Fortune Telling

Do you believe in fortune tellers? I'm not sure if I do or not. If you have a few minutes, let me tell you some of my experiences .. one of them I think is amazing.

My beloved Aunt Marjorie once worked as a waitress in a tea shop in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Marjorie usually took me to work with her and the shop owner and customers didn't mind because I was such a cute little rascal...!!! (I was 4 years old.)

The shop owner also employed a fortune teller to read the tea leaves left in the cups. One day, the fortune teller told Marjorie that she saw something about me in the dregs of my aunt's tea cup.. she wouldn't tell her what that was and Marjorie was worried. A couple of days later, the teen-aged son of the owner, who was extremely jealous of the attention I was being given at the shop, told Marjorie that he was going to shoot me with his rifle. He warned her that he would kill her too if she told his mother. (I overheard this and was very scared.)

Of course, Marjorie related this to the fortune teller's reluctance to tell her my fortune, so she believed that this kid meant to do me deadly harm. Marjorie did not tell the boy's mother what he had said, but she did quit the job. For a couple of years after that she was very wary when she went out and was overly-protective of me. And then, one day, she got word that the boy had used his rifle to blow his own brains out. I can remember the feeling of relief I felt, as young as I was. Marjorie must have been relieved as well, because when I started Kindergarten, I was allowed to walk the 8 or 9 blocks to school without a chaperone. (At this point, my son should ask: "Was that 5 miles uphill to school and back, during raging blizzards?")

My son's mother was brought up in a French-speaking community in the north end of New Bedford and was also allowed to walk to school alone and play outside without fear. (It was a different time then.) At one time, her mother (my future mother-in-law) enrolled her in piano class. Twice a week, she would go to a local music store for lessons. However, she never learned to play more than a few basic tunes because the teacher didn't speak French and would rather let her sit at the store window with her and watch the gypsies who also had a store across the street.

She found the gypsy fortune tellers very interesting and as soon as she learned English she and a friend would have their fortunes told on a regular basis. This continued for many years. She never told me what the fortune tellers told her. Her mother, who spoke fluent English as well as French, was a life-long customer of the gypsies, and once told me and her daughter what had been recently foretold. See if you think this is amazing... it is perfectly true.

Just before my late wife and my wedding in 1957, my future mother-in-law told my fiance and me what a fortune teller had just told her.

"I see that you will be taking a long trip in the future to visit your daughter and her new baby in Baltimore, Maryland."

When we heard that we laughed and laughed. That fortune teller must be crazy.. Baltimore? We lived in Massachusetts and we knew that somewhere down south there was a place called Baltimore. I had read Mencken's classic American Language books and I knew about his involvement in the Scope's "Monkey Trial", and I knew that he lived in Baltimore. I had also, of course, heard about the famous Johns Hopkins Hospital (after all, Johns Hopkins was born in Massachusetts.) But.. having a baby in Baltimore in the future.. this was laughable.

However... four years later, in October 1961, my mother-in-law did take a trip to visit her daughter and her new baby in Baltimore, Maryland! Now.. isn't that amazing?

Over the years, I have read and studied fortune telling and recognise that there are tricks that "oracles" utilize to make people think that they can foretell the future. I have tried some of those tricks for fun with my friends. Part of the act is paying attention to the little things that people say and convey with body language. Besides, being an empath as I am, is helpful.

Once, at the Social Security Administration, my Branch Chief talked to me about a problem he was happening. We had a lot of weird people "working" in our Branch and he was having trouble relating to them. He had noticed that I seemed to get along well with all of them and he wanted to know the secret. I found him a book titled "People Reading" and I could see him studying it at his desk. (People reading is an art practiced by fortune tellers.)

He did achieve a modicum of success through his efforts and most of his charges shaped up for him. However, one of his test cases could not take the new close chummy scrutiny and one day disappeared. The Branch Chief did not want this to be a failure and kept the guy "on the books" for months, hoping that he would reappear. (Those of you who worked in SSA when I did will know who we are talking about.) The miscreant was spotted once on a New York subway, but ran away when approached.

So, what I am trying to convey is that fortune telling is mostly scam.. when you visit them, you are being "read" by your body language and casual utterances. Some predictions will also be made far into the future, because the fortune teller will have gone on to other venues by that time. Don't be scammed.. save your money. Unless you don't mind and want to have some fun in a drab life. Just be aware that fortune telling is "buncombe" as Mencken would say.

However... how the hell do you explain the Baltimore prediction?!