Collegial Jennings: BioVlog 114 of 384

It’s another week performing at the Castle, along with Vernon and Larry Jennings, many of my riverboat and Lamb’s Players friends are also seated in the Castle Theater. 

As I demonstrate my poker, black jack and center dealing controls, Vernon, to the amusement of my pals, monopolizes the audience’s participation. 

I ask my assistant, “You shuffled this deck?”

 “Yes.” She affirms, “I did.”

 I announce, “We are going to deal a round of black jack.” I ask the audience, “How many players should we have?”

Vernon blurts out, “Five players! Five players!” 

I ask, “Which hand would you like to receive a blackjack? 

Once again Vernon yells out, “Player three. Player three!”

As I start to deal, I hear Vernon loudly say to Jennings, “Watch this Larry. Watch this!”

Vernon’s outbursts continue throughout the show; he never lets the other audience members participate. It is as if he and Jennings are the only two spectators in the theater.

To my surprise and delight, after this show, my curiously confrontational relationship with Jennings starts to mellow and becomes a warmly collegial one, so much so that Larry presents me with his latest book, and when what he wrote inside was read to me, I was in stunned shock.

“My friend, Richard Turner, in my opinion, is the finest exponent of gambling sleight-of-hand I have ever known.”