I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere 

Episode 185: William S. Baring-Gould

Interview with Julie McKuras & Tim Johnson, co-authors

of the 2019 Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual

Burt Wolder: Support for this episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere is

made possible by the Wessex Press, the premiere publisher of
books about Sherlock Holmes and his world. Find them online
at wessexpress.com.

Scott Monty: Also from Holmes, Doyle, and Friends, the annual Sherlock
Holmes symposium in Dayton, Ohio, on March 28.

Scott Monty: I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere episode 185: William S Baring-

Gould.

Mycroft Holmes: I hear of Sherlock everywhere since you became his chronicler.

Narrator: In a world where it's always 1895 comes I Hear of Sherlock

Everywhere, a podcast for devotees of Mr. Sherlock Holmes,
the world's first unofficial consulting detective.

Dr. Roylott: I've heard of you before. You're Holmes, the meddler. Holmes,
the busybody. Holmes, the Scotland Yard jack in office.
Narrator: The game's afoot as we discuss goings-on in the world of
Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts, the Baker Street Irregulars, and
popular culture related to the great detective.

Dr. Watson: As we go to press, sensational developments have been

reported.

Narrator: So join your hosts, Scott Monty and Burt Wolder, as they talk
about what's new in the world of Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes: You couldn't have come at a better time!

Scott Monty: Hello, and welcome once again to I Hear of Sherlock

Everywhere, the first podcast for Sherlock Holmes devotees
where it's always 1895. I'm Scott Monty.

Burt Wolder: I'm Burt Wolder.

Scott Monty: And together we're bearing down on this subject. Looking very
much forward to talking with Julie McKuras and Tim Johnson
about the subject of the 2019 Baker Street Journal Christmas
Annual: William S Baring-Gould.

Scott Monty: Before we do that, a bit of housekeeping. The show notes for
this episode are available at ihose.co/ihose185. That's all lower
case. You can also find us at ihearofsherlock.com. There you
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Scott Monty: On this episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere we're pleased
to be joined by two of the four co-editors and authors of the
2019 Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual: Julie McKuras and
Timothy Johnson. Julie was the president of the Norwegian
Explorers from 1997 to 2006 and has been actively involved in
the Friends of Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of
Minnesota libraries. She edited their newsletter since 1999
and has worked every Explorers' Conference since 1998 as co-
chair for all but two. You may recall we Julie on with Gary
Thaden in an episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere last
year in the run up to that conference, and she was on two
years ago with fellow co-editor and author of the Baker Street
Journal Christmas Annual Sonia Fetherston for the Baker Street
Journal Christmas Annual about Helene Yuhasova. Finally, Julie
is co-editor of Sherlockian Heresies with Sue Vizoskie. You can
find her... she's online and everywhere you need her to be at
the conferences and always a friendly face.

Scott Monty: Julie, welcome back to the program.

Julie McKuras: Thank you for hosting us and thank you for the kind words. I
think most of them are true, but all are welcome.

Scott Monty: We'll find out soon enough.

Scott Monty: We're also joined by Tim Johnson, the E.W. McDiarmid curator
of the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of
Minnesota since 2010, and he was collections consultant for
the International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes. You can find
two links related to that opening sentence about Tim. He was
with us about seven years ago or so. I don't have my archives
open in front of me, but he was on an episode. We'll have a
link to that. And of course, the International Sherlock Holmes...
we explored that with one of the co-creators about two years
ago. Tim has curated a number of Sherlockian exhibits and he
presents Holmes in the collections to any enthusiastic
audience that will attend. His published work appears in books
 and professional and academic journals, blogs, magazines,
newsletters, and he's even on Twitter.

Scott Monty: Tim, welcome back to the program.

Tim Johnson: Thanks, Scott. It's good to be with you.

Scott Monty: I need to advise our listeners that Julie and Tim are only half of
the editorial, authorial team of the 2019 Christmas Annual. The
other half includes Richard Sveum and Gary Thaden. That's a
lot of authors for a single, thin volume like this. Can either one
of you explain why it took four people to tackle this subject?

Julie McKuras: I can. I feel like it took four of us because it was a big story:
exploring someone's life who's been gone for a while. We
realized that we each had a strength and particular knowledge.
Something of course... Tim, vitally important, because of the
resources at the University of Minnesota and his access to
them and his own particular research talents. Gary Thaden is
very knowledgeable about the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and
the history of some of the business people that were here,
which definitely Baring-Gould's family as well. He's a great
proofreader. And Dick Sveum, for those who know him, is
quite the bibliographic expert. I was willing to take whatever
was found and we all made it work.

Tim Johnson: Julie, I think, undersells herself. She brought so much to the
project, too. One of her strengths is in doing family histories
and genealogies and making contact with family members. She
brought that personal side... that long, rich family history... to
the story. She is a very accomplished researcher and writer.
We couldn't have done it without her. We couldn't have done
it without Dick and Gary. It really was a fun team effort, with
all of us bringing different aspects, different strengths, to the
project.

Scott Monty: It's funny, you don't usually think things are going to go
smoothly when a committee is involved, yet it sounds like each
 one of you had your own little niche carved out and it worked
extraordinarily well together.

Tim Johnson: Plus, we just like each other. We hang out together a fair
amount. It really wasn't too tough to get together and chat
and work through what we're going to be finding and writing
about.

Scott Monty: That's great.

Julie McKuras: Another thing, too: I think we defined our own terms in the
beginning. We didn't have a whole lot of "But I said I would
look that up" or "I thought you were going to look that up."
We each knew what we were good at and wanted to do as a
part of this project. By defining everything, we avoided a lot of
other problems that committees might run into.

Scott Monty: That's wonderful.

Scott Monty: Why don't we back up a bit and explain to listeners who might
not know the name William S Baring-Gould. Who was Bill
Baring-Gould and what did he mean to the world of Sherlock
Holmes?

Tim Johnson: Julie, I'll let you start out.

Julie McKuras: William S Baring-Gould was a Minneapolis native who

attended the University of Minnesota and upon his graduation
moved to New York where he first worked for Hurst and then
was wooed away to work at Time Life Magazine. While living in
New York... it called back on his interest in Sherlock Holmes
that he'd had as a young man, as he began to read about the
Baker Street Irregulars. Apparently he was the type of person
that when he was interested in something he jumped in with
both feet. He had a tremendous amount of energy and
knowledge and a desire to learn more. After learning about the
Irregulars, he attended his first dinner in 1947.
Scott Monty: I was going to ask you about the timeframe there from when
he discovered the Irregulars. Were they already in full
formation by the time he moved to New York City.

