Magic Man

C. Thompson Donald

Description

This is a volume told by several other storytellers, the base story being that of the Magic Man, but including sequences by the other characters, including the author. It visits venues throughout the world with numerous notable characters, introduces people everyone knows, and evolves to a curious conclusion.

Sujets

• Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)
• Fantasy

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528970402
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

The Magic Man
Donald C. Thompson
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-07-31
The Magic Man About the Author About the Book Dedication Copyright Information Chapter 1 The Magic of the Internet A Scene Change Chapter 2 The Visit Chapter 3 The Early Years Chapter 4 The Middle Years Chapter 5 Our First Visit Chapter 6 The Aston Martin Chapter 7 The Visa Card Chapter 8 Ball Game Chapter 9 The Resumption Chapter 10 Amazon Calls Chapter 11 The Vacation Chapter 12 Interruptions Chapter 13 Joshua Tree Chapter 14 Back to Work Chapter 15 April Trip Another Diversion Chapter 16 Magic Man Continued Chapter 17 Day 3 – Yellowstone? Chapter 18 Magic Man on the Web Chapter 19 Weekend Off The Magic Man Returns Chapter 20 Golf Time Day 1 Chapter 21 Golf Day 2 Chapter 22 Overwhelmed Chapter 23 The Email Return Chapter 24 Retirement Chapter 25 The Bali Trip Chapter 26 Fantasy to Reality
About the Author

The author was born in Erie, Pa. He acquired a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington and Jefferson College, majoring in Literature and Mathematics and an Executive Management Degree from Pennsylvania State University. He retired as Vice President of Information Technology after 31 years in the corporate world. He served 10 years in the U.S. Army, attended the Special Forces School during the early Vietnam War, thought about staying in as an A-team commander but his wife taught his one-year-old daughter to say, ‘Like hell you are!’ The author is very grateful to them; he would have been dead a long time ago.
About the Book
This is a volume told by several other storytellers, the base story being that of the Magic Man, but including sequences by the other characters, including the author. It visits venues throughout the world with numerous notable characters, introduces people everyone knows, and evolves to a curious conclusion.
Dedication
The story is dedicated to my dear friend and companion, Ms. June Murray, for her encouragement to produce a full-length novel based upon ‘The Persean Man’ short story from my previous A/M volume of short stories.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Donald C. Thompson (2019)
The right of Donald C. Thompson to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528940603 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528940610 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528970402 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Chapter 1

