January 2015 – Page 2

Biddle Street-1907-Baltimore, Md.- Housing Conditions in Baltimore

My father, Eddie Green, was born on a street like this in Baltimore, 1891. According to my research, these dwellings were known as alley houses. There was no public sanitation system until 1904 when a fire destroyed most of the area, and a system was built. Leukemia was killing those people who had to live here because of their poverty and those people who had to live here because of the color of their skin. Black people were confined to these areas by city laws. Eddie hated his living conditions. In 1900, when Eddie was nine years old he left home.

Eddie taught himself to read and after reading some magic books, he decided to become a magician. This is how he chose to earn money, which wasn’t much because of his age, and I believe he did handy work. It is remarkable to me that he went out into a world that was facing a Depression, and a necessity to help a large immigrant population, Eddie had to move in with an uncle for a while in 1910, but by 1917 he had a comic act going and wrote his first song.

I believe that every human being possesses the ability to progress. Finding that which motivates us is the thing. Some motivation is inherent, such as the desire for food. Eddie found his living conditions intolerable and he made a determination to change these conditions for himself.

This is a pamphlet that was found in the ashes of a fire in 1990. It is a pamphlet written by Norman Vincent Peale. And it is in the rubble. Like Eddie was. People need inspiration and motivation to help them have a better, happier life. My motivation, is the desire to help others realize that we all have our own individual strengths. We can all attain our goals for a good life. And as we learn to get through our own tough times, we can, perhaps, motivate others. Look around. Look within. Be inspired.

Hello there. The above is a Magic Funnel. I found the image while searching for ideas for my first post of the new year. I want to include snippets of the book I am writing about my father in my posts and I want to start with his early life, but I have been putting it off because I am missing what I think is relevant and necessary information. Today, I remembered that my mom told me that Eddie had been a magician before he became a comedian in burlesque, and I also remembered an article I read where Eddie said he had billed himself as, “the Boy Magician”, because he was only nine or ten. So I began to search on-line for images relating to magic, because I like to put images in my posts. Hence, the magic funnel.

Unfortunately, it took me so long to decide on an image, my reason for writing this post became clouded, probably because some of the images I found were puzzling, so I decided to just show you a few of these images that popped up in my search for children’s magic books.

The first book that I saw was Rumpelstiltskin. I loved Rumpelstiltskin when I was a child, but I didn’t know it was a magic book. I guess that little guy was just cute. And I was really glad she had long hair. I also found some old books of spells, not quite what I had in mind.

Then there was the book about children and the facts of life (well a recording, not a book.) How to Tell Your Children the Facts of Life. Magic? Ok, I have had to give that talk a couple of times to my daughter and my sister. I know getting a teenager to sit and listen is kind of magical. And trying to explain how babies are born by telling them a stork brought them is kind of magical, or was in 1950. HaHa.

But this is the one that caused me to stop looking for images. I understand why this was an image in the magic category, but for me, realistically, if I leap off of anything, first I want to make sure there is a net. I’m not a fool. Why would I leap and expect a net to appear? Yea, that would be magic. However, in another sense, maybe this is telling me to go ahead and start writing my book. Stop procrastinating by waiting until I find that one piece of information that is eluding me. Leap and the net will appear. Let’s see if I still believe in magic. Do you?