Once upon a time, in the first year of the two I spent in Grade Nine English (" Freshman " year for those south of the 49th ) I found myself at the incoming end of an interrogative missile from Sister Mary Vigilance (I forgot her real name) about the novel the class was reading- Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. She fixed me with her lizardous glare,( She could have been a tech consultant for the "V" series!), and asked something about something in chapter whatever. At the ripe old age of 13, I was simply too swamped with puberty, peer pressure, looking cool, acting cool, The Montreal Canadiens and this absolutely fantastic and fabulous new group from England - The Beatles, to keep up with schoolish things.
She had me cold! "No way out? Go for the laughs !", I told myself.
"This is about The Hound of the Basketballs book isn't it?" I wryly inquired, immediately eyeing the room to see if my schtick was clickin'.
That was the first time I got kicked out of class in high school. Apparently it was an egregious enough transgression at Catholic Central in 1963 that, after being called upon the carpet in the Principal's Office, I was handed a city bus ticket and sent home for the rest of the day. A call was made to presage my arrival. Mom was the only one there, thank goodness When I got home she simply said "I think you should start reading that Sherlock Holmes book". She then told me that my dad, whose wrath I steadfastly struggled to avoid incurring, so enjoyed him that he had a hard-bound copy of the complete works which he kept in a special drawer where most folks would have kept The Bible, Shakespeare or maybe The Kama Sutra. I did use the rest of my banishment to read about the basketball dog and more. It was my first dose of Mystery writing and it was good. It didn't grab me like Science Fiction but it was a strong supporting act.
I still can conjure up vividly the image of that hound loping across the misty moors. I live on the edge of a wide swath of forest. Some nights when its foggy and the coyotes or coy-dogs are howling and gallivanting about I wonder:"Could one of them be the Hound of the Basketballs?"
I was actually disappointed when I saw the old B&W Basil Rathbone flick one Friday night shortly thereafter. The pictures I had from the text were, of course, more graphic and engrossing than those in the movie. But what an incredibly enduring and iconic character Holmes is! Arthur Conan Doyle may not have set mystery writing in motion but he certainly boosted its stock exponentially.
I checked out the origins of this genre and lo and behold our old pal Edgar Allen Poe pops up in the originators column. Cool. I guess in one way mystery stories are like riddles taken to the umpteenth power.
Sooooo, while we're on that topic, Carolyn, the suspense lives on . You didn't tell me what your last riddle was ( Clickity clack, whir, hum et al ) Mine were garlic, as you guessed, and not spiders but carpet. Having been been called thereupon periodically, I can vouch for that! Your latest cryptogram is a goodie. I've kicked it around repeatedly and have no unequivocal answer. Time's up though, so I'll guess, that it's an old fashioned juke box. You know, one of those with stacks of 45's you could see through the glass front and lotsa chrome buttons and stuff. I hear it now, thumping out The Wanderer or Peggy Sue.
It could be a smartphone, though.
Anyhow, here's a couple more:
Smooth at times, coarse at others
Runs away or sticks around
Moves in trains and boats and comes alive with skillets and pots
Sometimes consorts openly with sandwiches.
Not quite a lie
Not quite the truth
Subtle or simple
Refined or uncouth
Asking for money
Playing on fears
Promising happiness
Coaxing out tears
Where there is nothing
Creating a need
Nurturing jealousy
Fostering greed.
P.S. Carolyn, I think your Congress and the classroom analogy is mostly on the money. Both include individuals on their own agendas. Myopia abounds. The politicos, though, are truly dyed-in-the-wool. I don't think they're reachable, except through the ballot box. "Sail on, sail on, oh mighty ship of state." as Leonard Cohen says/sings.
As for the students, I don't think they're fundamentally different from that smart derriere, basketball dog goof from the sixties we met a few paragraphs back. Even he got the message eventually. Merci for letting me briefly hijack the soapbox ....
Don
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