Current location:	Connersville, IN
Current mood:	chipper

I told ya so...
Hey there, faithful readers...here's a cute little story for ya...

The year was 1975. I was 7 years old.

My Grandma and Grandpa Ammerman lived in Jasper, Indiana. I've always liked the name...Jasper. Wanna guess why? Because as a child--and even now--it reminds me of Casper...the Friendly Ghost.



It was common for us (dad, mom, and me) to make the four hour drive, three or four times a year to visit Grandma & Grandpa.

The thing is, there's no easy way to get from Connersville to Jasper. Every time we went down (and back), we seemed to take a different route, my dad experimenting to find a quicker, shorter way. There are a lot of back roads in Southern Indiana, and we tried almost all of them.

On one such trip we must have done a route similar to this...



So, there I was...sitting in the back seat of our car, playing with my toys, when suddenly...I looked out the window, and off the road, in a wooded area I saw a balancing rock.

I couldn't believe it! It looked just like the formations I see in Road Runner cartoons.

I leaned forward to get my parents attention, "Hey...pull over. I just saw a balancing rock."

Well, they didn't believe me, and gave me some line like, "We'll stop and see it on the way home, dear."

For the rest of the trip that's all I could think about. I asked my Grandma & Grandpa, and other family members who lived in Southern Indiana, "Where's the balancing rock at?"

No one seemed to have any idea what I was talking about, and--although they never said this to me--they all believed that I had imagined it.

On the way home I was glued to the window...but never saw it.

On every trip down to Grandma & Grandpa's, I would look out that window, hoping to get a glimpse of that balancing rock.

Even years later, when I got my license and would drive myself, I would often remember seeing that formation, and find myself looking for it.

At some point I started to convince myself that I had imagined it.

Flash forward to 1995 or so. I was on a tour, doing shows in the Mid-West, and found myself in Southern Indiana. Shoals, Indiana to be precise.

I walked into the Shoals High School and met with the principal. He told me that we would do the show in the gym, and walked me down there. As we were talking about where the students would be seated, I noticed an odd looking character painted in the middle of the tip-off circle on the floor.



I looked at it and thought to myself, "That looks weird...what's it supposed to be? It looks kinda like a balancing rock....OH MY GOD!"

I turned to the principal, pointing at the picture. "What's that?" I asked.

"Oh," he said, "that's our mascot. We're the JugRocks."

"JugRock," I said. "What's that?"

"It's a rocky formation, with a flat top."

"I see. Does this...JugRock...does this formation really exist."

"Oh yeah. It's just off the highway, on the North side, on your way out of town."

"Is that right....?"

Suddenly I felt vindicated. I couldn't wait for the show to be over so I could go and see if this was my infamous, illusive Balancing Rock.

I drove slowly, looking to my right--just as I remember as a kid--and, low and behold...off the road, in a wooded area I saw a JugRock.

I didn't have my digital camera then, so I didn't get a shot. But, I sure let everyone know about it.

I called my dad, my mom, my grandma. They, of course, had no memory of me seeing the balancing rock.

I bring this up now because, just today, I did a show for the Huntingburg Public Library. It's just south of Jasper. I remembered that little story and the JugRock, so I decided to take a round-about way home...through Shoals.

This time I DID have my camera, and here's what it looks like:





That's exactly what I remember it looking like, all those years ago...

Now, be honest faithful reader, if you were a kid, and saw that...wouldn't you describe it as a balancing rock?

So there...take THAT mom and dad.

On another note, the show went well, and the people were wonderful. I especially liked the sign they made promoting my show:





Nice job, huh?

Then, in Connersville, I ran into Krista Gibson. I didn't recognize her, but she did me.

On July 10, 1984 Krista was celebrating her 9th birthday. She had a party in the back yard of her house on Meyer St. in Connersville. There were 15-20 kids there. Their entertainment was Dr. Illusion who performed a magic show.

Dr. Illusion was ME, and that was the first show I ever did.

Here's me with Krista:



Ironically I ran into Krista's mom a few months ago at a Christmas Party. You can read about it here.

And everything comes full circle.

I feel REALLY old now.