Julie McKuras: I'm not going to say in full formation. They were certainly
getting going. The first real indication I could find... and I don't
think Tim found anything to contradict this... was a reference
in a letter he wrote. In that letter, to Ernest Bloomfield-Ziesler,
there was a footnote to Edgar W Smith talking about a 1944
letter he wrote to Christopher Morley. We've never been able
to find that original letter despite our best efforts, but with the
timing I think he saw all the publicity that came out about the
1944 Trilogy Dinner. I have a belief that that's really what
sparked his interest.

Scott Monty: And as someone who worked in the publishing industry for
Hurst and Time-Life, this would've been right in his
wheelhouse.

Julie McKuras: Absolutely. And when he got involved, he got involved.

Tim Johnson: The other thing that's fascinating to me about his family is that
this is a family that you can find reference to in the Domesday
Book, 1086 in the Lew Trenchard estate. There have been
Goulds and Baring-Goulds in that place for centuries. It's a
family that has a rich history.

Tim Johnson: The first time I came across the Baring-Gould was not with Bill
but with Sabine Baring-Gould, who was a folklorist, a rector in
the Church of England, and maybe best known for some of the
hymns he wrote including Onward Christian Soldiers, with the
music provided by... I forget if it's... Gilbert or Sullivan. There's
this rich family history coming out of England, situated in the
Moors. Bill would've heard his grandfather talking about the
Moors and was familiar with that part of the country. I'm just
fascinated, in part, by this family history and how they end up
in Minneapolis of all places.
Scott Monty: How was that? I mean, this is a family that has a longstanding
history connected to England and the southwest of England.
What drew them to Minneapolis?

Tim Johnson: Getting kicked out of the nest.

Julie McKuras: The patriarch there... Sabine Baring-Gould... was interested in

providing support to his daughters, should they need it. The
boys apparently were encouraged to go out on their own. I
don't know if he actually packed their bags and put them out
front, but I got the feeling that he greatly encouraged them to
seek their own fortunes.

Julie McKuras: I'm not sure we ever found out exactly why they came to
Minneapolis. The oldest one of the sons settled here. That was
enough, then, when the younger brother... who was William
Baring-Gould's father... When we got kicked out of the nest, he
followed his brother here. They established themselves quite
well here in a very short order. That was one of the interesting
things that Gary Thaden was able to look into, was the people
that they came to work with: these two immigrants were
working with some of the best-known people and business
people in the area, such as George Pillsbury, Thomas Lowry,
people who had a real impact on the economy and the cultural
institutions that are still established in this area.

Scott Monty: You mention the name Pillsbury. Obviously a household name
to many folks. When you tramp the streets of Minneapolis
today and you don't run into Sherlockians... and I'm sure it
takes a while before you actually run into that situation,
because there's so many Sherlockians in Minneapolis... When
you do run into someone and you say Baring-Gould to them...
To Sherlockians, we know Baring-Gould: a giant in Sherlockian
publishing, the father of the Annotated Sherlock Holmes,
chronologist, etc. But if you said Baring-Gould to your average
Minnesotan or Minneapolis resident, would they recognize the
name?
Julie McKuras: I don't think so.

Tim Johnson: No. Many [crosstalk 00:15:56]...

Julie McKuras: [crosstalk 00:15:56].

Tim Johnson: They would not make the connection at all between that name
and Sherlock Holmes.

Julie McKuras: I think that people who know what role he played in Sherlock
Holmes scholarship still had misconceptions about him. I
talked to a number of people who said, "I know they moved
there because his father was the British consul in
Minneapolis," and assumed the family... including William
Baring-Gould... were English. That was not the case. His father
came here, worked in business, and worked for a gentleman
who was the vice consul. That gentleman died at a fairly young
age as a result of a flu epidemic in 1919. Then Baring-Gould's
father stepped into the role. There was that misconception
that they were here later than they were and for a different
reason.

Tim Johnson: Part of me wonders, too... given the family's earlier association
with the East India Company and the growing... Well, it was
really the milling industry. Minneapolis was the flour capital of
the world. In some sense, there may have been a business
connection or business interest from the trade or commerce
side of things that would've drawn the Baring-Goulds to the
Twin Cities and to be engaged as they were with some of the
leading members of the city who were involved in real estate
development and that kind of thing in the early building days
of the city. Thomas Lowry fits in with the history of the transit
industry. The Walkers came out of the lumber industry. We
still have the Walker Art Museum here, which is one of the
family legacies.

Tim Johnson: I've got to wonder if that East India Company... the
involvement with trade and commerce, Minneapolis as a new
 center for an important part of world trade, might have drawn
those young men here to the Twin Cities.

Scott Monty: It makes sense.

Scott Monty: You mentioned, Julie, that when Baring-Gould got into
something he really went in with both feet. The BSI attracted
his attention and he attended the 1947 dinner. Can you walk
us through that year and the year following that lit this fire
under him and what the BSI or BSI publications saw out of him
in those early days?

Julie McKuras: I think part of it was probably proceeded by this letter to

Christopher Morley, which you could tell he was starting to get
interested in the formal organization. I have to wonder... In
September of 1946, there was a Harper's Magazine article that
he wrote and it was kind of about fan fiction, focusing on
science fiction. The different things he had to say about the
science fiction fans, which I think much of it can be related to
those of us who are great fans of Sherlock Holmes.

Julie McKuras: He attended his first dinner in 1947. That same year, he
published his first article in the Baker Street Journal, which was
the first half of the chronology he was working with. The
second half of it appeared the following issue. I think that
must've really brought him to people's attention: that he was
working on such a concise chronology. He did not attend the
1948 dinner, which many did not. It was an abbreviated group.
But he was back at the 1949 dinner. By 1951, Rolfe Boswell...
who many people know that name... indicated he was their
newest chronologist.

Julie McKuras: I think they saw him as a real up and coming writer and
enthusiast and student. That was his entrée.

