THE MAGIC BROOMA WIZARD STORY FOR YOU For my Aunt Alma, and Robert Farren, my artist friend from Oklahoma, and for Edward, my son who also met the Wizard from Kalamazoo, for my friend John who calls me at night, and for you.
Chapter One
Not so long ago,.... maybe 16 years ago give or take a year, an old man, not a very old man, maybe 65 years old give or take a year was living in a retirement high rise hotel in the beautiful city of Kalamazoo. He did not know it, but he was attending Ye Olde Ancientist Wizard Academy of Kalamazoo. Did you know there is an Ancient Wizard Academy in every town and city? Anyone who wants to go can go providing, he was becoming a good person.
A good wizard does things that are wonderful and good. All his long life he worked very hard at his job. He was a custodian at the Rory Calhoon Middle School in Kalamazoo which was once a Senior High School. It was a very hard job and most tiring. His specialty was keeping everything clean. He vacuumed the floors. Then he got the big buffer machine out of the closet and put on the wax brush. Then he squirted the liquid wax on the floor, and all this was after he had moved all the desks out of the classroom into the hallway and emptied the waste baskets. Then he would use the wax brush and apply the wax evenly over the floor with the buffer humming away. When he was done putting on the wax all the scuff marks would be gone. Then, he would go out in the hall and get a cool drink of water from the fountain and sit for about 10 minutes, give or take a minute or so, just to let it all dry to a haze. He then changed the hard wax brush to the soft bristle buffing brush and then hummmm, he would wax the floor to a perfect shine.
For 40 years he did this over and over again, 5 days a week with four weeks off every summer to visit his sister in Gull City, Connecticut. She was now 72 and lived in the Mohican Hotel, a retirement high rise downtown in Gull City, just down State Street from the Unitarian - Universalist Church. You know the one... right next to the courthouse and just across from the Public Library… The church without a steeple.
When he retired at age 65, he had worked that same job since he was twenty five and had gotten out of the Navy. He knew how to buff those floors. The Navy taught him how to do it so the inspecting Admiral would not see a scuff mark. He could do eight Classrooms a night, but as he got older, it became hard tiring work. Oh how he loved the children. Sometimes, he would get there early in the afternoon before the go home bell rang. He loved to watch them walk, skip, jump and trip out of the front doors and run for the busses that were lined up to take them home. Then, he would go to work and think about his four weeks with pay and his trip on the train that would take him to River City for weeks of fun with his sister Amble.
He often thought about Amble in the River City while he was waxing. That hummmm of the machine was special for thinking of her...and the buffer was so easy to handle. Why, it almost ran itself. He knew the secret of how to buff the floors. The Navy had taught him well. He would think of the good times at Ocean Beach.
It was the most fun to visit his sister Amble. He was a very clean person. You might think that someone who worked so hard to keep a whole school clean might be a bit messy at home. But, Oh no, his home sparkled just like each of those classrooms did when those early morning sixty feet scuffed through the classroom doors. No one really noticed how clean those classrooms were. If they did, they would just scuff all the more leaving those black marks on the floor.
They never saw him working. He worked after the school closed. They never thought about how the classrooms stayed clean. Once in a while, the teacher would ask someone to stay late and do the blackboards. That was an honor. But notice those floors that next day? Never. Well, hardly ever. It made him a bit sad to go so unnoticed, but that was part of his wizard training. He was learning a very special lesson… How to give without expectation of return. How to give without expecting thanks.
When he turned sixty five and retired he was very close to becoming a wizard. There was only one more lesson to get his hat, his invisible Wizard hat.One day, soon after he had retired and they gave him a gold pocket watch with his name on the back, he heard that his replacement janitor had the flu and could not go to work... The Wizard to be, with a secret smile, went down to the school and in secret, cleaned up 10 classrooms that night without anyone knowing. He did it for a whole week until the new man went back to work. Then he stopped. He did not know it, but he earned his invisible wizard hat that night. You see, to become a good wizard, he had to give it away. All those years he had been paid. He could not expect any pay. It had to be a gift from the heart and he had given his gift.
Now, you and I know that he probably did not know that he was a full-fledged wizard. I mean the hat was invisible. He would come to know that it was there, but that takes a while. That hat is like a baseball cap with a blue cone, like an ice cream cone, on top and has little moons and stars on it that glow in the dark. He could not feel it or even see it, but it was there just the same.
Chapter Two
Mean while, back in Gull City...... on the famous Bank Street, home to several artists a few of which were actually trying to make a living doing just art, there lived a lonely man in his very early forties - say 42 give or take a year. He was one of the artists who had a job that most would not call art at all. But, because he was an artist, he knew that everything was art and that everyone could be an artist. He had been enrolled in Ye Ancientist Gull City Academy of Wizardry without knowing.
He was fully engaged in giving stuff away trying to learn how to give without expectation of return. In fact, in his 18 years of being an artist he only sold two pieces of art. The rest he sprinkled about the country side with a host of other artist's art and several valuable items, one of which was a family Grandfather's Clock which he gave away before realizing that his good sister really wanted that clock. That is part of the Wizard lesson too. Sometimes, when giving stuff away, it is best to just give it away with abandon rather than to give it to someone who wants it. That may be the good thing to do. Then, after you do give it away without thinking about who might want the clock, you get to learn how to deal with the one who did want the clock.
