HERE WAS ONE OF MY FIXED POINTS

There were two guides given us to start with, an oak and an elm. As to the oak, there could be no question at all. Right in front of the house, upon the left-hand side of the drive, there stood a patriarch among oaks, one of the most magnificent trees that I have ever seen.
"That was there when your Ritual was drawn up?" said I, as we drove past it.
"It was there at the Norman Conquest, in all probability," he answered. "It has a girth of 23 ft."
"Here was one of my fixed points secured."

As with many Sherlockians, I have an inordinate fondness for the Sherlock Holmes statement to Watson from "His Last Bow": "Good old Watson! You are the one fixed point in a changing age." We know what Holmes means by this. Watson does not change (much), he can be predictable (most of the time), he can miss the point (not always), he can be trusted (always). Holmes depends on Watson to be that fixed point, and so do we; as Holmes said elsewhere, "You always keep us flat-footed on the ground."

Holmes also speaks of fixed points in "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual," meaning the patriarch oak of indeterminate age, and the "old elm" already taken to the ground by lightening.  I like the opening part of this fixed point identification because Holmes says, "There were two guides given us to start with..."

I was given two guides when I first joined in the Sherlockian world, one local (the patriarch oak) and, later, one distant (the old elm, struck down too soon). First, the oak: David Haugen, President-For-Life of the Sound of the Baskervilles. I first met David in 2007 when I ventured out to my first scion meeting. I knew nothing about being part of a Sherlockian society. 

He had been president of the SOBs for about twenty-five years at that point. He was (and is) a kind, compassionate, generous and dependable man. He taught me how to be a good member of a scion and he taught me a great deal about Holmes and Watson. His faithful leadership has kept the SOBs flat-footed on the ground for more than 40 years. 

In 2013, Don Libey, the founding "Buttons" of the John H Watson Society, came into my virtual life. Buttons was a gregarious, brilliant, funny and generous man. We became instant friends, emailing almost daily until his premature death in 2015--the old elm, struck down too soon.  Buttons gave me the encouragement I needed to step out of the comfort of my local group and to engage with other parts of the Sherlockian world. He taught me an appreciation for Sherlockian scholarship that I did not have prior to our friendship. The scholarship had been a distant thing that I vaguely knew existed. He taught me to seek it out and to apply it to my Sherlockian thinking. I still miss him very much.

I often think of him this time of year because the anniversary of his passing falls on March 15. Concern for my other guide weighs on my mind right now as well.  This past Sunday was the SOBs 43rd anniversary; it was the group's fourth in-person meeting since resuming in-person meetings this fall after an almost three-year hiatus. We were excited; we ordered celebratory cake. Sadly, David was not with us. He has been unwell. I can only hope he is able to return to us soon. David is, for me, an institution in my Sherlockian life, somewhat as Watson was for Holmes:

He was a man of habits, narrow and concentrated habits, and I had become one of them. As an institution I was like the violin, the shag tobacco, the old black pipe, the index books, and others perhaps less excusable.

The Sound of the Baskervilles is my home in the Sherlockian world, the existing fixed point representing the other more ethereal fixed points of my Sherlockiana: John H Watson, Sherlock Holmes, and Arthur Conan Doyle. I think of them as Caesar thought of himself (well, actually, as Shakespeare imagined Caesar thinking of himself):

But I am constant as the Northern Star,
Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks;
They are all fire, and every one doth shine;
But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.

Constant as the Northern Star. I like that. The word constant makes me think of what Stamford told Watson :

"You don't know Sherlock Holmes yet,' he said; 'perhaps you would not care for him as a constant companion."

Oh, Stamford, trust me on this one: the constant companionship of Sherlock Holmes and his people is always in demand here.