THE SHERLOCK HOLMES OF OLD CARS......

At the beginning of last summer my daughter and I got the BBC SHERLOCK HOLMES shows on DVD.  I thought they were really cool and decided to get the books and read the stories to see how closely the books matched the TV shows.  As I watched the shows and read the books I kept thinking...My husband is like that.  He is always reading about Cars, studying about cars..and looking for his next car problem to solve.  He didn't pick crime scene investigation as his study in life...he picked old cars. 
In the Sherlock Holmes book Sherlock expresses his thoughts to why he believes he has his great abilities of deduction as coming through his ancestors who were artists.  " Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms." (pg.293 The adventure of the Greek interpreter.)  My husband is a very smart person who can memorize things quickly and learn to fix just about anything.  He also is very artistic.  He believes though that everyone can do what he can do...

This is a photo of his beloved Chevelle... It was his first car, which he fixed and broke and fixed again...It was all in parts around our house in New Jersey and he still sold it for $10,000.00 when we needed to buy a new chimney. 

His passion is building engines...Big,Loud,Fast...Rattle the house with power engines...He has loved cars since he was a child...He would learn and memorize every type of car...I don't think there are any  old cars he could come across  that he did not have information stored away on...unless of course he thought it an unworthy car....But then he would probably tell you all the reasons it was not a good car.

This is another car that he had to have....It is the reason the Chevelle never got finished.  There was some wonderful thing about this car...Unlike Sherlock Holmes....My husband makes friends very easily...before we met he was the life of the party....Like Sherlock Holmes everything revolved around his passion...Cars...He worked on cars during the day at work and then worked on his own cars at night....Cars always came first...In fact I don't think any of his friends ever imagined him actually marrying...

Here we are on our wedding day with his 454 Big Block Biscayne....  When we met I didn't realize just how deep the love of cars ran in his blood...I didn't understand the need to find and fix car issues...I told him I could wait to marry him and he could finish his car projects first...We would never be married had that been the case...Car projects last years and years and years....

Here is Sherlock surrounded by all his "Watson" Friends at our wedding...Uh was he marrying me or the car??  Tall..Thin...Extremely smart...focused mostly on cars and car problems....Yes this is Sherlock of the Old cars for sure!

When we moved to Utah...away from all the "Watsons" of his life I thought perhaps the car love would mellow out...It's hard to be married to Sherlock....Just like everyone calls on the detective for the really hard murder crime scene...Everyone calls on the Master Mechanic for the really hard or really easy car issue....Every weekend someone wanted "Sherlock"...It could be an old car issue or a new one....They all called him...If he said sorry I can't help...It was always the "Wife"  who was the evil one....

I said lets not tell people you can fix cars.... That lasted a week....Now though perhaps I'm the one who has mellowed out...I see that look in his eyes...That need to investigate the problem....The need to tinker...

Go ahead Sherlock...You go Sherlocking.....I say....I have gardening to do...Perhaps I needed a passion too...I give him plenty of warning if I want to do something on a weekend....And thank him for giving up a day under the hood....he has a new group of Watsons....And will probably gather even more.....At least the TV show and book have helped me to understand this man.....My son is the same...There is a point in the Sherlock TV show where he says "My Brain is Like a Computer, and I only keep the important stuff in it."  I remember my son at a young age saying this same thing.....His love is art and animation....It's his focus...Living with these Sherlock Holmes types is very interesting....

I think my husbands grandmother was the artist...She could create amazing dresses with her hands with no pattern.  And Perhaps his Grandfather Bowlby passed down his love of cars.....I have to say I can't look at an old car and not think of my husband.  When we go driving he points out all the problems cars have...Look that car has strut issues...That car needs an alinement....That car sounds like it has this problem...  That old rusty car says come fix me...return me to my glory...... I'm thankful this Sherlock Holmes decided to get married...It has been a wonderful ride with him.
G.G.