Watson's Tin Box meeting brief report - 21 April 2025

Each third Monday of the month, the Watson's Tin Box of Ellicott City scion meets - at the Union Jack's in Columbia MD. This meeting was my first as the 'Gasogene' XXXV of the scion, and I nervously navigated the agenda.

We had a great turnout for the meeting. The story of the meeting was Wisteria Lodge, and it proceeded thus;

- After a welcome, the group introduced themselves - all were from Maryland except one intrepid DC visitor.

- We then proceeded to the toast, where Olivia Millunzi toasted "The Woman", and made a delightful reference to the women of the American Revolution. This was followed by Tom Fahres delivering the traditional Haiku - and there was one to me with an Australian flavour (spelling intended) !

"Gasogene Matt Hall
Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi
Raise a glass Cheers Mate"

- There were announcements: Sherlockians of Baltimore meet on June 28th in Little Italy ; The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes (ASH) hold their next Gala Luncheon in New York on May 17; the next Six Napoleons dinner will be held on Friday September 26 in Baltimore, followed by the "Baltimore Weekend" on Saturday 27.

- I've written before about the Evidence Boxes created by Paul Churchill. At each meeting, the box of items for the story up for discussion are displayed and explained by Debbie Clark. The Wisteria Lodge box was unpacked and displayed. Sadly I have lost the photo I took of the table of evidence, but among the items (discretely hidden away actually) was 'an old-fashioned pinfire revolver', and it can be seen sitting atop an original telegram sent by Holmes! 

- After the exhibition, the group discussed the story - and a lot of other things too!! I think it was generally agreed that the afterword on the fate of Garcia was unneeded. Also I recall reading this story and wondering early on 'wait is this the story where they need a translator?' - a lot of common plot elements between Wisteria Lodge and Greek Interpreter.

- At the end of the evening, all who have performed (reasonably) well at the quiz (Olivia's first as quizmaster) was allowed to select from the wonderful table of goodies maintained by Karen Wilson.

Next month's meeting on Monday May 19: SILVER BLAZE !!!!!!

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As an aside, I asked afterwards whether the contents of the Churchill evidence boxes were recorded. Not only are the recorded, but thanks to Steve and Rusty Mason (of the Crew of the Barque Lone Star... of Texas of course!) they have all been photographed and arranged by story in PDFs. These can all be accessed at the Beacon Society website: www.beaconsociety.com/comprehensive-stories.html 

 

For example, go to the Novels button and click on it…

Pick a novel and you will see many buttons… one of them will be for the Evidence  box for that Novel…

You will then open the .pdf of the photos and the descriptions for each photo…

Steve Mason describes how all the photographs were collected - an amazing effort: 

"My son Rusty and I contacted Debbie (Clark), Jacquelynne (Morris), and Greg (Ruby) to get their permission to take the photos and post them, along with the descriptions written by Paul (Churchill), Denny Dobry, and Beth Austin on the Beacon Society website…

We then went to Debbie’s home (with Greg) and then pulled out each item from each evidence box and took 2 photos of each item (from 2 angles)… It took 2 days, and over 3,400 photos total… Debbie and Greg helped sort the items, Rusty took all the photos, and I helped unpack, repack, and stage the items…

We then matched the photos to the descriptions and developed the .pdf for each story."