by bmat » Dec 17th, '14, 19:25
I am sure Happy, Bob's wife will not remember me through no fault of her own. I'm not that much of a social person. I live just outside of State College and personally knew both men. John Blake tried to hire me for the magic shop back in the day.
Bob was an absolute genius in the field of magic. He did a lecture for us and I don't remember ever laughing that hard. He was aone of the most generous men I have ever known. With his time, his patience and perhaps he was too generous in certain areas.
Shortly after I moved to State College and became a founding member of the Local IBM ring, (The Bob Elliot Ring) and yes Mr. Blake took the liberty of re writting some history. But it was myself and four others who got the club up and running, (non of which were John Blake, wow have wanted to get that out of my system for a long time). Anyway my wife and I threw a small BBQ for the newly formed club. John took the liberty to invite the world, Tony Spina showed up. Bob Little showed up. Bob and Happy showed up. The members of the Bob Elliot IBM ring showed up, The Penn State Magic and Performing arts showed up. As did many local and not so local magicians that I had never met show up It was madness I'm telling you, madness.
I was watching the fire jugglers knock a small branch out of Bob Littles mouth with a juggling throwing knife type thing and Bob Elliot who I never met before asked me if I was Brian, the owner of the property. And of course I was. We had never met before. He asked me about my dad, I had no idea how he made the connection. My Dad is a magic dealer in Montreal Quebec. We talked about another mutual friend George Shindler. After a fifteen minutes of chit chat Bob made the statement that this little shindig must have cost a pretty penny. I told him it was our pleasure, the truth was it was going to put a serious dent in our funds seeing as we only expected a small group, the local IBM ring. I didn't mention that to Bob, only that it was our pleasure.
Without another word Bob reached into his pocket and took out some money and told me it must be mine because he found it in the woods along the trail. (I live in the woods). I refused the money but thanked him just the same. It was not a lot, because he knew I would never accept too much, but it was a generous offer. Later that evening, cleaning up my wife found the money, he hid it in the house where he knew we would find it. I went to East Coast Magic a few days later and tried to give him the money. He said he would consider it an insult if I refused his gift. Then he proceeded to blow me away with a coin under watch routine. He gave me a lesson on the effect and I still use it to this day.
I can not say enough good stuff about Bob Elliot. And when I later spoke about Bob to others of note in the magic fraternity they all shared very similiar stories.
Just a quick Edit: Just in case Happy is reading this, my wife is not positive that Happy was in town for the party and that we met Happy at the magic shop sometime later. The party was chaotic and almost 14 years ago. Happy I would love your imput to see if you have memories of the event.