The Chess Match: Part 4

Dinner was the normal crazy affair at my house.  Not that everyone was going in different places, no.  In fact one of the things that my mom really insisted upon was being at dinner at the same time.  Dinner was crazy because you had 5 boys talking about what they did during the day at the same time.  Mom and Dad enjoyed the chaos.  I never realized just how much fun it was until my wife and I had four kids of our own.  Usually I was in on the conversation.  Most of the time I was involved in trying to correct all the erroneous views of my clod-head brothers who didn’t seem to know anything, well that is until I reached 18 when for some strange reason all of them and my parents suddenly became smart.

This night was different.  Even with the decibel level pretty high around the dinner table I couldn’t get Lisa off my mind.  It was strange.  I didn’t know her.  I had never seen her.  I didn’t know the first thing about her, other than she was a girl and evidently a pretty good chess player and for some strange reason she was all I thought about during dinner.  Farah Fawcette I could understand.  I knew what she looked like. But Lisa Fridell?  It didn’t make sense.

I dragged myself out of bed the next morning and got ready for school still confused about “Lisa”.  The bus pulled up and I took my usual seat next to Tony.  The confused look on my face must have been noticeable.

“Trying to figure out two plus two?” he asked with a wry smile.

“Yea, you could do it too.  You won’t even need your left hand.”

“Ha. Ha.” Came back the fake laugh.

“No, I have been thinking about Lisa.”

“Lisa Reed?” he asked with an enthusiasm I didn’t expect, “She’s pretty hot isn’t she.”

“No! I haven’t been thinking of her, though you obviously have.” I said as I stared at him.  There was a few seconds of silence as Tony turned beet red.  “no.. I was thinking about Lisa Fridell.  You know.  The one I am playing in the chess championship in two days.”

“Yea, she pretty high on the looker list too.” He answered but not with the same gusto as before. “I thought you didn’t know her!?.”

“I don’t.  That is what I don’t understand.  I don’t know the girl.  Heck! I’ve never even seen a picture of her but I can’t get her out of my mind.”

“So you got the hots for a girl you’ve never even seen.”

“No, no, no!” I answered.  Tony didn’t get it.  “No I don’t ‘the hots’ for her.  I just can’t get her or this chess match out of my mind.  More specifically I can’t get what Whiteside said out of my mind.”  I rubbed my chin with my hand as I stared at the floor.

I turned to Tony. “Is she really that smart, Tony?  Am I really going to be toast?”

“I don’t know.  I mean she is pretty smart but you don’t belong to Idiots Anonymous yourself.”

“Thanks, but I am a little worried.”

“Worried!? Worried about what?”

“Losing.  I don’t want to lose.”

“Well nobody wants to lose.”

“Yea but its so….. so… so embarrassing.  People will think I am an idiot.  I don’t want to walk around CHS being known as the village idiot.”

“I don’t know what planet you live on but nobody around here is going to think of you as the village idiot.”  He answered with a look of disbelief   “What is the worse that is going to happen to you.  They will announce that Lisa won the match on the P.A. in the morning. Ninety percent of the school won’t even know you were the opponent.  Then when the bell rings 30 seconds later and everyone head to class they won’t even remember that Lisa won the stupid chess championship.  I mean chess doesn’t quite have the sex appeal of football around her and you don’t have the notoriety of coach Bass.”

While Tony seemed to have a good head on his shoulders somehow I missed internalizing his perspective.  There was a gnawing fear growing in me about her and, ever since Tony’s evaluation of her, a strange fascination about her.  “Who was Lisa?”  Was she Goliath, Farah Fawcette or both?’ I thought.

Apparently the news of the match had gotten around the previous day.  Kim Stephens, possibly the strongest sophomore in the school, some say he could bench 500lbs, walked up to me.  “I hear you are playing Lisa Fridell for the chess championship.”

“Yes.” I responded a little suspiciously.

“Sorry to hear it.”  He said.  “I like you and I was hoping you would win.”

I actually got mad at this comment.  The anger boiled up within me and I was about to give him a piece of my mind before common sense took over and I realized that he could easily take piece of my body as well as my mind.

“Thanks.” I said not really knowing how to answer him.

The rest of the day was filled with comments like that from friends, acquaintances and some people I didn’t even know.  By now I was wondering if Lisa was Albert Einstein’s granddaughter.  It was last period, the infamous study hall, and I walked to the library where Tony and I usually tried to catch up on current events in the news papers, like Garfield and Bloom County.

I didn’t do much reading this time.

“What is this?” I thought to myself.  “Everyone seems to think I will lose.  Before this week I bet 80 percent of this school didn’t even know how to play chess and now everyone is an expert?”  As my day dream wondered the image of Lisa began to grow in my mind.  She was now nine feet tall, wearing armor and carrying a spear about the size of a pine tree.  She really did resemble my mental image of Goliath, though the face was blank.  I couldn’t seem to come up with a good one to put there.

“Hey, are you going to stay here all night or what?”  Tony asked as if he had asked this question many times before.

