I had been in show business from the time that I was 12 to 13 years old professionally. My parents owned an entertainment agency. So I was a professional magician back then and when I got out of prep school, I went to college in Boston and I had been interested in hypnotism so I studied at a hypnotism center as well.

So then I was trained as a hypnotist (back then most of us were working as stage hypnotist) and also teaching. When I went to Davenport, I was able to use that and use my show business career in order to support my family in addition to the G.I. Bill when I attended Palmer School of Chiropractic.

Wes Holly was a student also at Palmer and that is how we hooked up together and decided to start working together.

My late wife was a nurse and I used to drop her off at the hospital in Davenport. I would always be early and I would park outside of the college. I would have a little portable typewriter and I would be doing my work (these are the days before computers). I found this fellow walking by. He was a short fellow and would walk by with a brisk walk. Every morning I would see him. He would nod and I would nod and suddenly I realized that this was B. J. Palmer. So the next morning I was waiting for him. I hopped out of the car and introduced myself and said that I would like to talk to him about show business. He said "Well, if you would like to talk, you gotta walk!" So we walked around the block.

He had worked with The Great Pauline at one time when he was a young man. The Great Pauline was a Vaudeville stage hypnotist. Doctor Palmer was very, very conversive. He also was a member of several magic organizations and circus organizations all of which I also belonged to. So I walked with him quite often and he was very interested in helping me out wherever he could. For example, we did a blind-fold boat drive from Davenport up to LeClaire. I was on the Circle 6 Ranch with Wes Holly to promote it. So, we had the mayor Busse come on the show and put adhesive tape, a blindfold and a hood on me on the air. An escort took me down and we had borrowed a boat from his brother who owned the little yacht club down on the river. I took the boat up through the locks and landed successfully in LeClaire. So, I got a lot of publicity out of that. Later, maybe six months or a year later, I did the Jaycees Rodeo and drove through Davenport out to the strip mall shopping center on the outskirts of town. That kept my name in the news.

We had a school assembly and the speaker was late showing up. When B.J. said it started at 9 o'clock, the doors were locked. If the speaker did not get there in time he was locked out. So he was taking questions and answers and somebody said "One of these students here does all of this blind-fold driving of cars and boats and everything, can you tell us how he does it?" B. J. said "Yes, I can." The whole room was all quiet and he said "He does it very well."

Another time there was a special program to honor his 75th birthday. Someone behind the scenes at the station did not like anything that I did for some reason. He did not like magicians, he did not like comedians, any act that I did he did not like so it seemed. I really wanted to be on that program, first of all because of B. J. and second of all because I needed the money and they were paying a talent fee. Every suggestion I gave him he turned down. He kept saying "You are not going to be on it", "You are not going to be on it". So this got me a little ticked off and I marched across the street to the mansion and I asked B.J.'s man if he was in and if I could see him. I told him who I was and why I was there. He said, oh yes, you can come right in. I went in and told him that I would really like to be on that program because first of all it is honoring you and secondly it pays a talent fee and I need the money! He picked up the phone and called over there and said "This is B. J. A young man is over here who is a very good friend of mine and you have turned down everything that he has suggested for him to do on the program to honor me and I want him on the program!" The WOC employee said, o.k. come back over here. That was very good. What transpired was not because of our friendship, because there really wasn't that much of a friendship, it was more because B. J. and I had a lot in common with the backgrounds both being in magic and the circus and other things.

In the beginning when we started out it was Wes, myself and Joy his wife. I would go out and book a hall in a small town. Usually it was upstairs above the general store. I would go out and put up posters in the city during the day. Then the three of us would go out and Wes and I would haul the electric organ that Joy would play up the stairs along with all of the other equipment. At first it was just the three of us doing the shows but as we gained popularity along came the band and then Fred Ball came along. We reached the point where I needed more money. Wes said "I can't really pay you more, I got quite a nut to crack here." I said well why don't you pay me for each act I do and he said "o.k." We arrived at a price and I got paid for each act I did. Well, we did a fair date and I did four or five acts, maybe six and I ended up getting paid probably more than the whole band put together! I did escapes, I did clowning, I did magic, I did balloon animals, I did comedy and then Fred Ball came along. Fred and I worked very well together.

Special thanks to Dwight Damon for this incredible picture of himself and Wes Holly during their WOC, Davenport, Iowa years.

I also made a deal at that time - Clarabelle from the Howdy Doody Show - Wonderbread was the sponsor of Howdy Doody at that time out of New York. I made a deal with the local Wonder Bread company to do Clarabelle appearances at our shows. So everytime I did a Clarabelle appearance at a Wes Holly Show, I got a check from Wonder Bread also! It was not that accurate of a portrail of Clarabelle because they said well, we are not going to provide the costuming and all of that, you will have to come up with something that pretty much looks like the character. However, with my background, that really wasn't that hard to do.

When I got back to New England and started up my Chiropractic practice, I got a call from Chicago and The Bozo Show was just starting to go on the air there. They wanted me to come out and talk to them about doing the Bozo Show. First of all I did not want to go back out there, second of all I did not want to go to Chicago and third I could not have afforded to go back out anyway, I had a family to raise and wanted to stay here. That Bozo Show on WGN turned out to be one of the longest running Bozo shows in the business and lasted for 25 years.

