Robyn Braley then had the pleasure of introducing our guest speaker for the day: the amazing illusionist, escape artist, magician Everett Andrews, who is a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Everett began his magic career as he was growing up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and has just returned a few days ago from his honeymoon. Everett dazzled us first with the history of Houdini who was born in Budapest and emigrated at a very early age (birth!) to Wisconsin, USA. He was born Eric Weiss and took on the name of Houdini from the famous French magician Houdin, and added the "I".

Houdini was a showman more than a magician and made his mark as an escape artist. At the age of 12, he ran away from home to join the circus and at 17 changed his name to Houdini. At 20, he married Beatrice whom he called Bess and Bess became part of his show.

After the history on Houdini, Everett went on to dazzle us with his magic. First he switched blank cards to spell the word Rotary and created illusions of rope with different lengths, while keeping the entire audience on the edge of their seats and in awe.

He then brought Janet Slemko and Bernie Ward up as assistants. He had them pick cards and place them in sealed envelopes. Then, while the envelopes were hidden, Everett magically made three of the cards that Janet had in her sealed envelope appear in Bernie's sealed envelope. The crowd was in wonder.

Chris Lee and Sa'adat were then chosen as the next "supporting cast". They tied up, locked up and secured Everett's hands and, when they went to tie his feet up, Everett reached down to help them a little having escaped from the lock and shackles on his hands. It was a great moment of laughter and awe.

Don Alexander then thanked the speaker and did a little magic of his own and made the Boltman disappear and promised it would re-appear by special delivery from Robyn Braley to Everett next week. (We had forgotten to bring along the guest speaker Boltman from the Holiday Inn.)

view our Hallowe'en photos

reported by Brent Barootes