Looking back, there were several things that were constants in my childhood.  Ever present music, stacks of books, and Sherlock Holmes.   Some of my earliest memories were of watching Sherlock Holmes on PBS.  Basil Rathbone in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, black and white hour long dramas featuring foggy London, the long coat, deerstalker hat and the infamous pipe.  I found it fascinating that Sherlock Holmes played the violin and took cocaine in a 7% solution. 

Halloween costumes consisted of either “The Wolfman” with real Hollywood makeup applied by my Dad, or Sherlock Holmes complete with pipe and magnifying glass.  For me, Sherlock Holmes was at the same level as Batman, Spiderman and Superman.  It was the power of the characters mind that had be so taken from the very beginning.  Problems solved, people comforted, and wrongs turned in rights because of insight, intellect and deduction. 

The tradition of Sherlock Holmes is clearly as strong as ever.  Some of the most outstanding TV around features the same character.  SHERLOCK on the BBC is witty and fast paced and engages you on a level that is strong and tight.  ELEMENTARY on CBS is similarly fast paced but with a twist that takes the characters to New York City and features WATSON as a female ex-Surgeon as the traditional partner to Holmes.

In a world where mediocrity and stupidity are celebrated at so many levels and area of society, it is so encouraging to see that there are those that still want to celebrate the workings of an extraordinary mind.