Barry Gibbs — Inside Magic Essayist in Residence on Petrick and Mia
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| Petrick and Mia |
I first met Petrick and Mia about 20years ago or so when I was running A&B Novelties Magic and Fun Shop in West Palm Beach, Florida. At the time, they were a very young couple on one of their first lecture tours.
They were scheduled to lecture at IBM Ring 117, and the arrangements were that they would drive into West Palm Beach, meet me at the magic shop and I would in turn accompany them to the motel we had booked for them, take them to dinner and then to the lecture hall at the Moose Lodge where Ring 117 held their meetings.
All was going fine. After a couple of calls for directions they arrived at the Magic Shop close to 5:00 PM. They were driving a van and were accompanied by two (2) beautiful, black Afghan Hounds. After closing the shop, the beautiful Mia got into my car and Petrick followed in the van.
We drove to downtown West Palm Beach to the old Holiday Inn, arriving in front of the Holiday Inn at about 5:15 P.M. I told Petrick I would take Mia inside, and get them registered while he parked the van in the lot at the back of the motel. Hopefully we would save some time that way and have an opportunity to go to dinner before the lecture. Petrick agreed and Mia and I went into the motel to register, while he went to park the van.
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| Holiday Inn (West Palm circa 1982) Parking Below |
About 10 minutes passed while I got them registered and took Mia and the luggage up to the room. The room was located at the back of the motel and faced the Inner Coastal Waterway on Flagler Drive. The balcony overlooked a large parking lot in the rear of the building.
While Mia changed clothes for the lecture I stood on the balcony awaiting the arrival of Petrick. Almost 15 minutes passed and there was still no sign of Petrick. When Mia came out of the room I told her I was going down to the lobby to see if perhaps Petrick was there waiting for us….
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