time. Norm took another deep breath and plunged back into working at the bakery before and after school.
But he never let a moment of the rest of his day go by without preparing for his future. He took as many art classes as he could in his four years in high school, he took speech classes to overcome the stutter and to perfect himself in addressing a group. He tried to make himself ready to play a show.
The show, the first one, was a Christmas show at the Masonic Temple - for money! The kids moved very close, as they always do, and Norm's mind kept going back to the rabbit he had in the dove pan, plus the rest of his fifteen minutes of tricks. He suffered during that first show, but he did it. He proved to himself that magic can be made to pay.
At the end of high school, with his mother ill, and his father still obdurate on the subject of magic as a life's work, Norm took all his courage in his hands and announced he was going to California. He drove out there with a friend who was going to take some other kind of training, but Norm made for the Chavez School and signed up. He also went to Lockheed and got hired for the graveyard shift. The Chavez School was everything he dreamed of, and his idol, Neil Foster, while not there at that time, was always in his mind as his inspiration.
When he was laid off by Lockheed, he became a busboy in a restaurant. He didn't care what he did, as long as it enabled him to stay and study at the Chavez School. He had several lucky breaks which were most helpful. He auditioned for, and got, a spot on a local TV show. And he picked up some realistic magic experience by working for a time in the school circuits with Chuck Kirkham, an excellent magician.
Norm was in the Chavez School for three years, during which time he became a most skillful manipulator. He created a top flight act of cards, coins and
