7
There were, but after consulting with the magic teacher, the co-ordinator reluctantly agreed to take me and a friend i n to the course on a "trial basis . "
I will never forget the first evening of that class. My friend and I stood nervously among a group of 20- to 50-year-old adults . I felt so small next to all of those big grown ups. When class began, my fears faded away . The teacher, a professional magician, treated me not as a ten year-old child outsider, but as one other member of a class whose purpose was to learn magic . He seemed to understand that, despite my age, I had the same drive and interest in the art as every other student. Of course, he did make some rath er obvious concessions. I remember his suggesting that my friend and I work with special smaller cards so that we might more easily develop our hand muscles and co-ordination for magic tricks. He even accomodated his suggested patter to certain tricks for us kids - he had all kinds of off-color stories for "blue magic" routines which he changed so that we could present them to our friends without embarrassment . It was with him that I learned t hat wonderful skill of passing the deck of cards from one hand to the other through the air. What a mess that evening was' Cards allover the floor, people frustrated and swear ing . I thought I would never be able to master it. I went home and worked tirelessly for days until I had the move perfected. By comparison, I was having difficult problems concentra ting on my math in school or at home, but I never seemed to get cored at going through all of my very complex card moves in front of a mirror. I performed my first magic show six mo n t h s after I had begun my stud ies . I was hired fo r two dollars a nd fif t y cents to appear at an end of-summer - school party . I worked for weeks preparing the show . I read sev eral books about performing magic for c h ildren. I visited magic stores and talked wit h magicians about what tricks to do and how I might best present t hem . I wrote my own rou tines, rehearsed in the living room for hours . As soon as I stepped before that audience, something inside of me changed . I felt so alive, so full of e nergy, so filled with power and creativi t y, and so ecstatic that I could ma k e o t her people laugh, amaze t hem and e n tertain them . I knew that I would never be t he same. I left t hat s how with a big tip, and a real se n se of pride in myself and what I could do . Ma gi c can lead a person in a num ber of d iffere nt directions. For me it has o pened up doors to the t hea ter. For a friend of mine, it stimula ted a n interest in auto mechanics . Is t here a lesson here? Perhaps it is the elementary truth that people learn best when they are free to fol low t heir gut interests and aspira t ion s . . . LIKES TO WORK
From Judi Brown in Indiana: . . . My hu sba nd a nd I have a sma l l gi ft s ho p . We se ll ca ndles t h at we ma k e, plu s books, j ewelry, pottery, a nd ot he r g i ft items, and a small sec t ion of hea l t h foods . .. . Du stin , our 5- year-old, helps Mike mak e ca ndles . He can wick the
GROWING WIT HOUT SC HOOLING #25
molds, put dye in the wax, add oil and sce n t, then pour the wax in the mold . So far he has given away most of them . But he'll soon be selling them in the store, I imagine . He is happiest when he is work ing with us - either cutting vegeta bles for lunch, chopping wood for the stoves, making candles, or arranging displays of merchandise in the shop. I was in the laundromat the oth er day and overheard a conversation he was having with a man in his late teens . The man asked Dustin if he liked doing laundry. Dustin replied yes. The man said, "Just wait a few years, then you'll not like it, just like me ." Dustin asked why he didn't like it. The reply, " It ' s too much work I " To which Dustin said, " BUT I LIKE TO WORK''' . . . ---- He seems to balance things him self - playing outdoors and doing a lot of drawing . . . KIDS IN THE NEWS
