I grew up in Brookings, South Dakota, a small college town near the borders of both Minnesota & Iowa.  While Magic Shops were more plentiful when I grew up in the 60's & '70's, our town wasn't blessed with one.  I was forced to dream of these miraculous places while turning the pages of catalogs from Abbott's, Tannen's, Magic Inc., and others scattered across the country.  I imagined what the actual magic shops looked like... regal, reverent, and mysterious, with all the wondrous tricks described in the catalogs on glittering display, ready to be demonstrated by the master wizards behind the counter,.. a Palace of Mysteries!   I was 9 or 10 when I finally walked through the doors of a real magic shop, and while the experience was somewhat different, it was no less thrilling.   It happened on a family trip to Minneapolis, which was a thrill in itself to a young man who's only "big city experience" up to that time had been Sioux Falls, S...

Magic (and most of my of life) continues to be put on hold as we finish the move that never ends, but it hasn't stopped me from grabbing a deck and practicing what I've been working once in awhile.  The endless mundane tasks of purging an old house and setting up a new one has also given me time to think about magic and why it's important to me. I mentioned that one of my earliest influences was a certain magic set, however I wasn't specific.  Coming across one of the tricks from that set reminded me that it was a Chex cereal "Scarecrow Magic Set," that I saved box tops to get.  Luckily, my parents were in a Chex phase at that point, so the only real waiting came after we ordered it.  Back then there was no such thing as Next Day Shipping... you were lucky for something like that to arrive in 3 - 5 weeks.  To my young, impatient mind it was more like 3 - 5 years, but when it arrived, I was in heaven! I had to go on-line to find a picture of the set...