I get really really upset with myself when I am wrong, so I tend to fight to my own death about decisions I need to make so I'm not wrong. I kick my own ass, no one else needs to stand in line to do that.
My good friend got it right! I called her and I said "OK, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a book about a family who lived on a moor, and one by one the head of the household was either killed by or chased by a big black dog. Do you know the name of the book?" She answered yes, "but I didn't know his name was Arthur. I thought it was Conan Doyle." I did laugh. She did however get the title of the book correct, so we're still best friends. If I turned that around and I had to answer for her who sang this or that song, or what the title of it was, I would be lost in the abyss because I'm not going to get that unless it's a Bee Gee song.
I sat myself down this past week and read the book on my Kindle. I recalled so very little of the book from when I was ten. I really hadn't remembered most of it whatsoever, so that makes me think I now need to go back and read every last thing that Doyle ever wrote. Yes, I do. Did you know, and maybe you don't care, but did you know that before he was an author Arthur Conan Doyle was a medical student and he is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh Medical School? WHAT? Yes, he really was a doctor, and Dr. John Watson is not. Dr. John Watson is a fictional character. I can't tell you how hard I took that information when I realized that neither he nor Sherlock Holmes were real people. Just devastated me. I think I was about 12. I had to question my entire existence at that point.
If Sherlock Holmes wasn't a real person, I asked myself, were the other people in the other books real? That was when I had a long and drawn-out conversation with Sheila Parker; the teacher who lived behind our house. She had kids that we played with, and since she was a teacher, and I had seen her in the Reference section of the library, I figured she might know something about it. She did. She set me straight on fiction vs. non-fiction, and she even told me about TWEEN books and that was fascinating. I didn't do too much reading in that section, but for some weird reason, I loved the Betsy and Tacy books. Geez, now I have to go back and read those again. I have NO clue what they did, but I remember I loved it.
Photo Credit: Audiobookstore.com
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