WRITING CONTEST WINNERS:
1998,
1999,
2000,
2001,
2002,
2003,
2004,
2005,
2006 and
2007.
Winners of the
Annual Birthday Challenge 2001
Editor’s note: Each year we provide
attendees of the BSI dinner and the Baskerville Bash with a “special edition” of
the Muse which recaps the year’s events and challenges readers with a
competition. This year’s assignment was:
In SCAN, Holmes says: “When a woman thinks that her house
is on fire, her instinct is at once
to rush to the thing which she values most.”
We would point out that this statement is equally true
for the male of the
species. In 200 words or less, if 221B Baker Street were on fire, what one item
would Holmes and Mrs. Hudson each rush for and why?
As always, it was difficult to pick a winner from many
clever entries. Certainly the Stradivarius was first choice for Holmes among the
entrants. However, our winner, Sandy Kozinn, took an imaginative and humanistic
approach to the problem in the following sonnet:
What Would Holmes and Mrs. Hudson Do
if 221 Baker Street Were on Fire?
What do they take, these two, when there's a fire?
What is worth
most? And yet they cannot tarry
As leaping up,
the flames burn ever higher.
Of all, what few
might Holmes or Hudson carry?
For him: the books, the papers, all
his cases,
The records of
his life, his quest, his work.
But which? The
memory of a thousand faces
Makes choosing
one a task from which he'd shirk.
For her, perhaps, the answer's not so hard:
The history of
her art, to which she clings.
But cooking's in
the heart, not on a card.
She runs to
Holmes. “Leave now! They're only things.”
Each thinks of great loss should there be great harm.
Each saves the
other. They leave, arm in arm.
Our first runner-up was Sue Vizoskie, who wrote:
A Violin and a Beeton’s
If fire
threatened 221, Holmes would rush for his Stradivarius. All else could be
replaced; he could even reconstruct his commonplace books, although it would be
a laborious task, indeed. But his Stradivarius, ahhh, how could he ever replace
such a unique work of art? Playing it soothed and distracted Holmes when
London’s dullness oppressed his spirit. And, when the solution to a case was
elusive, he played the Stradivarius as his ultimate method to focus. Could
Holmes survive without his Stradivarius?
Mrs. Hudson,
however, would rush for her Beeton’s Book of Household Management.
Certainly she could purchase a new copy, but it wouldn’t have her personal
notes, handwritten in the margins throughout her years of housekeeping. How had
she shined the bear’s teeth and fluffed the bearskin rug? What was the best
method to remove chemical residue from wallpaper? How had she cleaned the
Wigmore Street mud from those 17 steps? Which was Watson’s favorite curried
chicken? Wherever Mrs. Hudson resumed housekeeping, if Holmes and Watson were
her tenants, she’d face the same challenging tasks again.
And, if Mrs.
Hudson had her Beeton’s and Holmes had his Stradivarius, they’d
both be back in business!
The second runner-up is a newcomer to the Muse and
a new subscriber. We’re delighted to welcome Laurie Fraser Manifold to our pages
with the following entry:
A Birthday Challenge Assignment
(as told by J.H Watson, M.D.)
I had been quite
busy establishing my practice since my marriage, but I was eager to query Holmes
as to a certain matter. So imagine my concern when, upon strolling to my
erstwhile lodging through October evening fog, I was greeted by a hellish glow
and fire bells' din upon reaching Baker Street. At the outskirts of the gawking
crowd was young Wiggins.
“Cor, blimey,
sir! Hit’s the guvnor's house, t’is!”
Dreadful
possibilities raced through my brain. Could this be the work of Moriarty?
Imagine my
grateful relief when I observed, amongst the fire brigade lads' helmets, the
noble head of my friend.
Smoke and flame
mingled with the fog, but Holmes was safe! So, too, Mrs. Hudson, her maid, and
Billy the page.
“Why Holmes, I’m
pleased to see you unsinged.”
“Yes, Watson,
I’m well, despite the inconvenience. I escaped with the dressing gown on my back
& my violin. My pipes, alas, are gone.”
“The rest of the
household evacuated successfully?”
“We nearly lost
Mrs. Hudson. The silly woman returned to retrieve a cabinet photograph of her
late husband!”
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