Monday, April 28, 2008

SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM, LONDON

For many years, my husband fell asleep reading and rereading the adventures of Sherlock Homes. These days the inexpensive hardback is in pieces, its purpose having been served, replaced by True Crime and CSI: Miami on cable TV. My husband loved those stories, loved the characters and the settings, loved the logic used in solving the crimes. It took time for me to appreciate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's marvelous creation and quick mind.

On our one visit to Great Britain, we took the underground near Kensington Palace, which was within walking distance of our hotel, to visit the "Sherlock Holmes Museum." Crazy, considering the house Holmes lived in was a figment of Doyle's imagination and special arrangements had had to be made to even designate a 221B for this "museum."

It couldn't have been more clear that Holmes had never existed.

Kensington, where the late Princess of Wales was living at the time, was filled with nicely dressed people of several cultures. It wasn't until we left the underground at the station that would take us to Baker Street that we saw a different set of folk.

We were now in a less affluent part of greater London, where teens dressed in black and white, wore chains and sported body piercings. One young man who exited at our stop wore his red hair slicked back and jelled into a high cock's comb. He was dressed in plaid trousers held up by suspenders over a long sleeve T-shirt. His feet were encased in high top, black, basketball sneakers.

Ah, it was like the teen scene back home.

221B is the upper floor of a narrow row house whose front abuts the sidewalk. We waited half an hour on that sidewalk with four other people, stopped from entering by an attendant dressed as a Bobby from the Holmesian era, who announced the docent hadn't returned from lunch. Eventually, the docent led us up narrow stairs to the small Victorian-furnished flat.

It didn't take long to understand this was a tourist trap. Those of us in the room kind of chuckled under our breath, sharing the joke...on us. Supposedly, the dimensions of the room, the placement of and type of furniture were true to Doyle's descriptions.

Was it so? Perhaps. I don't remember much because there was little memorable about it. Was it worth the time and money? Most likely not, but as Holmes/Doyle fans in London, the pull to see it, wanting so much for it to be real, couldn't be resisted.

Dee Ann Palmer
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--------------------------------------- Friday, April 04, 2008

SUDDEN DEATH

There's been a death in my husband's family. A fit, active, older man who'd recently complained to his handball partner about heartburn, but didn't seek a physician's help, died suddenly when the "heartburn" returned with a vengeance.

What he'd passed off as "heartburn" was a dying heart--the pain its protest against a lack of oxygen because narrowed arteries that couldn't deliver it to the vital muscle.

In medicine, we call this the "king's death." It's sudden and pain is brief-if there is pain. But the enormity of the shock a family feels cannot be underestimated.

We write about murder, about death. Let's not forget the shock loved ones feel in the face of the sudden death of a significant person in their lives.

Do you know basic CPR? Do you carry an Aspirin to take in case of "heartburn?"

The Amercian Heart Association has a list online of signs and symptoms of a heart attack in men and women. Become familiar with them.

Dee Ann Palmer

http://www.deeannpalmer.com
http://www.myspace.com/deeannpalmerwriter

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