I got my practice started and it was in a small town and I was the only doctor of any kind, we did not even have a veterinarian. I was very slow at first, I think that my first month I grossed $35. I said to myself, "I can't raise a family on this kind of money... so... back to showbusiness!" I went up to the TV station here, Channel 9 in New Hampshire which was the only one in the state. It also beamed down into the Boston area. I told them that I had the experience and so forth and they needed a kid's show and I said I will tell you what, I will swap you time for talent. You give me a half-hour live on Saturday mornings and I will give you the show. Everything at that time was live, this was before tape. Anything that you sell in the show, you pay me a talent fee, anything that I sell on the show I keep and anything you sell adjacent to the show, before or after my show, I don't make a penny. That lasted a little over 17 years. Then they wanted me to start taping on Wednesday evenings but the idea of taping without kids was something that I did not want to do. So I decided to call it quits. I told them it was a good run and I will go on for two more weeks which ended 17 years. Then they changed their minds but once you make a decision on something like that then you have made your decision. It was a good run.

Sadly, no known copies of The Circle 6 Ranch that I was on with Wes Holly on WOC exists today. That was the same with my program on Channel 9. They asked me if I had any old tapes of my shows. I told them that they didn't start taping until I had been there for 15 years. They used to get taping equipment and it was the old quad tapes and they would take it and try it out for 30 days and return it to the company. We never knew if we were going to be taped or if it was going to be black & white or in color, it was kind of like radio with pictures. The experience that I had at WOC in Davenport prepared me for my career and that was interesting.

I wrote two books on ballooning (for entertainment) while I was at WOC. Today they do entirely different things with balloons but my books were based on actually doing it as an act. Now, clowns and others do it mostly with small balloons. Back then however, those books were quite a resource and they went through many printings.

Wes and I left the show and WOC at the same time. I don't recall when the show moved to Sunday's but I do recall the live band show and so I played a country character on that. We did a radio show for WOC, I played something like a Kentucky Colonel on that. Whatever it took, that is what we did. Wes and I were talking the other day about a segment where the Humane Society would bring in an animal and the kids would send in their favorite name. I remember the barn dancing show and I also recall that I played Santa Claus out at the Davenport strip mall. They built a Santa Claus house out there. So I played Santa Claus out on Wes' show. The crew there were really a bunch of comedians. I would tell them that I was going to do a magic trick and they would have to come in and do a medium shot, o.k.? They would say "why?" and I would say "because I have to get rid of the evidence". I would drop a knot I would cut off a rope or something, that was the best way to get rid of it, I would have it down below where the camera would see it and just drop it on the floor. They purposely would take a long shot or bring the camera in so I couldn't get rid of whatever it was that I couldn't get rid of. They would be laughing. This one time that I was doing Santa Claus I had this child who was sitting on my lap. This kid was so excited that he wet his pants. Of course it was all over me. These guys were just breaking up and doing everything they could to break me up. They got a cloth with water out and were ringing it out just off camera. It was a fun place to work. They were very nice guys. The station artist Ken Wagner made a great brochure for me, he made great several great brochures. Everyone at WOC was very nice and Wes and I remain in touch. Fred Ball, who was part of The Circle 6 Ranch and who did public appearances with Wes and I stays in touch. After I came back here and got back in the business, I still maintained my practice, I improved, it took a little while. I had somewhat of a dual personality. I was in show business but still maintained my chiropractic practice. Fred Ball came up from Hawaii and worked with me during the summer. So we have a really good relationship.

With the talent of Fred Ball who is a nationally known actor and has played bit parts on several TV series including Hawaii 5-0 and The Jeffersons, Wes Holly who was a national recording artist and myself, we had quite a bit of talent there at WOC on the Circle 6 Ranch. Today if we did that program, we might actually get paid money! Those were good days. We would hit towns and I remember when Fred and I first teamed up, we would go into a little town and go door to door passing out flyers about our show. We would go into an empty lot and pass the hat a couple of times. Then we had merchants sponsor us and then we had a portable stage. As a matter of fact, I have a picture, I am doing an autobiography and my daughter ran across a picture that I thought I would never see again and it was of Wes and me. Standing next to our portable stage, it was 1958 and you had to have an Iowa license plate on the stage. When I told Wes about it he was really excited to see it!

