Vintage & Used Magic Apparatus    Andalusia, Alabama   334-202-3757

In 1972 after High School, I auditioned for the Air Force Band, went through basic training and was assigned to the 604 th Air Force Band at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Al. One day I was in the rec hall shooting pool when one of the guys ask me if I was going enter the talent contest that night. That’s the first I had heard of it. So I went to the front desk and signed up. That night I won 1 st place with my magic act. The Sergeant in charge, ask if I was ready to go to Vegas. I laughed, he was serious. I didn’t know that there was a contest at every Air Force Installation and the winner from each base would go to the World Wide Contest in Las Vegas. I won 1 st place at World Wide and was one of 16 selected to tour with The Air Force Road Show "Tops In blue". During the 2 hour variety show, I played trumpet in the band and did my magic act. We toured 38 states including 12 cities in Alaska and did 144 shows at 109 different bases in 126 days. Show business is hard work, But Fun!

Warming up before a concert

Mr. Magic

I changed clothes 5 times in a 2 hour show. The show was choreographed so even the instrumentalist were dancing the entire time. When you went to change, the clothes were still wet with sweat from the night before. Our show clothes were sent to the cleaners only twice in 6 months. We had a saying, "Smell doesn’t show up under lights".

I hated hats! This was the day after our last show.

We spent two weeks in Alaska. We flew everyday to remote radar sites to entertain the troops there. The crew chief  had watched my magic show and was bugging me to tell him how I put the candle through  my arm. I told him if  he would talk the pilot into letting me sit in the cockpit, I would show him how. The copilot got up and went to the back of the plane and I sat down in his seat. The pilot said "I’ve got to go the head, you fly it while I’m gone." It was on auto pilot of course. When he came back, he took it off of auto pilot and let me fly it for a while. Needless to say, I woke everyone up that day.

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WWTC Roger
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Air Force Commendation Medal Citation PDF

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