Tim Johnson: The other interesting Morley connection here is that

Christopher Morley came to Minneapolis in 1939 to give a
speech on the 50th anniversary of the Minneapolis Public
Library. The director of the library at that time was a
 phenomenal woman by the name of [Gracia Countryman
00:21:10]. Morley began his talk, "Friends, Romans..." and then
he paused and looked at Ms. Countryman and waited for
everybody to fill in the blank.

Tim Johnson: Part of me thinks that Baring-Gould would've been aware of

that given his Minneapolis connections and it being only a
short time after he had left the university to pursue work in
New York. Maybe that's what might've also put Morley in his
mind and triggered that letter. I don't know. I love to speculate
about stuff like that.

Julie McKuras: Well he certainly maintained his Minneapolis ties. His mother
lived here until her death in 1958. He remained friendly with
many of college friends, so he visited here quite often. His wife
was from this area. She had family here. I don't think that it's
inconceivable that that could have happened. But of course we
couldn't put it in because we couldn't document it.

Tim Johnson: There is a recording, I think, of Morley's talk, or at least the

text. Gary Thaden uncovered... when he was sitting on the
Hennepin County Library Board... that reference and that
speech that Morley gave on the 50th anniversary.

Scott Monty: Speaking of recordings, is there any extant recording of Baring-

Gould himself?

Tim Johnson: There is one that you can find online where Baring-Gould is
making some comments. Julie, jump in.

Julie McKuras: I think all of us know that he wrote Sherlock Holmes of Baker
Street. It was released and people either loved it or hated it. As
happens, he got a lot of correspondence with people
expressing both points of view. I believe at the January 1963
Baker Street Irregulars Dinner, he gave a talk that was
recorded and it was about all the negative press he received. It
was so funny and so self-deprecating with the comments that
included things about people weeping: "They were so sad to
 hear this sad tale." I believe that can be found. I know I've
listened to it. I think I found it on YouTube.

Scott Monty: We've got a link to it here on YouTube. We'll pause here and
listen to a couple of minutes from it.

Baring-Gould: I'd like to have you bask with me in some of the glow of critical
acclaim that's been cast on this book from virtually every
place. Let's begin. It was properly reviewed in the good New
York Times and how we miss it by none other than old
Irregular Tony Boucher, who said... and I quote him... quote,
"Wretched proofreading," unquote. Another old Irregular,
Rolfe Boswell, was equally kind. He said, "Doubtless there will
be disagreements aplenty." And Bill Rabe was terribly quick to
second that, I felt. He said in the Detroit News of Sunday, May
13, "Sherlockian scholars may quarrel with Baring-Gould's
explanation of Dr. Watson's wandering wound. They will
certain dispute his report that Sherlock Holmes simply died of
old age on a Sussex park bench." Going north to S. Tupper
Bigelow Land, we find that the Toronto Globe and Mail of May
2 said, "A fantastic exercise in imaginative nonsense."

Audience Member: Take back that award. We don't want that.

Baring-Gould: The Vancouver Globe says, "Mr. Baring-Gould tends to carry

things just a bit too far. Imagination boggles."

Baring-Gould: But it is really when we cross the seas that we find criticism
rising to its finest heights. I think I'll begin with the Irish News
of October 27: "Fanciful." The Birmingham Post of September
18: "Irritating." The Sunday Telegraph of September 16:
"Unscrupulous." The Manchester Guardian, September 27:
"Tongue-in-the-cheek audacity." The Journal London's Weekly:
"Mr. Baring-Gould does not play fair." Books and Bookman's
Mr. Richard Wittington Egan: "I like him. He says absurd
mythologies, bogus biography. One is tempted to slap the
volume down with that irascibility that Watson displays in the
Study in Scarlet as he flings aside the magazine containing an
 unsigned article by Holmes with remarks, 'What ineffable
drivel.'" The Manchester Evening News of September 27: "The
joke is well illustrated." And a paper from some place... I can't
read my own typing. It's from little town. It's the Independent:
"The profuse footnotes contained in this book do not make for
smooth reading." And the Illustrated London News... one I'm
particularly proud of... says, "Mr. Baring-Gould is an
American." The London Times: "No doubt, Mr. Baring-Gould
knows Holmes's methods. It's a pity that he does not apply
them."

Scott Monty: That's wonderful to hear his voice come alive for us. So many
of these figures of old in the beginning of the Sherlockian
movement... whether it's Edgar Smith, Christopher Morley,
even Vincent Starrett... there are still recordings of their voices
around. They're not widely known or widely circulated, but to
able to find those and hear them really adds an additional
perspective to these otherwise two-dimensional giants that we
know.

Tim Johnson: Exactly.

Julie McKuras: I think that's a good point. If you listen to this particular
recording, his humor comes through. In the research I did... if
you don't mind I'll backtrack a bit... I went to New York and
went to the New York Historical Society and went through the
Time Life archives. In that research, I was able to find the
copies of the speeches he gave while he was an employee.
Those speeches focused on direct mail advertising, such as
sending out what we would consider a blast email now, but
letters to people encouraging them to subscribe to any of the
Time Life publications. It's hard for us to imagine that those
speeches could be funny, but they were. They were funny,
they were well-written. When you read them, you get another
sense of who he was and how he handled himself
professionally.
Scott Monty: It's funny. I think last December or so I wrote a piece on I Hear
of Sherlock Everywhere about some of the influences that
Edgar Smith would've had as he was up and coming. There was
a paragraph... and I don't remember whether it was from John
Lellenberg's BSI archival website or whether it was from one of
the BSI history books... where it was talking about Smith's
abilities as a speech writer for General Motors and how
talented he was. This is among people who are considered
masters of the craft. So to hear someone like Smith and
someone like Baring-Gould in similar circles... Obviously,
Baring-Gould is working in the publishing industry; Smith in the
auto industry. But that they were so facile with words both
written and spoken speaks to this ability that so many
Sherlockians have: this erudition, this ease with each other and
with themselves. I think it speaks volumes to the types of
people we attract.

Julie McKuras: I feel like I'm in good company, now.

Tim Johnson: I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall in the Baring-
Gould home... watching Bill go to work... because he was not
one who spent a lot of time watching television, although he
did make a couple of pitches to Tell the Truth and What's My
Line in terms of possible episodes that they might do. He had
so many different irons in the fire or balls in the air and was
always working on something. That must've been a beehive of
activity in his study, his den, and his home. To just watch him
read, write, do all the things that he was doing... He had a very
active life.

