In my "In Box"

I'm enjoying your stuff, especially the Houdini stuff...

I'm from Houdini's hometown, Appleton, Wisconsin. Houdini's greatest escape was getting out of Appleton...

When I was a kid, grandma would just point out the Zuelske Insurance building and say "That's where Houdini lived when he was a kid" and that's all we knew. Sometime in the 80s I guess Sidney Radner, a very aged assistant to Houdini, loaned for years a whole lot of Houdini's stuff to the Outagamie County Historical Society (later, some controversy over was it a gift or on loan for a long term???)... The Houdini Historical Center was created. Also, there are bronze plaques throughout the downtown area, and a map to help people find them all, sort of like doing the Stations of the Cross I thougt! -- which greatly enhanced the experience as someone who grew up there. We all knew that the world's first commercially practical hydroelectric station was down by the river (a copy of it can be seen at the site) but did not know that Houdini nearly drowned near there when he was playing as a kid, and supposedly that is some kind of psychological thing about his escapes, especially the getting-tossed-in-water-in-a-packing-case stuff... There really is a lot of terrific stuff in Appleton, I'll try to restrain myself...

In recent years, Temple Zion, which was long out of business as a synagogue and was being used to store stuff by the Historical Society, now has a bronze plaque that tells about Houdini's dad being the rabbi there, Appleton's first rabbi. The story always was that Houdini's dad got fired because the congregation wanted a younger man, but the plaque says the congregation was trying to raise funds to build the synagogue and the whole community contributed and got involved, and they wanted to get a rabbi who could speak English to help with this project. Houdini's parents only spoke Yiddish and Hungarian, I guess, being immigrants.

I was back there when my Grandfather was dying in 1993. I got stranded there when my Canadian lawyer, who was supposed to be doing my divorce, abandoned me. I was left high and dry by my dysfunctional local relatives, too. I'd left my kid back in Canada with her father telling her this can't take forever and I'll come back after great grandpa dies, but then for reasons of poverty I was stuck. As it was sinking in on me the horrible situation I was in, one day that fall I was doing my daily meditation, and doing it kitty corner from the Houdini Historical Center -- I was in a flower garden on the beautiful campus of Lawrence University. As I walked among the flowers and sunshine, praying the rosary, suddenly I heard in my left ear (I'm left handed, so I figured that's positive for me) "Near you" -- clear as a bell... I had just been thinking about how Houdini could ESCAPE, and I wished I could escape and get back to my kid who was crying in school every day because I couldn't get back to her. Of course, such an experience is subjective and I can't prove it, but swear to God that happened while I was praying. Whether it was my angel, Houdini, my imagination, etc., it was very consoling and I started to cry, which made me feel better. I did get back to Canada over a year later. I don't know whether they still have the annual seances on Halloween for Houdini (I'm sure you know he died on Halloween)... of course, that was officially only to be done for ten years after his death, but in Appleton they still did it for fun on Halloween, and I think the seances were at Lawrence University! Well, I wonder... They never did "hear from" Houdini, and that's a GOOD thing, you know. Houdini would NOT have approved... But I wonder: DID I HEAR FROM Houdini?? Can't prove it and maybe I'm just plain nuts. The effect is the important thing, and the effect was calming and consoling, like I felt comforted and moved to tears. So that helped me. Besides, if I was praying the rosary at the time, I guess it's ok.

Enjoying your pics. I'd never seen the one of Houdini with the kids evidently in a hospital. A couple of my relatives were entertainers, too, but in Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus, which was headquartered in Wisconsin. Lots of young Wisconsinites joined the circus way long ago....