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| Sailor Maurice |
We last mentioned the Hardy family in the first of many promised installments of the Hardy Chronicles. The story, for those of you new to Inside Magic or to the fun of reading, ended with my Grandma, Thoma Hardy outliving a sailor boy she met at the funeral of my grandpa, Thomas Hardy V.
Grandma and Sailor Maurice lived a pleasant life for the 18 months he was alive. By all accounts, the marriage was on the rocks anyway. (“On the Rocks” is a very clever turn of a phrase by me to apply to a sailor worst nightmare, the method of pouring an alcoholic drink and where most of the cars ended up after my grandma’s accident. I am so witty and clever that most magician-writers are jealous of me).
He was killed in a bizarre but unfortunate bet. Grandma had grown tired of Sailor Maurice and his Sailor Maurice-Like ways and some say she murdered him by offering him the bet. Either way, Sailor Maurice was not able to catch a bullet in his teeth like other “Real Men” Grandma told him about. In fact the coroner’s report notes he wasn’t even able to move his head into the correct position because of the chains and leather neck collar.
There were some at the Inquest that doubted there was even such a bet made; rather, they suggested she made the whole thing up just to get rid of Sailor Maurice. They’re position was strengthened by his lack of knowledge of the secret of bullet catching, the fact that he was securely bound with leather restraints and rope and that he was apparently asleep at the time the catch was to be performed.
But Coroner did find that Grandma Thoma was “A very attractive twice-widowed woman with big eyes and a sweet little way about her.” (See, Inquest of Cause of Death: Maurice Doodaday at 9). She and Coroner Pete dated after the Inquest – not as in “months after the Inquest was concluded” but as in “flirting during the autopsy slides and playing footsie…
Continue reading Hardy Chronicles — Who’s Your Daddy?
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