Julie McKuras: And he often traveled for business in doing these speeches.
One would look at an early 1950s family and I think we all think
of the old television shows where mother stayed home,
mother took care of this, while father went out and worked.
Baring-Gould's wife, Ceil, was also incredibly active in different
things. Together, they were active in the local theater group.
They were active in a home owners group. She was active in
the League of Women Voters. In addition to the various
 interests they focused on their home and their family, they
were reaching out to others as well.

Julie McKuras: I think Tim is correct. It must've been a fascinating hive, to see
them pursuing all this.

Scott Monty: Right. In many ways, they sound like the original power couple
of sorts. They each were very proficient at what they did and
well respected and well liked. I remember meeting Ceil Baring-
Gould probably in the mid to late '90s at a BSI weekend. She
was still around at the time. You could tell even at that point
how much people liked her and welcomed her.

Julie McKuras: And I think they respected her.

Tim Johnson: I think it rubbed off on the children, too. I'm really touched by
that sketch of Baring-Gould that was done by his son that we
were able to include. Here's a young man whose life was
tragically cut short in an automobile accident and was headed
to the Rhode Island School of Design. You look at that sketch of
his father and you think of the potential that was there. The
beauty of that sketch of his father... For me, that's one of the
most touching pieces in the Annual. It speaks to a very active
family.

Scott Monty: Tim, you touched on something earlier when you were giving
Julie her due credit at the beginning of the interview, when
you spoke about her ability with genealogy. Julie, this is
something that we ran across in the Helene Yuhavosa
Christmas Annual two years ago, as you and Sonia were
embarking on that issue. You did a lot of research and she
didn't have a lot of family. There were a few distant relatives:
nieces, I think, were involved. I would imagine you did the
same kind of due diligence with William Baring-Gould. Can you
tell us about his family's involvement with the Christmas
Annual and your approach and what you were able to find?

Julie McKuras: I'd be happy to, because I have nothing but glowing things to
say about the family. I was able to locate his daughter. About a
 year and a half ago, my husband and I visited with her. As
gracious as everyone always described her mother, I think they
would speak in the same terms about her. She welcomed us
into her mom. She was so excited that people still
remembered her father, because she was young enough when
he passed away that I don't think she had a very good idea of
what impact he'd had. So to find out everyone involved in
Sherlock Holmes knows his name, knows his accomplishments
and still lauds him for that work, was a wonderful thing for her
to learn. I keep going back to the word gracious, but she was
generous with saying, "I've got some pictures together for you.
How can I help you?" and answering all the questions that we
posed to her.

Julie McKuras: I was struck by the fact that I don't know that we could've
gotten nearly as much done without her cooperation and
encouragement.

Scott Monty: When you think about all of the projects that Baring-Gould was
involved in... Sherlockian and non-Sherlockian... Let's just take
his chronology alone. This is something that in and of itself
probably took a number of months and even years to
accumulate. And he was always making corrections. He had his
initial chronology and then the chronology that appeared in
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, and the final chronology that
he put together for the Annotated Sherlock Holmes. Let's face
it: the Annotated Sherlock Holmes is no small work either.

Scott Monty: Did she have any recollection or any stories to tell about this
massive research organization that was her father within their
own home?

Julie McKuras: She didn't have a lot to say about that. I get the feeling that
although he was always working on something and he would...
I don't want to say isolate... go into his den and would work on
things... there was always something going on in that. But he
didn't talk a lot about it. I think he was pretty good about the
 idea that when he did have time with his children he talked to
them about what they were doing.

Tim Johnson: You do get a sense that... kind of like Phillip and Mary Hench...
Bill and Ceil were a team. She was doing some of his research
for him. I think there's a place in the Annual where we talk
about him finding a stack of material that she had put together
ready for him to go through. So you get a sense that this was,
in some ways, a partnership of great love for the subject
between the two of them, and they both brought some
interesting things to... Whether it was the limericks or Mother
Goose or the Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Ceil was there
helping out.

Julie McKuras: And encouraging. I think she was always very encouraging.

Scott Monty: Now, Ceil was eventually honored as the woman during the BSI
weekend. This is a tradition that goes back some decades.
Certainly before women were invited to the dinner, there was
always one honored at the cocktail party prior to the dinner.
Typically, it is a spouse of a Sherlockian who is doing great
things: doing things for the organization, doing things for
Sherlock Holmes. The spouse is recognized in the role that they
have as a support, as a bulwark, in some cases as a companion
in arms.

Scott Monty: Do you have it at hand when Ceil became part of that process.

Tim Johnson: She is the woman in 1969.

Julie McKuras: Thank you. I couldn't remember if it was '68 or '69.

Tim Johnson: '69 is when Mrs. William S Baring-Gould, an unusually gracious

lady, was toasted as the woman.

Scott Monty: So 1969: this was two years after the publication of the
Annotated Sherlock Holmes, if I recall correctly.

Julie McKuras: Yes, it was published in late 1967.

Scott Monty: Can you talk to us about the timeframe leading up to that
publication? What was going on and what eventually, sadly,
happened?

Tim Johnson: Part of it was negotiating and corresponding, because I think

he had a number of projects in the works at the time. The Nero
Wolfe thing was also something he was working on. Part of it
was... first of all... to find who might publish the Annotated.
Adrian Conan Doyle was very clear that he did not want one
particular publisher to have anything to do with it. Bill was
hoping Doubleday would come through; they decided not to.
So part of it was the search for a publisher.

Tim Johnson: Part of it was a long correspondence back and forth with
Adrian, because once Bill had the manuscript in hand he
shared it with Adrian. Adrian wrote a number of letters in
reply, including one that was a six-pager full of observations
and comments. Adrian was generally very complimentary of
Baring-Gould and his work. He makes some interesting
observations about other folks like Hesketh Pearson or Irving
Wallace. Their names slipping into the work and Adrian would
rather not see them there.

Tim Johnson: There's the publisher issue, there's getting Adrian's blessing
and signing off, because he's the last one representing the
Conan Doyle Estate who needs to sign off on the project, and
then it's the timing of it in terms of trying to get it out in time
for people to buy for Christmas. Julie might have some other
things that were in play at the time, but those are the ones
that I remember. Clarkson Potter eventually does publish it in
the States.

