Doc Grimes

Howard's Fun Shop became the focus of my youth for several years. As a young boy at 10 or 11, I began making annual trips to the Fun Shop with my dad around my birthday. Dad would throw in $10, I would add what was left from summer grass cutting, and off we would go from South Houston, up I45 to downtown Houston. Howard had a cow bell that clanged from the top of the door as a customer entered. I can still remember the slightly musty, dank smell of the shop and the allure of the magical props that lined the top shelf that wrapped around the back of the shop. We could never afford those. I remember the joy in my first set of linking rings, the Chinese sticks--a gift on my 11th birthday--and my first small dove pan. Howard was kindly toward my father and me. He always took time to give us tips on handling the props we bought, but that didn't save my red plastic multiplying ball set that slipped from my fingers during the South Houston High School Talent Show when, with sweating palms, each ball slipped from my extended hand, crashed to the floor, and split, ending my talent show career but earning me a standing ovation and howls of ridicule. Bev Bergeron, the 1996 President of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and better remembered by many as "Rebo the Clown" on Mark Wilson's televised magic show, worked in the Fun Shop in his late teens. He has shared many a story with me about the elusive and enigmatic Howard Campbell. According to Bergeron, Campbell came out of Tennessee on the train. An itinerant magician, he would stop in a community and hire a driver to take him from the station to the closest school where he would negotiate a contract for a magic show. The following week he would give the show, collect the proceeds, and move on to the next town. Campbell arrived in Houston in the 1940's and opened the Fun Shop in downtown Houston around the time he married. His wife managed the front of the shop, selling newspapers and magazines. They lived for the duration of their lives together in a suite in the Rice Hotel. Later, Campbell dropped most of the paper sales and replaced them with gag gifts and stunt props with the magic in the rear of the store. I still remember the black curtains behind the showcase in the magic section that led to the rear of the store. I always wished I could go to the back area, but I never got an invitation. I don't recall his wife. Bergeron remembers Campbell as a man who knew how to make a buck. Location was the key. Everytime he had to move his shop to accommodate downtown expansion, he always relocated closeby so that his clients were always in walking distance from the high rise office buildings. He made a lot of money around holidays, selling gag gifts to the young corporate staffers who populated the Fun Shop during their lunch breaks. Campbell always wanted to make it big in magic and attended the regional and national magic association conventions. Bergeron notes that on one occasion, after Campbell had won big in the Houston area numbers racket, he invested his winnings in suits. Prior to one convention, at least, he packed up suitcases with enough new suits so that he would have two obviously different changes of clothes each day of the convention. He wanted everyone to know he was finally "Mr. Big" in the Houston magic scene and a successful businessman. As a kid, I couldn't have known all that. Many people still living probably have even more Fun Shop stories. It would be great to hear them. All I know is that Howard Campbell inspired me to become a magician, and here at the age of 62, I owe my lingering delight and part-time career in magic to the genial old man who made me feel so special everytime I walked in the Fun Shop. I have written a short story honoring those early childhood memories, "Howard's Fun Shop," that can be found on my website at www.docsmagicshow.us The children's one-act play version premiered in October 2006 at Mountain View College in the Dallas County Community College District. I'd love to learn more about my mentor in magic. Doc Grimes