The Magician's Great Grandchild

I wrote a little story over at the Chambers Of Horrors and a few people inquired about the central character who was based on my Great Grandfather.

How much of the Character of Stuart was Real was one question...

Well, I won't tell you too much because a Magician NEVER gives up their secrets but I will say that Magic is in my blood!

I've pulled this from the Memory Blog and brought it over, just to share and show you that a lot of my inspiration for my stories comes directly from my own life.

Enjoy!
Anita Marie

This memory of mine is no longer kept in a trunk, but that's where it started out.

My Great Grandfather was a Magician and in my Grandmother's basement in a closet was his prop trunk.

When my brother and I busted into it we found some of the props were falling apart with age and other things, like the rings, boxes you could use to make things like birds or what have you disappear and then reappear where in there too and they were still in good shape.

The props were very basic, but complicated and my little brother and I at the ages of nine and eight worked and worked until we managed to make some of them work. We did this on our own and by watching magicians on TV and at local fairs.

I'd like to say our Parents supported us and ran out and bought us our props but they didn't.

They gave us each Magic Show Kits and left us to it.

My brother and I went from performing in front of an audience of two ( our baby sister who was about 5 at the time and her stuffed pink cat, which she named Hamburger Helper...her favorite boxed dinner at the time ) too our friends and then at times to their parents as well.

I was the "Amazing Anita" and my brother called himself, " Daring Douglas "

I don't know why we stopped our magic shows, but after about 4 years we did. By then I was learning the guitar and wanted to be a musician and my brother went on to discover girls.

In my twenties though I ended up managing a gift and novelty shop...and part of our business listed under category nine on the cash registers was...Magic Props. Most stores could sell about 60.00 dollars worth of magic props a week. This wasn't stage quality stuff. It's the stuff you buy for your kids or for the curious.

There were Rings, card trick kits ( by that I mean shaved and marked decks ) those little plastic egg cups where you make the plastic egg disappear and reappear. Scarf tricks, rope tricks, magic kits.

Things like that.

I sold, on my own easily a couple hundred dollars a week worth of this stuff. These weren't high end items, so I had to sell a lot of it.

It's funny though, I never felt like I was selling anything. I felt like I was doing a public service.

Learning to do those little tricks and having fun...I was of the mind everyone should experience that 'magic' . It was just too great, in my opinion, for only a few people to have that feeling to themselves.

Learn one trick, learn a dozen, amaze your friends...amaze yourself. That was my philosophy, that's what I found in the Memory Trunk. Amaze yourself with life every darn chance you get. I believed it then, I live it now.

I'm a Magician of sorts again, I can make Monsters appear out of thin air, with a snap of my fingers across my keyboard I can conjure up mummies, werewolves, vampires, abandoned mines, devils, graveyards and catacombs.

I perform magic everyday now.

SO..........

Step right on up and let the Amazing Anita puzzle and dazzle you...now performing LIVE at the Soul Food Cafe...