My early childhood was magical. Truly. The magician was my Daddy, and I was his best audience! Sometimes, he let me help him with the magic. Other times, I was the willing subject of his tricks.
If I had every quarter he ever pulled out of my ear, I could retire! Actually, the money would help offset all the times I fell for my older brother’s favorite trick: he would trade me my “little” dimes for his great big, shiny nickels! I fell for that every time. I think that, if you look up “gullible” in your Funk and Wagnall’s, my baby picture is there!
Daddy’s tricks were always meant to delight me, not make me poor, like big brother did. I would stand in the middle of the front seat, holding on to my daddy’s shoulder, when we went anywhere in the car. That was centuries before child safety seats and, quite frankly, I don’t think I could have been any safer than I felt standing next to my daddy.
When we traveled at night, he would let me switch the headlights from high beams to low beams, and vice versa. I don’t know how you might do that but, I did it with the wave of my hand! Daddy would tell me when, and I would wave my hand: the beams would switch magically! I was so proud of that trick! Daddy would be grinning and Mommy would say: “good girl”!
He could also predict when a train was coming. He would tell me to watch for the train, it was coming. I would strain to see and soon, there it was indeed! It was years before I realized that he could see the headlight on the train long before I could see the train itself…….
The very best trick of all was his “Super Vision”. My parents had a friend who had a small airplane. He came to visit us and was going to take us up for a flight in the plane. He also loved kids, so he brought Tootsie Rolls to my brother and me. We snuck out in the front yard into our “fort”, a group of bushes near the driveway, and ate the candy. We threw the wrappers in the bushes, confident that no one would see them. An hour later, we were aloft in the Piper Cub, marveling at the earth below us. As the friend flew us over our house, my daddy exclaimed: “who left candy wrappers in the bushes?” Amazing!! How did he do that??
Of course, as I grew up, I did eventually get smarter. It was a bittersweet revelation to know that my daddy wasn’t really magic. It was my childhood that was magical!
Thank you, Daddy!
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