Back in the early eighties I had a couple of illusion shows booked with Buster Brown, owner of Bill Hames Shows. As I recall, the following events took place on the jump into Pueblo, Colorado from someplace in Minnesota. Rochester, I think.

 

It had been a miserable, bloody, aggravating, royal pain in the kiester of a jump and we weren't even there yet. My friend Richard "Taco" Morse and I had been taking turns driving the 1967 D500 straight-job, on which was constructed the ''SPIDORA" show, for untold hours on end at the breath-taking speed of 35 MPH. Now this was top speed, you understand. Unless we were going down a hill. It had been mostly uphill, so far. First the clutch had busted. Me and Taco put in a new clutch. In the gravel parking lot of a truck stop.  In the dark. Poor Taco almost lost his thumb. Then we fried an axle on the trailer. Did I mention the Headless Woman show trailer? It was the main reason the truck would only do 35 MPH. It was too heavy. So the bearings in the axle overheated and melted the spindle, ruining the axle. Me and Taco got another axle and replaced it. Right on the side of a street. In front of the supply house where I bought it. To the astonishment of all who passed. Cops included.

 

Then we burned up a couple of valves in the engine. Me and Taco did a valve job. In the middle of the night. At a rest area. Some tourist came up and asked me what I was up to. I told him I was just checking the oil.

 

"Why you got the top of the engine off for?"

 

I told him, with a straight face, that" I lost my dipstick, and this is how I check my oil." Taco thought this was hilarious.

 

I pulled it around back, leisurely. No need to hurry, I reasoned. But as I got out of the truck a big Kenworth screeched to a halt so close to me that I would have lost my door to it if I'd been careless. Clearly this guy WAS in a hurry. I made a beeline for the scale house. The truck driver saw me and broke into a dead run. He didn't want me ahead of him. If I hadn't jumped a hedge he would've beat me fair and square. As it was I got to the door slightly ahead of him. I held it open for him politely and said "After you, sir."

 

I had seen the inside of the scale house. It was packed with a dozen angry looking truck drivers and two harried DOT officers. Nobody was leaving anytime soon. I helped myself to some coffee. I used the doniker. I became engrossed in a soap opera on the little black & white set next to the coffee pot. At one point the arguing between the drivers and scale officers got so loud I had to ask them to "please keep it down" as I couldn't hear the television. This seemed to astound everyone. All attention now was focused on me, and it wasn't the friendly kind of attention like you get at Shoney's when you're ordering pancakes.

 

"Give me the paperwork to that truck!" one of the officers demanded.

 

I politely told him that I don't drive a truck. "I saw you behind the wheel of that beat up old Dodge truck and if you don't give me your license & registration right now I'm going to arrest you.

 

As I gave him my papers I pointed out to him that "the Dodge was registered as a motor home, not a truck, and was exempt from commercial regulations." This did not seem to please him.

 

"Well, that big trailer isn't a motor home, is it?" He had me there. "No.." I replied," The rear third of it is where I keep my personal junk that takes up too much space in the motor home. The middle third is all props. The front third is living quarters for my friend Taco and his girlfriend Vannesa and their cat..."

 

"HOLD IT!!  Hold it!  Hold everything!!" 

 

The poor guy looked like he was going to have a stroke. All the truckers were mesmerized by the astounding display I had just put on. " You are telling me that you are a traveling apartment complex? "the cop asked.

 

I drew myself up and told him with an air of injured dignity " No sir, I am a magician!"

 

He literally (I do not exaggerate this) threw my registrations and driver license at me and told me, "Can you make it disappear?"

 

I wasted no time in doing so.