Julie McKuras: That's a good jumping off point. If we look at 1960 on, I have
no idea how this man accomplished everything that he did. He
was working on Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. The
American edition came out. He did a lot of work with British
publisher in addition. In December of '61... going from the
correspondence that the university holds... he's indicating that
 Clarkson Potter wanted him to do an annotated Mother Goose
as a companion to Martin Gardener's annotated Alice. He
wrote another manuscript... it was called the Naked
Mountain... about the eruption of Mount Pelee in Martinique
in the Caribbean and couldn't get it published. But by 1962, he
started talking about writing a book that he would need the
cooperation of Adrian Conan Doyle. You start to see a 1960
letter that TF Blakeney wrote to him saying that Edgar Smith
told him that Bill might be starting an annotated.

Julie McKuras: I think this project was percolating for a number of years
before he actually started work on it. In 1962, the British
Sherlock Holmes edition came out: Sherlock Holmes of Baker
Street. Bill was made a member of the Mystery Writers of
America. He was very pleased: in 1963, he went to England
and met with many British Sherlockians and got a nice tour of
Baker Street. The contact that Tim was talking about with
Adrian, the first letter we could find was in February of 1964.
Adrian implied that he thought the idea for an annotated was
wonderful, but shouldn't we focus on his father instead of
Sherlock Holmes? None of this literary agent stuff. This was the
man.

Julie McKuras: As Tim mentioned, they starting hunting for a publisher. As he

said, he hoped it was Doubleday and he certainly knew who he
hoped it wouldn't be. In May of '64 he took the story... the
Abbey Grange... and did an annotated version of that to show
it to Clarkson Potter and say, "This is what we can do." Potter
wanted to use the John Murray plates and was really... even in
May '64... talking about a 1965 publishing date. But that didn't
happen. By '66... that's the six-page letter that Tim referenced.
It was one of those letters that begin with how great
everything Bill did was wonderful, but really you need to
improve that part about my dad and not talk so much about
other people. There were a lot of changes that had to be made
before that contract was finalized.
Tim Johnson: Bill had to rewrite the first chapter because that was the part
that dealt with ACD and then send that over to Adrian.

Scott Monty: I seem to recall in the Annual reading that he did make some
changes. But as Adrenaline kept writing back and kept being
insistent on some areas, eventually Bill just gave a polite nod
and did what he wanted to anyway. Am I recalling that
correctly?

Tim Johnson: Yeah. The one thing in particular is with the picture of Joseph
Bell, where Bill left the caption in.

Julie McKuras: The original.

Tim Johnson: The original, yeah, which Adrenaline would not have wanted to
see.

Julie McKuras: I think he made some of the changes he requested, but on

others he stood firm. I think we would look at it as a good
negotiation and a good compromise.

Scott Monty: We're going to take another brief pause here for a word from
our other sponsor.

Scott Monty: It seems like there are more and more Sherlockian conferences
and symposia to attend with every passing year, and that's a
great thing. But it's difficult for Sherlockians to make that
choice because of geography, travel expenses, and simply the
calendar filling up. There's only so much time and money a
Sherlockian can devote to some of these conferences. If you
have some free time at the end of March 2020, there's one
conference, symposium, gathering that we highly suggest you
take the time to go to, and that is the Holmes, Doyle, and
Friends Symposium in Dayton, Ohio. This year's edition takes
place on Saturday, March 28, with the opening reception on
Friday, March 27. Speakers this year include Carlina De La Cova
on matters anthropological and medical, Denny Dobry on
building a reconstruction of 221 B... you've heard Denny on the
show here before. Al Shaw is going to talk about pipes in the
 canon. Pat Ward on the Basil Rathbone films and their other B
movie competition. Karen Wilson will regale us with something
musical. And our own Burt Wolder will talk about the beautiful
writing of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Scott Monty: Expect this and much more. To register, just see the link in the
show notes for Holmes, Doyle, and Friends, or just Google
Holmes, Doyle, and Friends 2020. What is familiarly known as
the Dayton Symposium has been held under various names
since 1981, except for a single one year hiatus in 2013. The
Agra Treasurers, who are the Dayton-based scion society of
the BSI assumed sponsorship of the symposium and adopted
the current name in 2014. Since then, it's been a blockbuster
every year. Get out your calendar, get out your checkbook... it
really doesn't cost that much... go to the link on our show
notes for Holmes, Doyle, and Friends and make sure you make
a beeline to Dayton this March.

Scott Monty: As you mentioned before, given the sense of humor that Bill
seemed to have... certainly in his professional life... you have
to imagine that would've carried over into these various
hobbies and in dealing with people on a regular basis. He
must've had some good humor about him regardless.

Tim Johnson: He did. I think it's also important to remember that in the
midst of all this is when they lose their son in that automobile
accident. He's got to regroup, deal with his grief... but within
months he's back at it again.

Scott Monty: Was there any indication that he retreated into some of his
side projects as a suave for the loss of his son, or was it as you
say? Did he drop everything and go into a period of mourning?

Julie McKuras: I was going to say, his son died toward the end of February of
1966. It was a one car auto accident. But Bill did not appear to
have gone back to work right away. I think he took some time
off. In one letter I read, he talked about a planned trip to
England: that he knew he and his wife needed to get away, so
 they bought a Triumph car... a TR 4... and they picked it up in
England and they traveled around England and ended up
shipping the car home. I don't know if that was just a good
focus for him... It's in that same time period that he's doing
more articles for the Baker Street Journal and thinking about
the book, Nero Wolfe. I think those were projects that gave
him some focus and maybe some solace. The letters that he
received from his friends in the Irregulars on the passing of his
son must've been quite comforting. So many people thought
about him.

Julie McKuras: All I can say is that this was a man who bought two sports cars
during his life and he had a red MG and he had a Triumph TR 4.
Personally, being married to somebody who when I met him
had a Triumph TR 6 and now has a 1980 MG, I understand this.

Scott Monty: That's wonderful.

Scott Monty: The project was nearing completion in 1967. Suddenly, we lose
William S Baring-Gould. This was a rather sudden thing. He was
a fairly young man at the time, wasn't he?

Julie McKuras: Yes. Right around 54.

Scott Monty: My goodness.

