2008 SPRING DINNER

Approximately forty ASH and friends gathered at Bill’s Gay Nineties Restaurant in Manhattan on May 31 for the annual spring meeting. This year’s gathering was a luncheon instead of the traditional dinner. We welcomed enthusiastically many of the nineteen newly-announced male ASH.

Each attendee received a beautiful handmade Sherlockian note card from Pj Doyle, and new ASH Al Rosenblatt won the door prize, a set of note cards donated by Pj. Anyone who has ever received a Christmas card or note from Pj knows that she is an extremely talented artist in the paper medium. Many thanks to Pj for her thoughtfulness!

The traditional toasts were as follows: Mickey Fromkin, Queen Victoria; Pj Doyle, Irene Adler; Nancy Dean, The Master; Bill Vande Water, Dr. Watson; Jacquelynn Morris, ACD; and John Baesch, Friendship. You’ll find John, Nancy, and Pj’s toasts in this issue.

The theme for this meeting was the letter V—which provided our presenters with a wide range of opportunities. Not surprisingly, for Mickey Fromkin V means Victoria Regina. However, for Marina Stajic, Victoria means Woodhull. Judith Freeman took us down a more frightening path as she discoursed on vipers and venomous lizards. But most ASH associate the letter V with Violet, and all four were recognized. Evy read Dorothy Belle Pollack’s verses on Violet Westbury, as well as giving her own toast to Violet Hunter, while Julie Rosenblatt took on the case of Violet Smith. Marilynne McKay took on Miss de Merville with “What Was Violet’s Problem Anyway?”