​I was a big reader growing up.  Even reading under the covers with a flashlight after lights out -- until my mother confiscated it.  So, went to the library and got an easy electronics book and taught myself how to build one using a wooden cradle, copper, wires, bulb and batteries.  I got money for the latter picking up bottles and getting the small change.  Fed my habit of reading from 9 to midnight, then sleep until 3 or 4 and read until I heard my parents get up around six, take a short nap and start the day.  To this day, I get 4 hours of sleep and I’m good.

I had read everything I could in the children’s library and was starting to reread.  You didn’t get an ‘adult’ card until you turned 13, but the librarian decided I was way ahead of the rest and got my adult card at 11.  It was a thrill crossing over to the adult section and opening up a wider world of reading.  I read everything.  Fiction and non-fiction.  I walked to the library daily to drop off the books I finished and get another 3 although I could get more with the adult card.  I discovered the Sherlock Doubleday Complete edition, a weighty tome, and decided to challenge myself and see how fast I could go through it.  I was hooked and have been a Sherlockian ever since.  To this day, I keep a copy of the Doubleday Complete in the ‘library’ of the house, the office, and in my small vintage camper trailer.

Life involved a lot of travel, so had to travel light.  I didn’t get introduced to any Sherlockian groups until many, many years later, the first being The Hansom Wheels of Columbia, SC.  I attended graduate school at the U of SC and became friends with one of the Journalism professors, Bill Brown. He was also ‘the voice’ for the university at that time. He was a master punster and also a Sherlockian.  We took turns to see who could come up with the worst pun.  He usually won.  He invited me to attend a meeting of the Hansom Wheels and I liked it.  When I moved, yet again, I would drive from GA to SC to attend their meetings.  He didn’t like my driving back on two-lane country roads at night, so insisted I stay over and head back in the mornings.  It was an almost 3 hour drive from where I was in GA to Columbia, SC.  Took longer at night to avoid hitting wildlife and drunk drivers hitting me.

Back in 1985, still in GA, I bought my first top-loading VCR and discovered Sherlock on film.  I had books about the various films, television, plays, cartoons, live radio, from A to Z… and how many of them were considered lost, or never preserved and I decided to be the one to ‘save’ whatever I could find.  I recorded the Granada Brett series and even got the videotapes from England of the new episodes as they aired there.  I progressed over the years from that simple machine to professional equipment and was in contact with folk from around the world for something Sherlockian in their countries.  I had equipment that could ‘translate’ PAL, SECAM to NTSC, and visa versa so I could share with others.  Even Peter Blau would send me his videotapes for me to copy and I had the equipment to convert 16mm film to videotape.  He was instrumental getting the project rolling.  

Over the years, that tiny start has grown to 35,000 videos – over 5,000 of those still in the working phase – downloaded but not cataloged.  Some of those videos are 30 seconds or less, like the commercials.  All important for a Sherlockian doing research.  I’ve moved from VHS, to DVD and now digital format.  I have a 64tb server and many smaller drives (for backup).  I’ve been shipping material to U of MN since 2001.  They have the bulk of the collection for current Sherlockians and for the future so no one has to wonder what a film, television, local production of a play, even recorded Zoom meetings, like Five Miles From Anywhere, Shaka Sherlockians, Praed Street, and others who post their meetings online.  It’s been saved or as much of it as possible.  This has turned into a full-time job, even though I’m retired.

Living where I am now, in the middle of nowhere Mojave Desert, having internet and Zoom has been a godsend.  I don’t feel so isolated.  The world is wide open and every day I find something new.  I may be remote, but I send out my ‘daily finds’ of video and interesting newsy bits to folk around the globe.  And they, in turn, keep me in the loop on newly discovered material.  You can’t find everything and it helps to have extra pairs of eyes.

Just sent out a box of archive quality DVDs (lasts 100 years) to U of MN today – the 3rd box this year.  Digital and archive is an oxymoron.  It’s a long way to anywhere, so the Zooms are my way of getting involved with Sherlockians around the globe.  To attend an LA meeting, I’d have to drive about 150 miles (one way), stay overnight, and then battle traffic on the way back.  Zooms are the answer even if my internet connection is a bit wonky.  People see my name, but I keep the video off to preserve bandwidth.  No, I don’t plan on moving.

