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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 27, 1979)
Fire-eat\ng treshman lies on a bed of nails By KRIS WIESE Battalion Reporter He performs the usual magic tricks with rabbits, hats and rubber chickens. But Bill Lehnert, a freshman in Squadron 12, goes beyond the usual. “The Amazing William,” as he is known profes sionally, dazzles audiences with stunts such as fire-eating, lying on a bed-of-nails and an act that he calls “The Human Volcano.” Lehnert, a 20-year-old transfer student from Northern Arizona University, began studying magic at age 16 while working in a magic store in Del Rio, his hometown. The store was owned by Sheldon Parks, a Houston magician, who taught Lehnert the "tricks of the trade.” “I owe everything I know about magic to him,” Lehnert said. Lehnert, a member of the Texas Association of Magicians and the Society of American Magicians, said his shows consist of allusions, appearing and disappearing objects, and levitations. “On beauti ful young assistants, of course,” he added. The use of women in the act is known as “mis direction” among magicians, Lehnert said. “Peope concentrate on them — so, I could probably walk an elephant across the stage and nobody would notice.” Part of his act is known as “Fire and Spikes” — and logically so. First, a bed-of-nails is brought on stage which measures 4 feet by 2 feet, and con tains 1,081 8-inch spikes. To prove there is no gimmick, Lehnert said, he dropps a grapefruit onto the “prickly plank” from about 2 feet up. The grapefruit drops through the spikes, and he picks it up and sqeezes out juice for the audience to see. Now tor the part that will really make the skin. Remeber the beautiful assistants? Well, two of them stand on Lehnert’s chest. As if being “walked on” by two girls isn’t bad enough, Lehnert’s male assistant then enters the show. His job is to stack up to three cement blocks on Lehnert’s chest, and smach them with an 8 pound sledge hammer. All of this is done, Lehnert said, with no. blood and very little pain. He is able to withstand the pain, he said, because he studied yoga for a year and can “think” himself out of feeling it. Lehnert continues the show with the fire portion. He leans his head back and places a burning torch in his mouth. After about five seconds, Lehnert said, he removes that torch — flames still rising from his mouth — and replaces it with an unlit one which is immediately ignited. With this torch he proceeds to light strips of hair extending the length of this arms and down his chest. Within a minute or so the flames go out, Lernert said, and he continues with the show. Lehnert’s finale is the “The Human Volcano.” This stunt begins with Lehnert taking a “shot” of lighter fluid and holding it in his mouth. He then ignites the combustible cocktail. Then with a tre mendous burst of breath and a loud yell, Lehnert said, he “spits” a 15-25 foot ball of fire into the air. Lehnert said that the dangerous thing about this stunt is that a slight movement of air could send the flame back into his face. He stressed that all of these stunts are ex tremely dangerous and should not be attempted by anyone who does not have the training to do them. Bill Lehtman in Squadron 10 here, shows panache as he swallows a flaming torch. Photo by Ken Herrera CBs are alive and well and doin’ fine By DINA KRUMNOW Battalion Reporter The fad may be dying, but citi zen’s band radios (CB’s) are still in evidence. There are three reasons for the decline in the CB fad, according to Dr. Edward Harris, former presi dent of the Radio Emergency As sociated Citizen’s Team (REACT). Reason One: Sunspots. These are explosions on the sun which send billions of ions into the earth’s atmosphere, where they form an ionic shield. This ionic shield, located about 200 miles above the earth, reflects and deflects radio waves, some times for hundreds or thousands of miles. This defelction is “shooting skip” and makes radio communica tion on the local level almost im possible, Harris said. A unit will pick up the “skipped” messages, which are received at a higher intensity that the local mes sages, and block out local mes sages, Harris said. The normal sending distance for a CB is five to 10 miles. The best time to use a CB is late afternoon or night, the time inter ference caused by “shooting skip” is at its lowest, Harris said. The interference will not get any better for awhile, he said. “The sun is approaching its most active sunspot cycle. By the first two months of 1980, the cycles will peak at 150 per month. At the be ginning of this year, there were 85-90 cycles a month. Right now, we are having 120-130 each month.” However, this activity should die down by 1981 and “you will see a whole new interest in CB’s,” Harris said. Reason Two: The general ac ceptance of the 55 mph speed limit. The lower speed limit caused CB sales to skyrocket because people had a “general disdain for it” and the speed limit violators needed to communicate with each other, Harris said. But now that more people are obeying the limit, he said, the de pendence on CBs has declined and sales of the radio units have fallen. Reason Three: The gas shor tage. “With the gas shortage there are fewer cars on the road and less concern about tickets,” Harris said. Although CB popularity has de clined, sales of the units are steady in this area. Gary Moody, a salesman at a local CB shop, said he used to sell 10-15 units a day. Now, he sells 3-4. Moody said that very few people are buying into the CB market, be cause most people that want radios already own them. Moody said many people are now buying police radar detectors, “fuzz-busters,” instead of CBs. The detectors are set on the same radio frequency as the police radar and an alarm sounds when the car enters a radar-enforced area. This can allow the motorist to avoid speeding tickets, although many still rely on CBs for informa tion on “Smokey Bear’s” hideout. The cost of both a CB radio unit and an antenna for a car runs about $150. Some of the newer models can be installed in the car trunk to avoid theft. A “fuzz-buster” can be purchased for about $130. Ten-four, good buddy. Even though CB sales are down, they’re not out of style yet, shows Bob Fowler a junior finance major. Photo by Ken Herrera “/ wanna go home with the armadillo, good country music from Amarillo and Abilene, the friendl'st people and the purdiest wimen you've ever seen. ” APPEARING LIVE IN CONCERT G-x&xiys 4410 Col lege Main Sunday SEPT 30 8:30 - t2