Julie McKuras: It was period when he was really involved with the BSI. He was
very involved and supportive of the women who were
interested in becoming members. Evelyn Herzog has a really
touching passage in this Christmas Annual about everything he
meant to them: how supportive he was and how absolutely
crushed they were when they lost their friend. Even earlier in
that year, he was still trying to travel and check sources and
footnotes for the Annotated. His death was sudden, but in
retrospect you look at somebody who is leading such a frenetic
lifestyle and was a very heavy smoker... He had a ruptured
aneurysm and was gone in a few days. Unfortunately, that left
his...
Scott Monty: Was there a family history there? Did his father pass away at
an early age? Did he know something like this was coming?

Julie McKuras: His father did pass away in his early 40s.

Tim Johnson: 41 or 42, I think.

Julie McKuras: 42, something like that.

Julie McKuras: When I talked to Baring-Gould's daughter, she said, "I'm not
sure exactly what happened to my grandfather." That was
something we were able to solve. Gary Thaden was able to
find the death certificate. His father had what they assumed to
be a ruptured duodenal ulcer and a hemorrhage. So yes, there
was a history of men in the family dying young, but different
causes.

Scott Monty: Do you get a sense, though, as you've gone through this
tremendous amount of work that Baring-Gould did in this
short period of time that this frenetic pace that he had was
trying to squeeze in as much as he could before leaving us?

Tim Johnson: I don't know if that's so much as it is that he had a zest for life
and an insatiable curiosity. You look back at his college career:
even in high school, he's going to the movies, he's going to
shows, he's writing about them. He explores his talents as a
cartoonist. He edits a humor magazine. He's interested in
journalism as well as business. He has so many different
interests. I'm not so sure it's this sense of impending doom as
it's just he's interested in so many and wants to engage fully in
them.

Julie McKuras: And he had a great sense of curiosity about many things. As
Tim was saying, all the involvement he had in so many
different activities when he was in school... but when he
moved to New York, he remained very active with the
University of Minnesota alumni association, often speaking for
them and remaining ties while he was pursuing all the other
avenues of his interests. I think Tim is on to something with the
 fact that this was an intelligent, curious man. It led him down
so many paths.

Tim Johnson: There's a box of materials that I came across after we put the
Annual to bed. I don't know that we could've used it anyway,
but I'm still puzzling about it. In fact, a friend of mine over
lunch as I was walking around campus talked about this box as
the puzzling Baring-Gould, because it's full of papers that all
about puzzles and words and lists of the most common two-
letter combinations and three-letter combinations and four-
letter combinations and chest problems. I'm really curious
about this box of papers that we didn't explore as part of the
project, but it's another part of his curiosity about how
language works and how words function and how you build
them into crossword puzzles. All that kind of stuff.

Julie McKuras: So while he's interested in things like that, he also wanted to
write an article about people who went over Niagara Falls in a
barrel. You have the things that you consider a really
mathematical or intellectual puzzle along with things that are
current events. It was such a big picture of everything that
interested him, and he seemed to pursue every one of them
with the same drive.

Scott Monty: It's funny, because this is something that I think we come
across in the world of Sherlockians, is that Sherlock Holmes is a
thing that brings us all together. And yet, each person is like an
onion. You begin to peel back the layers and there's so many
other things there. In some ways, we're all generalists. We do
deep dives in some areas, but there are people who are Titanic
buffs, or who are experts on railways and train spotting.

Scott Monty: You mentioned in passing Baring-Gould's interest in Nero

Wolfe. There are a number of Sherlockians that cross both of
those streams, as it were. Can you talk about Baring-Gould and
where his interest in Nero Wolfe took him?

Julie McKuras: Go ahead, Tim.

Tim Johnson: I was just looking for that section in the Annual because it's
one part of his story that I don't know as well, but I think it's
the same interest in a character's biography an another
version of playing the game. When his book, Nero Wolfe of
West 35th Street comes out... which again, is posthumously
published... I think he's got that same kind of tongue firmly in
cheek, playing the game, and just enjoying exploring the
possibilities with another literary character.

Scott Monty: Of course, Nero Wolfe, created by fellow Baker Street Irregular
Rex Stout. Do we have any record of correspondence between
Baring-Gould and Stout?

Tim Johnson: Off the top of my head...

Julie McKuras: I don't think so. That doesn't mean there weren't
conversations between the two of them, but I didn't find any
correspondence.

Tim Johnson: Are they at a dinner together? Seems like I have a

recollection... Whether it's him, Rex Stout... The other thing
that popped into min is this interest that is there early with
science fiction. I'm wondering what kind of conversations he
might've had if he had them with somebody like Isaac Asimov.

Scott Monty: Poul Anderson.

Tim Johnson: And Poul Anderson, yeah.

Julie McKuras: Manly Wade Wellman?

Tim Johnson: Yeah.

Julie McKuras: A man of many interests who was not willing to put any of
them on the sideline.

Scott Monty: What were some of the reactions... You mentioned the
reaction of his fellow Baker Street Irregulars to the death of his
 son. What was the reaction of the Irregulars upon Baring-
Gould's passing?

Julie McKuras: I don't think any of them saw it coming. The first thing I would
say is they were shocked. They didn't expect to see this
happen to one so young. The stand-upon-the-terrace for him is
quite touching. I keep going back to the fact that they still
thought he had so much to do and offer, and the sense that he
was taken far too young.

Tim Johnson: In that standalone where they say, "As far as the Irregulars are
considered, Bill needs no physical monument. He will always
remain in our minds and hearts." Yeah, they didn't see it
coming. It was shock and grief because here was a life cut
short that had so many other things he wanted to pursue.

Scott Monty: Certainly, his name lives on. His original Annotated still stands
the test of time, and you can still find copies out there in used
bookstores, on Abe Books, etc.

Scott Monty: I remember the first version of the Annotated Sherlock Holmes
I got was a single volume edition, which is pretty hefty. It's
handy because you never know which of the two volumes to
pull out as you're looking for a story, because they're in Baring-
Gould's chronological order and you don't know which volume
they land in. So it was helpful to have that single volume. But
never try to read that book in bed, because if you fall asleep
you're done for.

Julie McKuras: "I went to sleep and woke up with a broken nose."

Tim Johnson: And there's a bit of trivia that I don't know the answer to
either, but I'm curious that the American edition was in a
green dust jacket, and that when John Murray brought it out,
the British edition was in red dust jackets. I don't know why
the difference.

Scott Monty: Here's a question for you: of all the copies of the Annotated
I've seen available for sale, I've never seen a first edition.
Tim Johnson: There are also pirates.

Scott Monty: Really?

Tim Johnson: Yeah.

