Browse:Luck Piece Hand (Volume 1, entries 2077–2079)
Luck Piece Hand
Volume 1, entries 2077–2079. Source context: THE DOCTORS AT WORK: REPORTS FROM LAYMEN → HANDS: MAGIC HELPERS. Entries listed under this heading in the source volume.
Entries
Entry 2077
I was stealing a ride on a train and as we went into the yards the railroad detective made me get down out of the train [boxcar] and they put me in jail. That was in Florida. The penalty from riding on a train is ten days. The charge was trespassing on private property, so they put me in jail in a part known as the bull pen where there were about twenty-two fellows. The fellow that slept in the bunk above me had a little disk-like of metal in his pocket. When we went to bed that night it fell from the top bunk of my bunk. I picked it up and looked at it, I lighted a cigarette, but I couldn't make it out. Next morning when I looked at it good I saw that it was something in the shape of a luck piece and I put it in my pocket and it has been with me ever since. It's hard for me to lose it. Not because I think it does any particular good. It fust stays with me. I have lost it sever- al times and each time I get it back again. I don't look for it however, it just seems to come back to me. I lost it one night and I couldn't find it anywhere. So I went home thinking I had lost it. When I went to pull my pants off I found it in the cuff of my pants. I don't know what became of the boy that dropped it. I only stayed there ten days. After I left there I came straight here [to the Atlantic Hotel, Ocean City, Maryland]. I was some weeks getting up here. The same night I entered this town I got my present job. You know what a hobo looks like, ragged and dirty. After I got here to his hotel, I had nothing like money or the shape of money, only this luck piece I found in jail. And my boss went and got me some clothes after giving me a job. Any time I want to go out at night, if I knew I was going out at night for a good time, I somewhat depend upon this luck piece. I put it in my left-hand pocket and go on and think no more about it. [I ask informant to lay luck piece on the table so that I could describe it. Since I was then using an Ediphone, not Telediphone, I had to speak into the Speaking-tube, adding the note about superstition after informant had departed:] (This luck piece is about the size of an English penny or an American dollar and being stamped out of copper [brass] with a dye classifies it as an article sold by mail-order firms catering to the superstitious. On each side of the medal, in the center and occupying.one half of the space, is a large open hand raised above the surface. The inscription on one side says HELP, HAPPINESS, PEACE, SUcCESS around the edge of the disk. In the center of the hand it says THE LUCKY HAND. Below the hand it says AND LUCK and below that IS MINE BY RIGHT. On the other side of the medal at the top I SHALL BE GUIDED BY THE HAND OF and below that THE SPIRIT. Below that LOVE IS MINE. Below that PEACE HAPPINESS PLENTY.)
Entry 2078
Course ah got something ah got up in the country that ah had made [by a doctor] wlt ai chicken breast [wishbone] on all dat. Well, ah keeps it in mah pocket all de time. Yo' wanta look at it?
[I evidently nodded yes.]
Well, ah keeps two pieces of cord all de time. Yo' see dat's to keep it [the bag from falling apart].
[He then lays a good luck medal on the table and I describe it:]
(This is a good luck coin. It's made of brass. It's a horseshoe [on this side] - says Good Luck Coin on top of it. There's a swastika in the middle and underneath the swastika a four-leaf clover. To the right of the horseshoe is a rabbit's foot and to the left is a chicken's breastbone. [My poor description will not show all readers - that horseshoe over swastika over rabbit foot is the vertical (upright), and that breastbone followed by swastika followed by rabbit foot is the horizontal (bar or beam) of a Latin cross.] Underneath is 17, 89, 19,33 [odd numbers]. There is a hole right over the top of the horseshoe where you can put on a string. On the reverse [obverse] side it says Gold Seal. It's a big 'W' and under the big "w is the number 57880 and under that is the word Award and there is a scene. This is all a seal like a red seal, stamped on the coin. That's one of them [of the two medals he hasl.) (This other one [medal] here is a huge swastika on the side, and here's a little scroll at the top of the coin that says Good Luck. In one hole [open space] of the swastika is an inverted horseshoe, in another one is the four-leaf clover, in another one is the little breastbone, and the other one looks like it might be some Egyptian hieroglyphics although they really are not. [The ancient swastika - word from Sanskirt meaning well being - has many forms but the typical form, the one used here, is the form of the Greek cross with four "arms bent at right angles all in the same direction."] Then it says on this same side, Manufactured by the Excelsior Shoe Company, Portsmouth, Ohio. On the reverse [obverse] side it says Medal, July, 1910 and there is a cowboy on a horse and it says The Excelsior Shoe for Boys.)
(Are those [two] pieces supposed to be good luck?)
Supposed to be good luck - that's right.
(You carry them when you gamble. What did you say about two grades of coins?)
Two grades of coins. Well, dere two grades of cards, yo see. Well, yo take dose two grades of coins an' whatever you have in yore hand, yo' has 'em in yore pocket. [The two grades of cards are good and bad. One lucky medal or coin can be at one time only heads or tails, good or bad, yes or no. Two medals or coins are needed.]
Entry 2079
Ah got a little somepin ah been wearin' for a good length of time an' ah haven't been broke since ah had it. Ah don't guess yo' mind lookin' at it.
(No, no - let's see it.)
(You wear this right over your heart - in this little bag - little tobacco sack. There is also a [metal] cross near it - and that's for luck, for money?) Yes sir - through life. (And this [cross] begins: Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil mam. Preserve me from the violent man.)
(That is a Psalm. Do you know what Psalm it is?)
[I wait, he does not answer.]
[I suggest] (141?)
Yes sir.
[He agrees with my error - it is 140.]
(Do you dress it in any way?)
No sir, jes'[wear it].
Luck and money are proposed by the interviewer and followed by 'Yes sir - through life.' The asserted prosperity and object details remain unverified.