He has been working on his time-keeping magic act for about four years. Last night’s show was the debut of a major new illusion that he’s worked on for years — look for it at the end of the video.

Gregory’s performance on the evening of April 16, 2016, in Santa Rosa. (Unfortunately, the video camera didn’t do very well in the low light, so the detail is poor.)

Gregory has been in the annual comedy magic show that Ken Garr produces for about six years. This year was the 18th annual show.

The idea for the grandfather clock illusion came to Greg four years ago. He made sketches, and we brainstormed ideas. Last fall, I helped him prototype the key pieces — and we reached the limit of my woodworking skills.

Gregory hired a professional woodworker to create the complete clock, while he devised the rest of the illusion.

In the years while the big clock was gestating, Greg kept adding more and more watches to his act. It is a truly original act, with years of incremental improvements behind it. His vision and persistence have been outstanding!

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This is the show’s 18th year, which is quite an achievement and a sign of the passion that Ken Garr, Jon E. King before him, and a whole community of local magicians have sustained for this event.

My son Gregory has been in the show many times, and this year he’s back with a spectacular new effect that is years in the making! Don’t miss it!

Saturday, April 16

The show is at:

First United Methodist Church, 1551 Montgomery Dr., Santa Rosa
Show Map

There are two shows:

• 3 pm Family Matinee Show, $8 general admission Kid-oriented and shorter.
• 7 pm Full Evening Show, $12 general admission. Kids are welcome to this one, too, it’s just a longer show and costs a bit more.

You can buy tickets at the door, or guarantee your seat by buying online:
Buy Tickets

Doors open 30 minutes prior to showtime.

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He was 20 pounds underweight, having been a stray for some period of time.

R.I.P. Shasta

Shasta, who had been in our family since she was a puppy 14 years ago, died in late summer, and it took us a while to be ready for another dog.

Shasta was part of our family for most of the time our kids were growing up, and we’ll always remember her fondly.

Finding Rio

When we started looking around, we just weren’t falling in love with any of the dogs at the local shelters. So we started thinking about breeds, and dogs that we knew and liked, and gravitated toward golden retrievers.

We couldn’t find any golden retrievers, however, in Northern California shelters. We did, however, come across a couple of rescue organizations that focus on these beautiful dogs. One of them, Homeward Bound (which is a little north of Sacramento) is where we met Rio.

Rio is a big bundle of love. He’s extremely relaxed, and reacts to almost nothing except squirrels and birds. He ignores our two cats, and doesn’t react to other dogs at all—even the barking snarling little things we run into on the street.

Rio loves to be rubbed just about anywhere, for as long as you’re willing. If he’s just met you, that’s fine too.

He’s a beautiful animal, and he draws far more attention than I’m used to. Shasta was pretty, but she didn’t draw people like Rio. I’ve had conversations with more strangers in the six months we’ve had Rio than in the previous six years.

Homeward Bound Golden Retriever Rescue

Homeward Bound is an amazing place. They have, at any one time, a couple dozen dogs they have rescued, all goldens or golden mixes. In their 13 years of existence, they have rescued, healed, placed and provided sanctuary to more than 7,400 dogs.

That’s a pretty amazing number, and it is all privately funded, with most of the work done by volunteers. They spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on veterinary care; every dog gets whatever treatment it needs.

The Mystery of Rio’s Past

Rio was actually called Jacob at Homeward Bound, but this is just a name they made up when they rescued him from a Merced-county shelter, so he didn’t recognize it. The shelter had picked him up as a stray. He had no collar, and was not chipped, so his "real" name and his history remain a mystery.

The vets think he is about 5 years old. He was still an "intact" male, as they call a dog that still has his testicles, so he got to live an usually long time with all his hormones. This may partially explain his larger-than-usual size for a golden.

The rescue organization considered him a mix, and we’ve assumed he has a rottweiler, or something of that size, in his blood.

Some folks have said he could be a purebred field-style retriever, and could be larger than most because of all those years of testosterone. A style still bred in England for hunting, Rio has the blocky head that makes him look different from other retrievers.

