No Case Too Small…
Do you know what happens when you hang out a shingle like Encyclopedia Brown in the real world? Your parents get a call from the Post Master about how you’re committing a felony, and how you should probably be grounded besides.
At least that’s what happened to me and my fellow mystery solver and co-founder of the Black Cat Detective Agency. Checking out code books and teaching ourselves how to secret messages in the barrel of a ballpoint pen and set booby traps to see if anyone had rifled through your IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS was more fun than playing Barbies — but less fun without clients.
So we advertised. With our names and ages and phone numbers and stuffed the fliers in every mailbox in both our neighborhoods.
I suppose the Post Master didn’t have to flip to the back of the book to solve the Case of the Precocious Kids Who’d Read Too Many Encyclopedia Browns.
Finding out that Donald J. Sobol passed away added to the yuck of yesterday, and the more I read about him today, the cooler he seemed. Most of the show was about E.B. today, and yes, there was a Europe-wide shout out for the B.C.D.A. Maybe should think about getting the group back together with that kind of publicity.
“In the early 1960s, girls and women weren’t supposed to work up a sweat, and here was a woman doing a man’s work.”
I told you Sally Kimball was awesome. Donald J. Sobol made her that way.
