A few days ago marked the anniversary of an extremely sad
day 43 years ago. I began remembering
experiences; important experiences which forever influenced my life. At the time I was listening to the soundtrack
of Forrest Gump; a wonderful soundtrack to the events playing out in my mind.
There was once a time, I’m thinking I was 12. Robert was showing me different card
tricks. Some of them were simple. “Here, take a card, any card.” He would hold the deck it in such a way that
I really could only take one card. I am
pretty sure that trick, I figured out on my own. The tricks got a little more
impressive. Again, he would say: “Here,
take a card, any card.” This time he was
more generous in providing choices. He
was less generous in where in the deck I could put the chosen card back. I think I pretty much figured that one out
too. I think Robert was actually trying to
determine if I realized what he was doing.
Since I really wanted to impress him, maybe that is just what I
thought.
Now, I suspect he was just messing around.
All the tricks I was able to figure out; let’s face it they
were not very difficult. There was one
trick however that I just could not. He
would have a deck of cards; it was not a complete deck. He would say: take a card, memorize the card
and put it back in the deck. Shuffle the
deck as much as you want. Return the deck to me. He would then say; now, one by one I am going
to distribute the cards into three piles. Wait until I have finished distributing the
cards among the decks and after I have finished, tell me into which deck the
card was placed. He would then carefully
reassemble the deck and distribute the cards again. He would go through this process a total of
three times. He would then tell me: “This is the card you chose” while holding up
that same card.
I could not figure it out how he did it. I then spent some time trying to figure it out. I could not. Mom noticed what I was doing. I told her and asked if she knew how the
trick was done. She did not know.
I was frustrated. I
think she realized it.
So she said we will figure it out. I had my doubts.
She asked me to do everything Robert did, but this time, lets
follow what happens to the card. In less
than 10 minutes we figured it out. We
realized you could only use 21 cards and after the whole process it was the 11th
card on the deck. Mom told me not to
tell Robert that she helped me figure it out.
At that time, I was so impressed by the trick. I was happy Mom and I figured out how it was
done. I showed Robert that I had figured
out. He was impressed.
That day I learned a lot.
I realized how smart my mom was.
I miss you Robert. I
miss you Mom.
