I first met author Stephen King in the early 1980s while I was hosting the annual Cerebral Palsy Telethon on Channel 7 in Bangor. These days the idea of TV telethons is simply a quaint anachronism, like flagpole sitting or marathon dance contests. But back then, these grueling endurance events were the show biz equivalent of the iron man triathlon.

True to form the Bangor UCP Telethon was an all-singing, all-dancing local ham-fest featuring crowds of "entertainers" thrust in front TV cameras on a cramped, overheated sound stage pretty much round the clock for what certainly seemed to me like the longest weekend in Christendom.

Think Glee with dozens of not-ready-for-prime-time cast members jacked up on 55 gallon drums of coffee and bushels of high fructose snack food. Yeehaw!

By the time I met him, of course, King was already about as famous as it's possible get on this planet. So I felt like a horse's aft end when my first words upon meeting him were something like: "Nice to meet you. I've never read any of your books."

Smooth move, Timmy.

Amazingly enough, he returned the following night lugging a signed copy of his latest bestseller and, despite our inauspicious start, we really hit it off.

Apparently, the psychic bond formed while acting like complete idiots for hours at a time on live TV is a powerful one, because over the next few years Steve and I developed a great friendship and wound up sharing a number of memorable adventures.

At one point in the telethon, fresh out of one-liners on live TV, with about 15 minutes to fill before the network feed kicked in, we even managed to invent a brand new auction item: Lunch with Tim Sample and Stephen King at Dysart's Truck Stop.

We pitched it feverishly to the highest bidder. "Call now before you think better of the idea!"

The sale generated some extra cash for the cause. The luncheon itself was a whole other story.

Steve King is such an unassuming and genuinely nice man that it's easy to forget that he possesses serious, thousand-watt, mega-star status.

We'd barely taken our seats at Dysart's Truck Stop when we realized our telethon winner had a hidden agenda. Arriving with an unannounced guest, he obviously hoped to parlay his "celebrity lunch" into a show biz break for his cousin the magician.

Showing up with the young Blackstone wannabe in tow struck me as more than a little presumptuous. But Steve took it in stride and, as we quickly learned, the cousin (or brother, or nephew; I forget which) was actually an astounding magician.

Everybody knows there's no such thing as real magic. I mean, it's all done with smoke and mirrors, right?

I suppose that's true. But, all these years later, I'm still at a loss to find a better explanation for what happened over burgers and fries at Dysart's that afternoon.

The magician introduced himself, produced a deck of playing cards and prevailed upon Steve to pick one. Admonishing him not to reveal his choice to anybody, the illusionist asked for a pen. I dug out a black felt-tipped marker. Steve autographed the card, returned it and proceeded to re-shuffle the deck and place it face down on the table between us.

The whole thing took maybe 90 seconds and there was simply no way anybody but Steve could have known which card he'd picked.

Just about then the waitress brought our meals and we all dug in. During lunch nobody touched that deck of cards. After plates were cleared away we sat back to see what the magician had up his sleeve.

From the inside pocket of his sport jacket he withdrew a plain white envelope passing it around for our inspection. We could all see that it was sealed tight with strips of scotch tape. The magician handed the envelope to Steve and asked him to open it. He did so, revealing the very same autographed 8 of clubs he'd drawn from the deck and signed a half hour earlier!

I was stunned! Even the usually unflappable King was impressed. We had no clue as to how the card could have migrated into the sealed envelope while we were all sitting around eating lunch looking straight at the deck of cards sitting on the table where Steve himself had put it.

Was it magic, metaphysics, a supernatural phenomenon? Who knows? All I can say with any certainty is that the absolute spookiest, weirdest, most completely unexplainable event I've ever witnessed just happened to occur while I was seated a few feet across the table from Stephen King.

Those are the facts, chummy. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.