In the summer of my 7th grade year, I got to go to my first big magic convention with my uncle in Baltimore. It was 4-days long and had lectures, seminars, dealers selling magic from around the world, close-up shows, stage shows, etc, etc, etc. One of the kids from my uncle's neighborhood also came with us the first 2 days.
On the final day of the convention, there was a "grand finale show" which featured Harry Blackstone Jr. and some of the greatest stars in magic. As we were walking the streets of Baltimore from the convention center to the theater, we were counting the money we had left. As would become tradition at all future conventions, we had pretty much spent every penny we had (picture above is the big zig zag coke can both of us bought that year...and I still use in my shows!). Our final tally --- 73 cents. Just as we finished counting our final pennies, a beggar on the street came up and asked if we had any spare change. Immediately I handed him our final 73 cents.
As we continued to walk to the theater, we were laughing at that fact that at that moment, the beggar had more money than we did! Before long however, we stopped laughing when we realized that we needed $2.00 for the tolls to get home and didn't know where we would get the money from. When we arrived at the sold out finale show, there were people standing outside wanting to buy tickets. Thankfully my uncle had the extra ticket from his neighbor kid that couldn't come that day and sold it for $10.00.
So we were set...with $8.00 to spare! However, at the end of the show, they announced to all magicians who were part of the convention, that the dealers would be open for 1 more hour if you wanted to buy any more magic. Of course we headed back and spent our final $8.00 and had just enough for the ride home.
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