The Grand Rapids Press, 11/13/81: ALERT 6-YEAR-OLD USES TRACTOR TO SAVE DAD - Six-year-old Clinton Yar rington, Jr . . . saved his father's life when a car slipped from its blocks pinning the elder Yarrington beneath it ... He knew enough about the nearby antique tractor to start the machine, put it in gear, and use the loader to lift the car . · .. Yarrington's wife, Deborah, said her husband was working under t he car at around 5 PM when the vehi cle slipped off the blocks and she heard him yell for her to get the tractor. "I just came running. He hol lered for help. I didn't know what to do," said Deborah. Yarrington said he just assumed his wife would be able to start the tractor, but he said "she was so hys terical that she couldn't do it. " Deborah said she ran to get help from Ken Near and Richard Palmer, two farmers down the road. Neither man knew how to start the tractor . In a final effort she ran to get her 6-year-old who was watching tele vision in the house . "It dawned on me then that he might know how to start it because he was always with his dad." Deborah said her son got on the tractor and instructed Near and Pal mer in what to do to start it ... "And they didn ' t know how to pick up the front loader and he did that for them . It was a lever that you have to pull up. And then he showed them what gear to put it in, " Deborah said. "My husband said if my son wasn't there he probably wouldn't be here today and that's basically how I feel . There were four of us standing there with our teeth hanging out," she said . Yarrington said he is not sur prised that neither Near or Palmer knew how to start the tractor. "Far mers today are used to new equipment and this is an antique . " · . . By the time the ambulance and paramedics had arrived on the scene, her husband had been freed. Yarring ton was taken to Grand Rapids Osteo pathic Hospital, where he was treated for bruises and released . .. The Ph iladelphia Inquirer,
9/29/79:
· . . When David DiGiacomo was 12 years old and in the seventh grade, his favorite magazine was Popular
Electronics, and his hobby was build ing electronic clocks. He didn't build them from a kit with instruc tions - he used sophisticated compo nents that he bought individually. "I experimented until they work e d," he recalls . Now at 17, a year younge r than the average freshman, DiGiacomo is a sophomore at Drexel University. He is still experimenting .. . He designed and constructed a machine that hears and understands when you speak to it. It has a vocabulary of 16 words. In theory, DiGiacomo says, the device could be attached to a compu ter. "You'd just say, 'Do this, or do that , '" he said, and the computer would respond - eliminating the need for a typewriter keyboard to convey commands . . . . An associate professor of electrical engineering arranged for him to get "limited funding" and lab oratory space at Drexel . . . Among his projects will be work on solar ener gy, a system for monitoring brain waves to be used in operations at Temple University Hospital, and an image-processing system for use in transcribing data from breast X-rays to detect cancer. . . . His parents - especially his father, a chemical engineer - support ed him in his early experiments in electronics, he said, once they under stood that his interest was genuine. "At least," he said, "they didn't seem to get upset when I spent money on parts without visible results.~ ... From the Aquarian Research Foun dation Newsletter, 5620 Morton, Phila delphia PA 19144: ... On June 26, Jason Poole, a ten-year-old boy from Philadelphia, gave a speech in front of the White House, denouncing the arms race. The Phildelphia Bulletin gave half of its front page to the story the next day. Jason, who addressed only about 150 people at the rally, managed to attract more media attention in Phila delphia than the thousands of protest ers at other recent demonstrations. The rally was organized the by the Community for Creative Non-violence in D.C . "( 202-667-6407) ... What kind of kid speaks at a peace rally? Jason, his pare nts, and eight-year-old brother Jonathan, live in an attractive, middle-class home on a quiet Philadelphia street ... Jason attends a racially mixed publiC school . His Quaker parents display loving concern and high moral values. A sign on the refrigerator says, "If you love something, set it free . If it comes back to you, it's yours. If it doesn't,
it never was ."
Jason ' s father is a business man ager . His mother, a consultant in con flict resolution, formerly worked at the Friends Peace Committee, dealing with foreign officials and leaders of the peace movement in the U. S. Jason is a friendly, talkative kid who will give you a~ opinion on any topic you bring up . If you so desire, he brings down his fine draw ings and reports and takes you out side to show you the clubhouse he helped build from tree branches. In the following interview are some glimpses into the psyche of this unusual child-man . Q. Why did you do it? A. Because I felt that was what should do . Because I feel serious about all this. Because if we want to keep living, we should stand up for what is right, because if we don't,