[Among the many quoted thoughts of wisdom that Jack Woodford, a well-known writer’s guru, shared was one that became important to me. It’s where he writes about disappearing, where he says, “Keep it to yourself.” Why oh why, Jack, didn’t I keep it to myself that time?

Read about what happened to me when I should have kept it to myself.]

The Scheme

An incident occurred in Philadelphia when I was first being published as a pro writer, pen names-ish, after I had quit my government job to write full time. Also, about then, I involved myself in trying to invent a system to win at gambling, with horse racing of all things. Harness racing to be exact.

Why harness racing? Well, Meadowlands Racetrack, my target for testing this gambling system, had this style of racing and was near Philadelphia. Another aspect that made harness racing unique was how they printed the birth date of the buggy’s driver. This was a vital component in my gambling system.

During those days, biorhythms had a new surge in popularity. This cyclical theory of life was to become an important part of my horse racing gambling system (or was it more of a scheme?). I planned to find out with a track-test at Meadowlands Racetrack.

Biorhythms is based upon the date of one’s birth and three cycles: the physical cycle was every 23 days, emotional for 28 days, and mental for 33 days. These three cycles begin together at birth, cycling out over the years. Half of each cycle is above the charted medium line (positive feelings) and half below (negative feelings). The calendar for the current month (the graph) shows the position of each cycle as it cycles through that month’s days. A crisis in behavior occurs whenever a cycle goes from positive to negative; negative to positive crossing the median line. The more lines that cross together, the worse for the individual. (For a better understanding of biorhythms, explained with example, click here.)

As one could probably surmise, the math for figuring biorhythms was quite complex, and back in 1972, this had to be done on my manual calculator bought from Sears and Roebuck (I actually still have it). I had reduced the biorhythm graphs to 3 different hard copy numerical charts. This allowed me to look over a scheduled race on the racing form, and with my manual calculator, I could scope out the buggy drivers in about 10 minutes, rank possible wins with place and show positions. (Oh, what I would have given for one of today’s new fancy graphing calculators back then.)

The Con

For my writing in 1972, I was using an IBM Selectric I, and with its warranty there came emergency on-call, home-visit help from IBM. My warranty came with two semiannual home-visits by an IBM typewriter engineer for scheduled maintenance.

Upon one of these visits, I struck up a conversation with the IBM tech. His name was Patrick, about my age then, and Irish. He rowed for a scull team on the Schuylkill River, he told me. And so we chatted while he attended to my typewriter.

I mentioned my gambling system to Patrick. Of course, I gave away more details to make my explanations clearer. After this moderate explanation he asked, “Where did you get this idea?”

Patrick wanted to know all the details about biorhythms. I told him about how I studied it in great detail for my writing. “At first I made my own calendars for keeping track of good writing days and the bad writing days.”

“I never heard of biorhythms,” he mentioned after awhile.

“Well, biorhythms is old stuff, but it’s firmly based on science and was conceived to forecast one’s performance for the day. After some thought about its use, I thought of horse racing because of the nearby racetrack,” I proudly proclaimed.

Patrick said that I definitely had to go to the track. “I’ll take you,” he quickly mentioned. Of course, I agreed to go with him that evening to show off my new idea. He then made a few calls to cancel further appointments that afternoon. Once we arrived, we talked more about my efforts and mapped out the races from an advanced racing form from the nearby store.

I took with me to the racetrack all the tools for my gambling system stored in a caddy-clipboard. “There they go!” We won some, we lost some. Patrick at first was betting only place or show. After the last race, Patrick who had been scribbling on a small notepad, said, “Your system gives from a 7 percent to a 13 percent advantage. It could be better, but…”

Immediately, I understood the reason for his “but.” “I could make the system really worthwhile if only I knew the dates of birth of the horses, too.”

“But, how do we find the horses birth dates?” I asked.

“Well,” said Patrick, “That is really our big problem. Horses don’t have certificates that show their date of birth because they tell the horse’s age by looking at its teeth.”

I found out that Patrick was right about this. What a problem! All I had was the buggy driver’s date of birth found on racing forms, but the driver was just half of the equation. So, I gave up my gambling system idea and went on back to rework my novel about Hitler’s trojan horse (Rudolph Hess as the Trojan horse) and about the latent virus he carried in him when he parachuted into Scotland.

The Realization

Six months later, I was called to confirm the next IBM’s home maintenance visit. The typewriter guy said his name was Jim.

Soon Jim had my selectric’s outer shell put away and he was cleaning the platen. I asked Jim, “Where’s Patrick? He was here last time.”

“Well, Patrick had volunteered to work on the typewriters in order to spend a year in America. He’s from Ireland, you know,” the young IBM tech said.

“So Patrick finished up his sojourn in the United States and went back to Ireland,” I curiously asked.

“Oh no, he quit IBM about five months ago.”

“He quit?” I asked, now getting strangely unsettled.

“Oh yes. Patrick’s a smart lad. He invented a system to beat the horses,” said Jim, obviously envious of Patrick.

“What horses?!” I yelled, suddenly aware of my strange outburst.

Jim, now getting a little unsettled himself with my outburst and all, cautiously explained, “The ones that pull buggies, something to do with those horses’ dates of birth that he figured out.”

“How could Patrick get those dates of birth? They’re not available, no way. They tell a horse’s age by looking at his teeth.” I said as I calmly tried to cover up my obvious anger.

“Oh, Patrick was trained by IBM for more than working on their typewriters. He was fit enough to work on computers — why he first trained on the 1401’s, you know. Then 360’s. He … ”

“But those horses! I tell you no one knows the exact date when they were born!” I quickly interjected.

“Ah, but Patrick knows; if he worked for IBM, then he knew how to find out. The guys know about Patrick winning at the racetrack, the luck of the Irish, I guess! The whole section wishes they knew how Patrick does it! Yet nobody knows the complete workings of his gambling system.”

With a realization that my system was actually working, I asked, “Is Patrick winning any money?”

“Tons of money, but he says he’ll never share or patent his gambling system. He’s going to keep it all to himself.”

Why, oh why, did I not keep it to myself?

–30–