Scott Monty: Talk about that.

Tim Johnson: The one that I've seen was printed in I want to say Singapore.
Don't quote me on that exactly. It was somewhere in that part
of world. It was a pirated edition of the two volume American
green jacketed edition. I don't know that anyone has really
explored or done research into the pirates. Maybe it's only
that one that was a pirated edition, but they're out there.

Julie McKuras: There's your next project.

Tim Johnson: There we go.

Scott Monty: Do you know what size run there was for the first printing of
the Annotated?

Julie McKuras: I don't.

Tim Johnson: Not off the top of my head, no.

Scott Monty: My guess is that it would've been fairly limited in nature,

because they immediately went to second printings.

Tim Johnson: Given the runs that they were doing for his other earlier books,
they were not huge runs. I think one of them was a run of 500,
which quickly sold out and they had to do a second printing.
But I haven't come across... I'm sure it's somewhere in the
record... what the run was for the first printing of the
Annotated.

Julie McKuras: I would agree with Tim, because not only did they probably
feel they were going to be looking at a pretty small niche
market, but it would've been a big, expensive book to publish.
Scott Monty: No doubt.

Scott Monty: Well, as we wrap up here... Julie, in the copious research that
you did and speaking with Baring-Gould's family, what's the
thing about him that you were the most surprised to find out
throughout this entire process?

Julie McKuras: I'm not going to say I was really surprised, but what came
through to me with every letter of his that I read and the
speeches that I read and the discussions that I had with the
few people who knew him that I was able to speak to was his
humor and his failure to brag about himself. One person wrote
to him and said, "Why didn't you include this in your book?"
And his answer was, "Sheer ignorance." He was just always so
gracious to anyone who wrote to him, whether it was a
compliment, a criticism, or a question that I walked away
thinking, "This is someone that we all miss that we didn't get
to know."

Scott Monty: And Tim, as you've been so close with the collection and so
much of what Baring-Gould and his family deposited there,
what did you come across that made you raise your eyebrows?

Tim Johnson: I think the thing that surprised me the most and gave me some
pleasure was how active he was both at the university's high
school but also as a student here at the University of
Minnesota. It's one of those... I want to claim him because
we're both graduates of this institution and he played such an
interesting and active role in some of the history of the
university that's happening at an interesting time: in the early
days into the mid part of the Depression. Thinking about him in
that context... as a college student... and what he was doing I
found delightful, and when I came across that picture of him
seated in the editor's chair with his feet up... that one just
brought a smile to my face.

Tim Johnson: It was the discovery of a very rich life as a student here at the
university I think that was both surprising and also very
 pleasing to see how he put his mark on this place and how in
some ways it's come full circle: to have his papers here and to
be able to celebrate his life as a Sherlockian.

Julie McKuras: I should add something. There was something that surprised
me, now that I think about it. That was the fact that I only
looked at him in the beginning as someone who had made
such a mark on the study of Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps
wrongfully, I thought at some level that was his only big
interest. It was very interesting to find out how wrong I was
about that: that he was interested in limericks and Mother
Goose and his family background... how that influenced him in
folklore and he pursued it all. He was such a well-rounded
person as opposed to a hyper-focused one.

Julie McKuras: Another thing that I have to add because it was such a
pleasure for me to read this: we asked Les Clinger, who had
done his own Annotated Sherlock Holmes, how he felt about
Baring-Gould and what his influence was. He said that one of
the things... beside the fact that he did it before computers
and didn't have the DeWaal Bibliography to go by, he didn't
have his own Annotated to use as a starting point like Les did.
It indicated to me that level of respect that everyone still has
for him. Even if they have tried to emulate some of what he
did, they still honor him and probably will always do so.

Scott Monty: I hope they do.

Scott Monty: As much as we feel sadness for not having known Baring-Gould
in our own lifetimes and certainly in our own Sherlockian
lifetimes, thanks to you... Julie and Tim and of course Dick
Sveum and Gary Thaden... everyone else now has the
opportunity to see this well-rounded individual, this giant, in
the world of Sherlock Holmes, who gave so much of himself to
our world and to so many others. We thank you for creating
this wonderful story... Baring-Gould of Baker Street: the Life
and Footprints of William S Baring-Gould... and we thank you
 for sharing your stories with us here on I Hear of Sherlock
Everywhere.

Julie McKuras: Thank you. I'd like to extend my appreciation to the publishers,
who I think did a spectacular job with both the cover and
allowing us to go our own with where we thought this story
had to go.

Tim Johnson: Thank you so much for allowing us the chance to share a bit
more about someone who's very special to our joint interest in
Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Burt Wolder: I'm so sorry that I missed this conversation, but it's terrific to
listen to it. There's so much going on there. On the one hand,
you could say from a contemporary American perspective that
this is the imprint of Minnesota on Baring-Gould. Garrison
Keillor and other writers have chronicled this part of the mid
west as populated by people for whom their own skills and
their own talents are no big deal. They weren't brought up to
boast about what they could well and they weren't brought up
to think of themselves as having any great... In fact, they were
brought up to think of themselves as pretty much that: no big
deal, that it's best to be quiet about that.

Burt Wolder: But there's a lot of other things going on there. You could say
how unique Baring-Gould was because he also had this British
DNA. It's not usual for someone in America to grow up also
with a sense of strong family ties to England, particularly with
his own heritage. Then the last part of it is that he was a Boy
Scout. The lovely thing about scouting... particularly in those
early days... you have to think about this from the standpoint
of when Bill Baring-Gould was a Boy Scout... I would gather
that Baden-Powell, who founded Scouting in England, probably
could've been still living when Bill Baring-Gould was a Boy
Scout, and that comes through in the Christmas Annual. But
the lovely thing about Scouting is that you figure out at an
early age how to get things done with people of your own age:
how to form a team and form a group and work in a troop and
 things like that. That's a big part of Scouting for women and for
men and boys and for girls. That really set him apart.

Burt Wolder: You can imagine when he gets to university and he finds that
there are fraternities and there are these organizations that
produce these newsletters that unlike other kids he's had that
experience and he's much more equipped to handle it
productively. It's just a wonderful lens into a bygone era.