Just Two Challenges

We love Rio more than we could have hoped. There are just two things that we continue to struggle with him over.

The biggest issue has, from the start, been walking on the leash. It seems likely that Rio was a farm dog; he was loved, but not trained. And then, for an unknown period of time (long enough for him to be 20 pounds under-weight) he was a stray.

Inside, or in a backyard, Rio is the most relaxed dog in the world. But out on the street, he really isn’t interested in going at a walking pace. Nor does make a big distinction between sidewalks, streets, and bushes.

The second challenge has been his approach to our garden. He loves the plants. He likes to lie on top of them.

He also likes to dig in the yard, and we’re talking some serious digging. But that will have to be a story for another day.

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In the weeks since then, I’ve thought a lot about how much she has influenced my life, as well as that of many others.

While I don’t feel equal to her endless creativity, enthusiasm, and enchantment with all the beautiful things in the world, a good dose of it rubbed off on me.

From an early age, I have always been driven by projects that I wanted to do. Her unending confidence in me, as well as her own example, powered this drive.

I’ve been self-employed for most of my career, as have my brother and sister. All during my childhood, my mom was a self-employed ceramic artist. I’m sure that the model of her working in her studio in the garage, following her own agenda, is a big part of why I’ve chosen this path and have often worked from home.

Gardening has been one of my enduring passions, and this too I learned from her. Not only a love of gardening in general, but a passion for the unusual and obscure.

Relationships were always important to my mom, and she put a lot of energy into her friends and her own personal growth. When I was a teen in the 1960s, she was getting Rolfed and going to encounter groups. She passed along the attitudes and values that are surely one factor why all three of her children are still married to their first spouses after 30 years or more.

Another enduring value I absorbed from her is the importance of design. Both a love for great design, a desire to be surrounded by it, and a disdain for badly designed things.

She cherished her photos (something else I inherited from her) and left behind an amazing collection. There are still many thousands yet to be sorted through. I’ve put up a small selection of them on her former website, now serving as a memorial site, at www.helenslaterdesign.com.

Helen’s final years

During her final years, she needed a lot of help, and it was gratifying to see how many people contributed. Her many decades of being a friend and mentor to so many people gave her many returns, not only in the joy she took in being connected with their lives and reveling in their accomplishments, but in the care and attention they gave her when she needed it most.

Mom never lost sight of the beauty of the world and her joy in being part of it. Even in her final months, when life was very difficult for her, she would comment on the beautiful trees, or an interesting house, as we drove down the street. In her final weeks, her biggest joy was the birds that came to her birdfeeder.

As her body declined over the past decade or so, she dealt with her challenges without becoming depressed or bitter. It was only as her mind began failing that life became so difficult for her. With both Ray and her mental clarity gone, she desperately wanted to "move back home" — she wanted a life full of people, and gardening, and clay, and it was impossible for her to accept that much of this was now beyond her reach. She would talk about getting a volunteer job, taking in a few children, getting back into clay.

An inspiration in so many ways

I can only hope that if I make it to my 90s, I can remain as positive as she was, and have such a loving, supportive community of family and friends.

I will miss her forever, and take comfort in being inspired by her memory.

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It was an awesome performance, and I’m so proud of her.

Now, the YouTube bit: the song playing in the background is Witch Doctor by Alvin and the Chipmunks. When I uploaded the video to YouTube, it recognized the song (I did include Alvin in the title but didn’t identify the song), and sent me the following email:

Your video, Amanda’s Alvin and the Chipmunks ice skating routine, may have content that is owned or licensed by Razor & Tie.

No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.

And when the video plays on YouTube, there’s an advertisement banner at the bottom, with links to buy the song from iTunes or Amazon.com. (Curiously, the ad does not appear on the embedded video above.) It’s sort of annoying, but compared with banning the video because it contains copyrighted content, it’s a great solution.

A question for the copyright experts out there: I assume the skating rink must have the right to use the music in the performance. Does this right not transfer to videos made of the performance? Of course, arguing this with Google would probably be futile, regardless of what’s true, unless one was willing to put a great deal of energy into it.

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