It's the thrill of the hunt and finding yet another ‘lost’ video.  The Web has accelerated the discoveries of new material and I’ll probably be on the hunt for as long as I’m able.  The collection has been preserved and added to.  You can find it at the U of MN, Special Collections, Sherlock Holmes Collection.

by Rich Krisciunas

I was introduced to Sherlock Holmes when I was ten when a local TV station showed the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce movies including "Hound of the Baskervilles." I loved Holmes's deductions. Growing up, I don’t recall reading the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle because I read mostly stuff about baseball.  After graduating from law school in 1975,  I had a "Hound of the Baskervilles" framed movie poster that I hung in my office and another lawyer saw it and invited me to a meeting of The Amateur Mendicant Society of Detroit. I attended several meetings and enjoyed the camaraderie of playing "The Game" but had to drop out after I was promoted to a special unit where I tried only First Degree Murder cases and didn’t have time for recreational reading. However, more than once in a closing argument to the jury, I did mention that "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

 My wife bought me Baring-Gould's "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes" for Christmas, which I found amazing and I started reading a different short story each night before bed, and she gave me a different Sherlock Holmes book every year that I read during the Christmas break. One year it was Nicholas Meyer’s “The Seven-Percent-Solution,” another year, Loren D. Estleman’s “Sherlock Holmes versus Dracula or The Adventures of the Sanguinary Count.” When we took a visit to London, I bought my first deerstalker. After I retired from the active practice of law, I discovered that the Mendicants were still meeting and there were three other societies in Michigan. I began attending their meetings and rekindled my love for the Canon. I loved playing the game and reading old Baker Street Journals from when they were first published.  

I hate to admit it but because of the Covid pandemic, I was able to attend numerous virtual meetings via Zoom each week and made Sherlockian friends from around the world that I never would have met. Attending these meetings and hearing the opinions and comments about the stories inspired me to lead discussions and write poetic toasts and more lengthy articles that were published in different Sherlockian publications. The area that fascinated me most was the legal one. How would Sherlock Holmes do if he had to testify in court? Would his brilliant deductions be admissible? Could the villains Holmes claimed committed crimes be convicted by the Crown? With tongue firmly planted in cheek, I began to defend the most reprehensible villains in the Canon like Baron Adelbert Gruner, James Calhoun and Beppo.  I wrote an article that Holmes was the real killer of Charles Augustus Milverton. Playing the Game today and making all of the friends I made all started after watching "Bill Kennedy Showtime" on Sunday afternoon TV in Detroit. That's how I became a Sherlockian.

​It was the end of summer in 1973, and my classmates and I were attending a new school. Our little town was too small to have its own high school, so we were all bussed to the next town over to attend United Township for our freshman year.

My best friend Rusty P. and I were lucky enough to have at least one class together that first quarter, English Literature, taught by Mr. Greer. Not far into the month of September, we came upon a mystery short story in our textbook which was destined to steer me towards enjoyment for the rest of my life. The piece was entitled "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Upon reading it, Rusty and I were immediately captivated. While he pursued other SH stories by this Doyle fellow at the nearest bookstore, I remembered I already had The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes at home, purchased on a whim from the school reading list a few years earlier. After that it was trips to both the bookstore and the local library to find more. Meanwhile fortune smiled upon us when the local TV station substituted the Saturday midnight "Creature Feature" with the Sherlock Holmes/Charlie Chan Mystery Theater, thus introducing us to Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, et al.

At some point I must have thought, "I wonder if this deduction stuff really works"? So one day (in which I learned absolutely nothing about English Literature) I spent the entire class period examining Mr. Greer's shirt sleeves, elbows, and cuffs, his trouser knees, his tie, anything that might give me a clue. Then it hit me! As soon as the dismissal bell rang, I motioned for Rusty to come with me to Mr. Greer's desk. I said, "I have a question to ask you Mr. Greer, then I will make a deduction. Do you park your car in the paved lot with the rest of the teachers?". "Yes I do", he replied. "Then I must deduce that if I were to look for your house, it would be the one without a front sidewalk". "You're right", he said smiling. Rusty's mouth dropped open as he exclaimed, "How did you know THAT??". "By the grass on his shoes", I answered, pointing. "If he parks here in the asphalt lot, the only place the grass could have come from was his lawn when he walked to his car this morning, a lawn without a sidewalk". Thus began my interest in Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

My Sherlockian pursuits were on hiatus for awhile due to marriage, college, and child rearing, but happily returned in 1993 with my rediscovery of The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes short story collection. Since then, I have reread the originals (HOB at least three times), and dozens of pastiches, as well as viewing and collecting the TV series starring Jeremy Brett, Peter Cushing, Douglas Wilmer, Ronald Howard, and others. I earned my Bachelors Degree in Sherlockiana from the Watsonians in February of 1999. I am proud member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of the Cape Fear (NC) which I joined in September of 2022. And a large framed print of the Reichenbach Falls by Sidney Paget adorns my living room. Many relaxing hours away from the stresses of lilfe have been spent up those seventeen stairs at 221B, and I hope to have many more. Yet I still remember fondly those beginning days of discovery half a century ago, and my friend's glowing admiration at my deduction. "I can't believe you did that!" he gushed as we left the classroom. "Elementary, my dear Rusty," I replied, "Elementary."