Another thing that I remember from my time at WOC TV 6. I was booked to do the tomato growers banquet in Muscatine, Iowa which is the next big town south of Davenport on the Mississippi River. There was a blizzard and the warnings were out - do not travel on the highways, the highways are closed. I called the agent and he said "no, no, these are farmers, you have got to be there, they are depending on you!" I said well, I will tell you, you are going to have to pay me in advance because I am going to have to get chains for the tires on my car. In those days that was a pretty big day, $50, compared to what you would get in Davenport which was $15, so I really wanted to play it. I put the chains on and I did not go along the river, I went on a highway that was a little bit in. The roads out there all have curves. I made it to Muscatine and played the banquet and everything went fine. He did not pay me in advance to play it but he had given me money for the chains but I collected down there so I had some money and I started back. Well along the way home, one of the chains broke. I am going along just fine and one of the chains broke and came loose and was banging on the fender. I thought man, now I better stop and get out and fix it. I did not realized it but there was black ice and I had passed a road grader who was clearing the road. So when I stepped on the breaks the car went over the curb and down into the gulley. This guy driving the road grader went by and buried me right in. Nice guy. Well, there was this farm house not too far away. I went to the farm house and it was 11 or 12 o'clock at night. I knocked on the door and the light came out and I peeked in and this farmer yelled at his wife to turn out the rest of the lights. He said I know you, you are The Great Damon from WOC! That was the magician name that I used for the events. They invited me in, gave me a cup of coffee and said that his tractor will not start and that they had a broken shovel. I called AAA and they said that they could get out there at 6 o'clock in the morning! So I went back to the car and was out there and used this broken shovel and cleared out where the plow had plowed me in. This fellow in a Chrysler came by and stopped and asked me "may I help you?" I said "well, yes." He said "do you have anything that you could attach to my bumper and I will pull you out." Before I had gone out there, I had been in the Coast Guard and had served my time and I had a hauser that for some reason I had thrown into the trailer when I moved from Iowa and I had it in the trunk of my car. I took that hauser and put it over my hitch and over the edge of his bumper. I said "I don't want to pull your bumper off". He said "Don't worry, I will honk my horn and put it in reverse and we will get it right out of there!" We did! He recognized me from television and that is why he was so friendly. I said well let me give you something. He said no, no, no. I then realized that I only had two twenty dollar bills from what I earned from the show. He said, well, if you insist. So I had to give him half of the money that I had left. That broke my heart but I was glad that I did not have to stay all night. All of this was because they recognized me from being on the air on WOC.

I was interviewed locally here and they asked me "how was it to be a TV star in those days?" because now-a-days they are all TV stars, the guys that do the weather, the guy that does the news, they are all TV stars. I told him that we didn't really feel like stars. We did it because we liked what we were doing, we enjoyed the work, we got paid and I never really thought of myself as a TV star and I don't think that Wes Holly thought of it that way either. We knew that people loved us and watched us but I don't know, it wasn't pretentious like it is in these days. Today it seems like they are more star struck. We brought a lot of fun to people.

One time on the barn dance show be had a guy whose character looked like Buffalo Bill. He was going to do a song at the end of the show. So he did his song and then the band was playing a chorus and he thought he was off camera! So he starts picking his nose! We had a crew at WOC who had a sense of humor and they stayed on him. So he did a chorus while nose picking. He then realized that he was back on camera and finished up the song. After the song it was all we could do to contain ourselves and this was all on live TV.

The bad thing about live TV when the thought of taping did not come to mind or it was not possible is the fact that none of the shows exists today. One time in New Hampshire I was called upon to do a show and I had a prior commitment to do a circus show. So we made an agreement that I would be taped and the show would air the next day. They brought in an elephant truck and many other things and the station said well we will let you do a whole hour! That was really great. I did the show and they taped it (at that particular time they had the ability to tape it). I then went to perform at the circus grounds and appeared there all day long. The first thing Sunday morning I drove back to the station and went in and said "Listen, I need the tape from yesterday from my show." There was only one man working there since it was a small station. He said "the tape? I don't know how to tell you, I had to use it, I couldn't find any tape here and I had to do a transfer of a commercial. I could have killed him. Today that would have been the only tape that we would have had from those days. Today I would have had it transferred so we could watch it. It was heartbreaking. We did find one tape that I don't even remember doing. It looks like a silent movie, it is silent. It is so rustic but at least we have that.

Recently I was at a fair which I was part of for forty-four years as Ring-A-Ding the clown and as myself. For the past twenty-four years I was the superintendent of entertainment. They suddenly decided that they wanted to do it themselves. When people found out about it, the reaction from people, the emails that I received and the phone calls were amazing. These were people who grew up watching me and then would bring their children to the fair and their grandchildren to the fair, because it reminded them of the old days. The last year that I was there, which was two years ago, I had Rex Trailer who had been at a big station in Boston and was my competitor at the time. He had a show and was a character like Wes and ironically he now does videotaping of my conventions. He was talking to his crew one time (and I consider this a compliment) "you know, you could always tell when they changed the time of Dwight's show on Saturday morning (we were opposite of each other, I had one-half hour, he had two hours) because we lost viewers during that time. I thought that was a nice thing for him to say. All those years ago we were friendly competitors and today we are still friends!

The reason that the kids shows like mine went off the air was there was a group of women, I believe they were in Newton, Massachusettes. They formed a group about the advertising. They did not want the children's entertainment host to do commercials. They campaigned and it grew into a national type thing and it killed all of the independant children's shows. Then the shows turned into things such as Sesame Street. I believe that you will receive the same response from Wes Holly and Fred Ball as you do from me. We all loved it and had a great time working together and we were all friends. Those were the good ol' days!