The Magic of the Internet
Sometime during the last year, I found myself snooping around on my ‘Facebook’ page looking at the area entitled ‘people you may know’. On the list of folks, there had to be several hundred entries who were ‘friends of friends’, so I decided since I had some time on my hands to click my way through the complete list to see if there were any familiar names. There were many names that rang a bell, but somewhere toward the end, the name and photo of an older man named Paul Bergson came up. I was greatly surprised and obviously delighted. It seemed that he was a friend of a friend of a friend.
My first reaction was that this could not possibly be the same Paul Bergson whom I knew in my childhood years and once more in my middle years, and who was undoubtedly the best storyteller that I had ever known. The photo showed him as a relatively older man, and standing next to him was a woman whom I immediately recognized in a second as Mary Quinn, looking older but much like the beautiful young girl that my gang knew back in the nineteen fifties. I tried to determine how this name came up on my Facebook site, but it was not apparent to me how the relationship of friends occurred showing up Paul, but that did not seem very important to pursue.
The next step in the quest was to find out more about Paul and Mary, by doing some searching of several of those weird sites where one can learn about where they lived and many other aspects of their lives. The internet has become the sort of vehicle where no one can hide from the modern world, and in my humble opinion, I’m glad that I won’t be around 50 years from now. I feel badly for my grandkids, but I suppose that they will learn to adapt much as I did when I was a child, and when my grandparents didn’t even drive, have telephones or TVs and simply listened to the radio. I still recall them listening and laughing to ‘Bob and Ray’, Milton Berle, and other wonderful radio guys. My father had a good friend as a child named Mervyn Bogue, who unless you are older that I am, you would not remember. Mervyn was a comedian who appeared on the old-time show called ‘Kay Kiser’s College of Musical Knowledge’ and who’s stage name was ‘Ishkabibel’. I often use Mervyn’s name on the internet when I don’t want to identify myself. Why I’m mentioning it in this book, I have no clue.
In my search through the various odd-ball sites, I discovered quite a bit about Paul’s and his family’s life. Back when me and my gang of 12 and 13-year-old hoodlums were causing mayhem at the park in Lomita, California, Paul was in his sophomore year at UCLA and was majoring in both mathematics and engineering. His family lived in Torrance, and he was one of four boys, two of whom were older and the youngest still in high school. His parents, named Fred and Alice, were not well off, with Fred employed by McDonald/Douglas in the airline business, and he was a mechanic who helped assemble the airframes of the Douglas RB-66 Destroyer fighter plane being built and later used extensively in the war in Vietnam. Alice was also employed at the time as a check-out person at the LA Farmers Market at 3 rd and Fairfax. They both worked sometimes long hours, and the boys were on their own in the summer virtually the entire day. Mother always made it home in time to prepare a good dinner for the children. Between the two parents, they barely made enough to support the family, having put the oldest boy, Martin, through Harbor Junior College after which he took a position working with a company caring for older citizens, and sending the second son through a two-year welding program after which he got a decent job, welding for the California Department of Highways. Paul was by far the most promising of the four sons, and I’d suspect that even back then, UCLA was not inexpensive for them. Paul did have a half-tuition scholarship, and still lived at home helping pay his expenses by spending his afternoons trying to keep our gang out of trouble and teaching us how to play baseball, football, and a variety of made-up games. There wasn’t such a thing as the internet back them with all those war games and ‘shoot ’em ups’ that exist today, and this stuff is turning some kids into crazies who kill people in high schools and other venues. Sad days these often are.
The YMCA in Lomita and other towns in the area had a program called ‘Help the Children’ which hired young men through the LA area to supervise and train kids our age in sports, take them to visit attractions such as zoos, beaches and museums, and hopefully, build character during the summer and after school the rest of the year. The YMCA paid Paul a bit above the then minimum wage, bought gas for his vehicle, and covered other expenses that he incurred such as admission to places that he would take us on rainy days. It was a rather unique program at that time which I suspect kept many young boys and girls out of trouble in their early years. We had several guys in our gang that might have ended up in bad circumstances, had they not been in the program. My recall was that Paul had purchased an old beat-up Ford pick-up for $95 to get back and forth to school, and in which we all rode around in the various adventures. The truck was always well cleaned-up and had a large tarpaulin in the back which we would hide under when it was raining, and we named it ‘Rover’.
I don’t know why I should recall this because it really has nothing to do with this story in the least, but why not. Since Paul had the truck named ‘Rover’, it was rather weird because I bought my first car for $95 also, and since it was a Lafayette (the upscale version of a Nash), I had named it ‘The Mad Frenchman’. I painted it black with one of those painting brooms and painted a red stripe under the driver’s side door with that goofy name on it, probably in deference to the Frenchman during the Revolution who aided General Washington. The car unfortunately had a section of the main drive gear that had teeth missing such that, on occasion, when I tried to start the car, the starter who be positioned at the point where the teeth were missing, and it would just grind and not start. The solution was to go out, and rock the car to move the drive gear to a spot where the starter would work. I had just received my learner’s permit, and my mother took me to the California Driver’s test to get my driver’s license. I answered all the questions inside well, and so the policeman said we would go out and run through the driving test. He weighed 270 pounds, and got in the passenger seat. I got in and stepping on the starter, guess what, it made the grinding sound. The only solution was to hop out and rock the car with him seated inside. After some considerable effort, I finally moved the gear, started the car, and drove through the course perfectly. Back at the start, the policeman said, “Well, you passed everything extremely well, but I