This wizard in waiting to be a wizard had a deep problem. He wanted to be famous. When he gave things away he wanted people to discover what he was doing. He even gave away things by leaving them in places where no one would ever know who left them there. Then, as he drove away, he would find himself wishing that someone would discover what he was doing. He was lonely and wanted people to thing good thoughts about him.
Most of all, he wanted to be famous because he wanted to attract a princess into his life. (ed. note: The princess stuff is in the adult version. You can choose to leave it in or take it out when telling the story to a child)That kind of loneliness was quite misplaced and very selfish. It was the very thing holding him back from becoming a wizard. You see he would fall in love with one beautiful princess after another believing that the latest princess was the one that could make him happy.
This, all by itself was enough to drive him on and on, princess after princess, towards what he needed to know to become a wizard. This is what was keeping him from earning his wizard hat. Still, he was young and foolish but he had his two feet on the wizard path.
He was giving things away to attract the next princess who, of course, would be the very one he needed to make his life complete and happy. That's not giving stuff away without expectation. That's expecting a princess to show up because you gave stuff away.
This is what a wizard school is all about. You get to do the same thing over and over again until you are willing to change and stop wanting to fix yourself with a princess.
Learning to be a wizard without even knowing that is what you are doing can take a very long time. If the person knew that he was in wizard school he or she might feel like there is only so much space for wizards in the world because it takes so long to get to be one. It is not like becoming a Doctor or a lawyer a sailor or a plumber. It is like becoming a wizard which, of course, is different. Everyone can be an artist and everyone can be a wizard. It just takes what it takes.
Now, you know a bit more about wizard schools. You just keep doing the same things over and over until you get tired of them not working and you become willing to change. Anyway, things were popping and everything was soon to happen.
The Wizard of Kalamazoo was taking the train to River City to stay with his sister Amble at the Mohican high rise for the whole summer. Not just four weeks. He was going to spend some time with his good sister.
The wizard in waiting for the next princess or the return an old princess was in his studio doing post card art. Because he was in wizard training, it would be a long time before the next princess would show up.
And everything was ready in Gull City. It was Sunday and the street cleaner only worked five days a week. It was very dirty. Paper, cigarette butts, run over bottle caps, broken glass...all sorts of litter, lying there or blowing around in the wind…Just waiting for the Wizard to visit his good sister Amble.
Chapter Three
It was a long train ride.... from Kalamazoo to Gull City. He was lucky to get a bed in the Pullman car and he tried to sleep all the way to Washington, DC. He did not sleep too well because he was so excited. He had a layover of a few hours and went to the Smithsonian Museum to see the Space Museum. Then back on board the Metro Liner to New York where he transferred at 2:00AM and caught the Night Owl to Gull City. He recalled that most people remember it as the milk run because it stops at every town. At 6:00 in the morning the train crossed the Shaw's Cove bridge and slowed to a stop at Union Station, right at the foot of State Street.
The first thing he noticed was the sun over Groton and the glint of the wavelets on the Thames River. The next thing he noticed was a lot of dust and paper blowing around in the wind. When the train pulled out, he crossed the tracks and saw the trash that littered the whole area. He thought to himself: "What a mess! This is not like Kalamazoo. In Kalamazoo all the shops clean up the streets every day. The people care about their city. This is a real mess my sister has to live in. I wish the streets were clean in Gull City. A wizard's wish is a very strong wish.
He made his way towards the Mohican Hotel knowing that his sister Amble already had breakfast ready. As he passed the Whaler Restaurant, he thought of the times he spent having dinner with his sister's friends from the Mohican. They were a fun bunch.
Meanwhile, just down Bank Street - about two blocks, as the Night Owl rolled by his studio, the artist was up at his desk making postcards. A few minutes later he felt this sudden urge to do some art. He walked out of the studio and looked about the dirt parking lot. His puppy Harpo, named so because she looked exactly like a harp seal when he got her from a princess, ran out of the door too. As he gazed at the river, then at Harpo, a sudden gust of wind lifted some paper and debris into the air. He stood there and watched it swirl about - like the birth of a tornado. He remembered thinking when he was a kid that those little tornadoes was how a big one got started. They could grow from that little one he thought. He remembers running into them to stop them from becoming tornadoes.
Back inside, the artist who also had a real job, found some string, a bucket, and some work gloves. He tied Harpo to his belt and the two of them went outside. He started picking up the papers and the debris behind his building. Working their way out to the street in front, the artist and Harpo began cleaning the street heading towards the Hygienic Restaurant and the train station.
At first he left the cigarette butts. There were so many and he had to lean over for each one. He picked up everything else, even the flattened run over bottle caps. The stuff that was the same he saved and kept for another day and another art project. He did both sides of the streets and the vacant lots. He did the front of the Amtrak Station and they went around the bus station too. Seeing that the pier and ferry area need work, Harpo and the artist went across the tracks and cleaned. They did behind all the buildings including his art teacher's old studio, Solomon's Office Supply Store and all the way down to the Schneider Hardware Store diagonally across the street from the Fire Department. And he finished the work in front of the store where he lived by 8:00 AM.
