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Cutting Up Jackpots by Bev Bergeron
BevBergeron@aol.com
PROFESSOR’S NIGHTMARE
or How Gene Gordon met Bob Carver
The Houston, Texas Ring 39 was
picked to sponsor and produce the I.B.M.
Convention of 1957. Originally, the local
committee was spearheaded by Frank
Werner until his untimely death when he
was replaced by Cal Emmit. The group
had gained worldwide publicity by hav-
ing Bill Siros float a lady news reporter
down the Main Street. Later Bill “float-
ed” a girl over the Rice Hotel, headquar-
ters for the event, as described here earli-
er.
All of this was very exciting; however,
there was one happening that had a more
profound impact on magic – the magic
contest. The partying started a few days
before the official opening of the con-
clave. Several I.B.M. members arrived
early to participate in what in those days
were the “magic days.” One of these
magicians was Bob Craver from Macon,
Georgia. Bob had a happy personality –
you liked him as he walked into the
room. For some strange reason, we
became instant buddies.
However, it was not all his personality
that was capturing the magic world; it
was a rope trick that he was performing.
He took three uneven ropes and after
gathering them together – a slight pull,
and the ropes were stretched until they
were all the same length. Like everyone
else in the room, my first reaction was a
wide-opened mouth.
While Bob was making friends with
his rope mystery, I, of course, pulled the
May, 2005
oldest granddaddy trick of them all – I
asked him to repeat it for some of my
friends. Bob was nice – he repeated it,
not once, but several times. By his third
presentation, I approached him and said
that I recognize what he was doing since
at that time, I had in my act Hen Fetsch’s
Quadroplets.
Bob smiled and said yes; he was
inspired with that part of Fetsch’s routine
and cleaned up the moves. I then asked
permission to perform Bob’s improve-
ments.” He seemed overwhelmed that
anyone would want to use his material.
Bob entered the I.B.M. Convention
contest and a hold was put on his first-
place award. It seems that the judges did
not believe what they had witnessed in
the contest was pure sleight of hand and
not trick ropes. The only way that he
could persuade the judges were to expose
the trick to them. Bob won!
A few years passed while I took Bob’s
trick to the West Coast where magicians
lined up to see me perform his master-
piece. I was riding high on his reputation.
Earl Forest of Santa Rosa, California
even set up a special meeting/party for
me with his I.B.M. Ring while I was
working their local fair. Of course, I had
to perform Bob’s rope routine. After two
years of basking in glory, ads started to
appear in magic magazines for a new
trick called “Professor’s Nightmare”
sold by Gene Gordon.
The magic world pounced on the
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