Scott Monty: It is. As much as there was in this conversation and as much as
there was in the Christmas Annual, there is so much more to
William S Baring-Gould. I feel like this booklet was a good start,
but I feel like there's so much more if we wanted to go deep on
any one of the subjects that we've talked about on him. I had
to cut some things out of our conversation, but we do have an
Easter egg at the end of the show, so stay tuned for that. It
actually involves Scouting, so you'll get a kick out of that.

Burt Wolder: Great.

Scott Monty: Well, those strings mean we need to scout our way over to the
Canonical Couplets section of the show. That's right: it's
everyone's favorite Sherlockian quiz program, where we ask
you a question about the Sherlock Holmes phrased in the form
of a couplet. That's right: a two-line poem that has something
to do with Sherlock Holmes. We put these two lines out there
and if you are among the people who guess correctly you have
an opportunity to win a prize. We did promise you last time...
perhaps we didn't do it in the show. I think we may have sent it
out on social media... that the prize for last week's Canonical
Couplet is a tie from Beau Ties Limited of Vermont. The folks
were kind enough to come on the show - Cy Tall was there.
We're going to give this week's winner a bow tie.

Scott Monty: Let's recall what the Canonical Couplet was. "The most flint-
hearted reader utters yelps when told of what afflicted tadpole
Phelps." Burt, do you know which Sherlock Holmes story we're
referring to in this Canonical Couplet?
Burt Wolder: Yes. That was the terrible adventure of the seaman with the
strained abdomen. That was "The Naval Truss," wasn't it?

Scott Monty: I'm going to have to truss you up one of these days, I think.

Scott Monty: No, you're very close once again. It was "The Naval Treaty."

Burt Wolder: Oh my goodness, of course. The other one.

Scott Monty: We're going to give the big prize wheel a spin here and watch
as it goes around and around and watch as it slows down and
lands on number 15. Number 15. That corresponds to Rich
Krisciunas. Rich, local here in Detroit. Congratulations. We'll be
sure to get you your own bow tie, limited, ASAP.

Scott Monty: And now, it's time for this week's Canonical Couplet. Are you
ready?

Burt Wolder: Yes.

Scott Monty: Here we go. "Do you ken John Clay in his dark room, safely
hid? That's a lot more than Jabez Wilson did." If you know the
answer to this Canonical Couplet, jot it down in an email
addressed to comment@ihearofshelock.com with Canonical
Couplet in the subject line. If you are among the correct
answers and we select you, you may win a prize. Good luck.

Burt Wolder: Boy, that's pretty easy, that one.

Scott Monty: One would think. But I never underestimate you, Burt.

Burt Wolder: Well, you mentioned John Clay. It's got to be about golems.
Don't you make golems out of clay? I just need to go back to
canon. I'll figure it out.

Scott Monty: Something related to tennis, it must be.

Burt Wolder: Oh, of course!

Scott Monty: Well, we do have another exciting episode lined up for you in a
fortnight's time. Since it's February, we're going to do a
bargain. We're going to give you the following episode one day
early, because that's the kind of guy I am. That's the kind of
guy that Burt is.

Burt Wolder: Shouldn't this be like Pirates of Penzance and we get to skip
and not do another episode for four years or something like
that?

Scott Monty: I like that, but I'm afraid our listeners wouldn't like that.

Burt Wolder: It's probably true.

Scott Monty: If you do like the show, here's a reminder to leave us a rating
or review on Apple Podcasts. It doesn't matter whether you
have an iPhone or not. You can still go on there and leave us a
rating or review. We appreciate it. And as always, we welcome
your contribution to the show's financial side. It helps us with
email and web hosting costs and sound hosting and putting the
transcripts together. We're getting caught up on transcripts
now, so that's exciting. Thank you to everyone who helps out
in that regard.

Scott Monty: In the meantime, I am the always transcribed Scott Monty.

Burt Wolder: And I am the heavily carbon papered Burt Wolder.

Scott Monty: And together, we say the game's afoot!

Burt Wolder: The game's afoot!

Scott Monty: The game's afoot!

Holmes & Watson: The game's afoot!

Sherlock Holmes: I'm afraid that in the pleasure of this conversation I'm
neglecting business of importance, which awaits me
elsewhere.
Narrator: Thank you for listening. Please be sure to join us again for the
next episode of I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere, the first
podcast dedicated to Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes: Goodbye and good luck, and believe me to be... my dear
fellow... very sincerely yours, Sherlock Holmes.

Julie McKuras: Some of the stories he told... There's one we tell in the Annual
about when he was a Boy Scout. God, I love that picture of him
in the Boy Scout uniform, not wearing glasses yet. He had very
poor eyesight, so it kept him out of the armed services.

Scott Monty: Thank goodness, for our sake.

Julie McKuras: No kidding. How the woman put the snake in front of his face,
said, "Do you know if this is poisonous?" "Well, yes it is."

Scott Monty: "Get it out of my face."

Julie McKuras: What actually really killed me about that story was that she
thought she was immune to any kind of venom, because she'd
been bitten so many times. I did have this in and it's one of the
few changes that Steve Rothman made. Tim, I think you'll
agree: he didn't edit much out.

Tim Johnson: Correct.

Julie McKuras: But maybe he thought this was in poor taste. This woman, this
Grace Wiley of the Minneapolis Museum had moved out west
and was killed by a king cobra. And I looked it up: I thought,
"Gee, what happened?" I found the headline in the newspaper
was... I'm trying not to laugh... "Death Proves Woman Cobra
Trainer Wrong on Time Needed for Snake Venom to Kill."
Maybe that would've been a cruel thing to put in there, but
you've got to admit it's pretty ironic. That's pretty good.

Julie McKuras: The other thing... we didn't get into it... that I found
particularly touching was the fact that when Bill married Ceil
 she wore his mother's wedding dress and they got married on
his parents' wedding anniversary.

Scott Monty: That's so nice.

Julie McKuras: His father had been dead for 16 years at that point, but it was
just those little things that touched me.

Tim Johnson: One of the other things that we weren't going to include but it
was a fun factoid was that the Baring-Gould home on Aldrich
Avenue is about three blocks from where Gary Thaden lives,
also on Aldrich Avenue.

Julie McKuras: I think it's only about a block. It's not even that far.

Tim Johnson: Not even that far, okay.

Scott Monty: We should do a séance.

Julie McKuras: It's really close. You know what? Why don't we send Gary to
do that? Gary, we've elected you to stop at your neighbor's
house.

Scott Monty: That can be the theme of your next conference. It just flows
from this past summer.