When they finished, he looked up and down Bank Street and thought: "That's better. Well maybe not better, but it is different. It is a very large painting... a large piece of art and he was pleased with himself. Where did he put the trash when the bucket was filled? He put it in the garbage cans and bins behind the stores.
On Monday morning he got up at 5:30 and Harpo and the artist did the job again. This time he even picked up every cigarette butt. He saw the early morning traffic and wondered what they were thinking about him as they passed by while he filled his bucket.
Then he thought about the man who had the job to clean up downtown and a smile came across his face. He thought, "I can just imagining him coming around the corner and looking up and down the street. No trash. Not even one cigarette butt or a bottle cap. What a miracle it would seem to him. What a miracle."
Every day for a week the artist cleaned the streets thinking about that miracle. By then, he had settled into it like a regular job.Weeks passed. He did not miss a day, rain or shine. He got some new tools…A pair of shocking orange plastic gloves and a small broom and dustpan. The orange gloves would protect his hands from broken glass and the real gooey stuff. The cars would see them easier as they passed him kneeling in the street picking up the trash.
By now he had met the regular street cleaner but the guy never said how he felt about that miracle or that he even knew there was a miracle. "It was still a miracle even if he did not see it." thought the artist. "Miracles are everyday."
Chapter Four
Meanwhile.... the Wizard from Kalamazoo and his sister Amble were having fun. He liked to joke about their having too much fun like when they were kids in Kalamazoo. "Remember when," he said, "a bunch of us were sitting and splashing in that big mud puddle? Remember when that older guy came along and said with a grin: "Stop it! You're having too much fun!" And they all stopped for a second, then realized what he had said and that he was still smiling at us so we went right back to the splashing and having too much fun."
The Wizard and Amble went everywhere together that summer and he decided to stay another month in the Gull City. He did not tell her yet, but he was thinking of moving there to be with her. He really enjoyed the card games on the Mohican Roof Garden and he loved going to Bingo with her and all her friends on Friday nights. He liked when Mrs. Trout called the numbers. And, the view was terrific, especially for the fireworks on Sailfest Night.
One day in late August, two months after he arrived in Gull City, give or take a day, the Wizard and his good sister Amble got up early to go to Captain's Pizza for breakfast. While passing the Whaler Restaurant while they were walking down State Street he told his sister of the wish he had made when he got off the train, his wish for the streets to be clean just like in Kalamazoo.
Just as he finished telling her about his wish, he saw a man with fluorescent gloves and a dog tied to his belt and next to him he saw a boy with orange fluorescent gloves, a small broom and a dustpan. They were cleaning the streets. They stopped to talk with the man and the boy. The wizard told them about how the streets were so clean in Kalamazoo and of his wish when he arrived on the Union Station platform just two months ago.
The Wizard in training wrote a short story about the magic broom and meeting the man from Kalamazoo who had wished the Gull city streets clean. He wrote it for his son Edward. It was a lot shorter than this story and, to be truthful, parts of this story were made up... Like, I did not really know the Wizard from Kalamazoo had a sister. She was not there the day we bumped into one another. Nor did I know what kind of job he had. Maybe it really was cleaning classrooms at night at the Middle School. And, if I remember right, I do not think he told us about a wish.
But he did tell us about Kalamazoo and how the merchants always cleaned in front of their own shops every day. Now, the big question. Do you think he really was a wizard? Do you think that the streets being cleaned every day for month after month was a miracle? Do you think I just made the whole thing up?
And, please note that the artist, while cleaning the streets for several months was still thinking about a princess. Because he cleaned the streets for so long, he learned a lot about Wizardry. One of those things he learned much later was that it was possible to be a Wizard as long as what he was doing was not selfish and it is possible to slide in and out of being a Wizard. But, that's another story I'll tell you later. When we meet for lunch one Day we can talk about all this stuff if you want.
I really enjoyed writing this story for you. T
HE WIZARD OF GULL CITY A story about Grace For the grownups if there are any anymore.
CHAPTER ONE The Last Time...we saw the wizard in waiting of Gull City, we left him standing on the State Street with his son and dog Harpo, talking to the Wizard from Kalamazoo who had wished the city streets clean two months before. After he wrote the first draft of the Wizard Story, some 18 years before, give or take a year, he began to muse on things wizard. He was aware of the fact that there was a way to learn how to give without expectation of return and that he could not see how to get there from here. So, he decided to just keep on trying. He had been trying since the time first saw his own selfishness. It was when his Wizard friend in New York had taken him to a meeting of very good people. There was a book that he purchased (name available upon request to riveredgerecord@aol.com) and after reading 70 or 80 pages he had to put it down. He was struck by a vision of self. In that vision he saw the facts of his life and that everything he did, even the very best of things, was geared to getting something for himself and were therefore selfish. In the next instant, he heard a statement in the space between his own ears. “You can change if you want to.” He found himself answering automatically without hesitation or thought: “I want to change.”