We are living on a cusp, friends. Our connections to the past are rapidly disappearing.

I think I began to notice it when Dai Vernon passed away. He had been directly responsible for getting me to try performing for a living. He'd had a lot of influence on me from even before I met him. I didn't know Duke Stern well, nor Lou Derman or Joe Berg, so I guess it was The Professor that really woke me up.

Then Punx went. I may have been the last real friend he had.

I would see them drop away, one by one. Bob Blau, whom I'd known since I was a kid, Gene DeJean, went, too.

Irv Weiner, Karrell Fox, Bob Read, all giants.

This past month has been particularly rough. Billy McComb, Channing Pollock....

Do yourself a favor. Write a letter or a note or even an e-mail to an old friend. Give him or her a phone call.

Let them know you care.

You will be glad you did.

And you will be very disappointed in yourself if you don't.

I received a phone call while I was in Germany from one of my friends who thought I sounded a bit down when I wrote this. First of all, I did feel a bit down, but I was not despondent or anything like that. Not at all. I was just, shall we say, musing about some of the responsibilities that we have as friends. I am most grateful for the fact that someone actually tried to contact me by phone about this.

When we are young, we think of ourselves as "bulletproof." Then we have a brush with the Reaper, and we find out that we may not be as invulnerable as we had thought.

Magic is a very interesting art form. It brings people of all kinds together. Each of us has something to contribute in his or her own way.

Sermon over -- now, back to magic.

And thanks!

By the time you read this, you will be aware that Tommy Wonder has passed away after a lingering bout with lung cancer. His contributions to our Art are numerous. Moreover, he was a very good person.

Others have left us since I wrote the last entry here -- Patti Sinclair, who lived in Watford, UK, with her husband Miles. They gave her a great sendoff. The priest who conducted the service had never performed a funeral before. When the sermon was over, everyone stood and cheered, and the priest turned white as a sheet!