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Chuck Finley Regular user 139 Posts |
I have been doing my restaurants now for many years and it is still my favorite place to perform due to the type of magic and the people I get to meet. I love meeting and talking one on one with old and new clients its like making new friends and seeing old ones every day.
One of my favorite families is a rather large group of Amish that visit about three times a year and they are a blast. They are a good example of how you can misjudge a book by its cover and I want to pass this along to people so they might learn a small tid-bit from my experience. I always thought the Amish were a very reserved hold your feelings in type but that is far from the reality. I was a bit taken back by seeing them the first time I assure it was not a bad feeling but a challenge to my preconceived notion that they did not mingle so much in this capacity. I had many thoughts run through my head as I looked at them; do they notice everyone looking at them, will they tell me they don't want to see magic, is it something they can even take part in? I know it seems pretty weird and maybe a bit prejudice on my part but at that time I only had rumors of how the Amish were to draw from. The one thing I did decide to act on was knowing, or at least thinking I knew, they followed a patriarchal system. I had decided that I would introduce myself in a different manner than I did with my other guest. I walked up and instead of addressing the group as a whole I spoke directly to the head of the table; an older man with a huge white beard who looked much like Santa, he sat quietly and had a look of pride in eyes over his family sitting there; I will never forget that moment. I decided to tone down my usual energy when I started to introduce myself and adopt a bit more of a "humble" approach as I asked, yes this time I asked a yes or no question, if they would mind if I entertained the family with a bit of magic. He sat back looked at me and folded his arms and looked over to his kids and said "I think we would love to see your sleight of hand" I forget now all the magic I did for them but the one thing I will never forget is that they were the best mannered children I have ever performed for. The whole family was just a joy and made the rest of my night performing like a fresh start. I learned that first time that even if people do things differently, have beliefs we do not understand, etc. we all have things in common. I am not going to be corny and say that "magic" is the answer to everything or a bridge between our differences because it is much deeper than that. But I hope that telling this tiny bit of a story will let others see that "different" can sometimes turn out to be one of the best thing that can happen to you. One thing I will tell you about this story that came up a bit later. I noticed that every time I would ask if they wanted to see some magic the father would always interject with "we would love to see some sleight of hand" so one day I asked him why he always refereed to it that way. He told me that he was a bit superstitious and that for him "magic" was not the best of terms to use and that it just made him feel better keeping that distance from what could be a bad thing. He told me he knew what I was doing wasn't bad or evil but that it was better to be safe than suffer. So from that day forward when I asked I always said "would you like to see some sleight of hand I have been working on?" ? |
drmagic Loyal user 251 Posts |
What a wonderful uplifting story. It's a big change of pace from the usual negativity you read about concerning people who may hold different beliefs than us. Thank you for sharing.
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davidpaul$ Inner circle Georgetown, South Carolina 3086 Posts |
Enjoyed reading your experience. Thanks for taking the time to post.
Guilt will betray you before technique betrays you!
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The Magic Cafe Forum Index » » Table hoppers & party strollers » » Amish Surprise! (3 Likes) |
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