Editor’s note: This is another column in Bill Boyd’s new series, “The Way It Was,” about growing up in Marysville. Bill continues to work with the Union County Historical Society to obtain information for his stories.
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I have always enjoyed magic shows. When I was just a little kid, my dad would hold me on his lap and put a nickel in the palm of his hand. Then he would close his fist and open it again, and the nickel was gone. Then I would laugh like crazy.
One of the first columns I ever wrote in the Journal-Tribune was about the first magic show I ever saw. I believe it was in 1940 when I was in the second grade. A magician named “Blackstone” came to Marysville to put on a show in the high school auditorium on West Sixth Street. And to make it extra special, he also had a matinee performance for all of us school kids.
I went to that matinee and loved it. He did all kinds of magic things. He cut a lady in half with a buzz saw. He floated items through the air and things like that. My favorite was his last act when he made a pony disappear.
My dad once told me how a lot of the magic tricks worked. He said, “To be a good magician you need a lot of equipment, things like mirrors, special lighting and stage props with hidden compartments. That’s how they make you believe you saw something that you really didn’t see.
But my two favorite magicians didn’t use anything like that. They used no mirrors and no special lighting. One was a guy who went by the name “Magnificent Melvin” or something like that.
It was our grandson’s fifth birthday and our daughter, Jenny, hired Melvin to perform at the party. There were six or seven young boys, plus two or three mothers in the room. It’s a good sized room, but we were all pretty close to Melvin as he performed.
He used no mirrors and no special lighting. On top of that, we were all sitting only a few feet from him as he performed. He only used “slight of hand,” but boy was he good. He pulled a rabbit out of the seat of one little boy’s pants. I was sitting only a few feet away, but it sure looked real to me.
Then he asked a little boy named Aaron to stand next to him. Aaron was a little shy, but he stood next to Melvin, only three or four feet from where I was sitting. Then Melvin asked, “What’s this in your ear, Aaron?” And he started pulling silk scarves out of that kid’s ear. There was one scarf after another, and with each scarf, that kid’s eyes got bigger. He must have pulled eight or ten scarves out of that boy’s ear. I was sitting only three or four feet away, and it all looked real to me. That’s why Magnificent Melvin has always been one of my favorite magicians.
So who was my other favorite magician? It was my dad, of course. I wish you could have seen how he made those nickels disappear from the palm of his hand. It was really great.
Those wishing to contact Bill Boyd can e-mail him at williamboyd514@gmail.com