“What?” I asked as I was startled out of my pity party “What?”  I quickly pulled out my pocket watch.  3:13pm.  The bus would be here in less than two minutes.  “Ahh !”  I yelled forgetting to thank Tony.  Quickly I grabbed my bag and ran out to the stop hoping to get there before the bus left.  Tony sauntered behind.

We got to the stop, the bus was there but hadn’t left yet.  “Thanks Tony.”  I said as I climbed aboard.

“Sure, no problem.  Somebody has to watch out for you.  Your bright but you’d forget your head if it weren’t attached to your body.”  He chuckled.  I would have been offended if I didn’t know it was true.  I was an airhead.  The real problem is its still true.

“You still pondering Lisa?” he asked.

“You mean Goliath?” I answered still in half daydream/day-nightmare.

“Tony?” I asked  “What is she like?  I keep thinking about this match and my image of her always comes up blank.  I need to have some idea of what she is like so I won’t go crazy.”

“Lisa?”

“Yea”

“Well I don’t know her very well.”

“You know her better than I do.”

“She’s short, uh.. brunette.   with glasses.  Pretty attractive.”

“No, I mean what is she like.”

“She’s smart, as you have heard. Frankly I don’t know much else.”

“You’re not much help, other than to let me know she is cute.”  I spent the rest of the bus ride home trying to put together an image of Goliath, Einstien and Farah Fawcette.  It wasn’t real easy.

Dinner at home was normal.  Hectic, lots of talking and mom not putting up with our rude table manners.  Dad asked how the day was an everyone of the boys took there turn.  Robert was in Med school trying to set a record for the most number of days without sleep.  Philip was home that weekend from college in Chicago.  He had gone to visit his old friend, John O’kelley to watch an Atlanta Falcons game.  As usual they lost.  Stuart as usual had three dates that weekend.  Fortunately later in life he would marry the one good one from the pack.  I didn’t need to know about Sam, my younger brother.  I was at his soccer game the previous Saturday.  He spent the entire game terrorizing every other player.  He was the kind of player you hated to play against but you loved to have him on your team.  The only problem was that he wasn’t all that great at controlling his temper.

At one point during the game the ref pulled him aside to give him a yellow card.  Sam’s diplomatic response was to say, “That’s OK I’ve gotten plenty of those before.”

At which point the ref asked, “Have you gotten one of these before?” as he pulled a red card out of his pocket.  Sam was shocked and mumbled as he walked off the field.  The coach put his face in his hands and almost pulled his hair out.  That was Sam.

I was pretty quite until Dad asked me how my day was.  I went blank I couldn’t think of one thing that happened.  The only thing that came to mind was the name Lisa Fridell.  I knew Dad would want to hear something but I couldn’t think of anything to say.  Finally the words, “Lisa Fridell” came out of my mouth.  Silverware clanked, food was dropped and heads turned toward me, as my brothers heard a girl’s name come out of my mouth.  I was kind of a late bloomer and hadn’t even gone on a date up to this point in my life.  So to hear me mention girl’s name made my family curious to say the least.  Well, not really my mom and dad, more my brothers, specifically Stuart and Phillip.  It was a mistake of disastrous proportions.

Soon the old brotherly refrain started, “Punky Kid plus Karen Rich.  Punky Kid plus Karen Rich.”  My brothers had made that one up when I was about four and often played with a girl named Karen Rich.  You can guess how I got the name Punky Kid.  It didn’t matter that I had absolutely no memory of Karen Rich.  Had my brothers not sung that song at every chance they got to harass me I wouldn’t have even remembered that there even was a Karen Rich.  Sam even joined in the refrain even though he didn’t even know what the song meant.

Insult to injury.  Not only did my class mates know I was going to lose to Lisa Fridell, now my brothers were going to brand her as my girlfriend forever even though I had never met the girl.

“No! No! No!”, I don’t even know the girl.”

“Yeh right!” said Phillip as he smiled and bit into Mom’s fried chicken, which happen to be exceptional that night.

Stuart looked over at Phillip, “Punky Kid plus Lisa Fridell.  Just doesn’t have a good ring to it.”

“Yeh your right.”  Answered the elder, “Harvey, when you two get married your going to have to get her to change her name to Karen Rich.”  He and Stuart laughed out loud.

I was so mad I almost flung the mashed potatoes at them but the potatoes tasted too good.

“Quiet!” Dad said in his stern voice.  The boys shut up.  “Who is Lisa Fridell?”

“I don’t know her.” I answered as I stared at Stu and Phillip.  “But I am playing her for the chess championship of the school in a couple of days.”

“Fridell?” Dad asked, “Is that her name?”

“Yes.” I answered inquisitively.

“I think I work with her Mom.  She is an RN at the hospital.  In fact she mentioned something about her daughter being excited about a chess match at school the other day.  I didn’t realize it was with you.  I hear she is a pretty bright cookie.”

“bright cookie” was the last thing I needed to hear.  That night I had a dream about her.  (It was NOT the dream that most boys have about girls.)

Lisa was standing in a valley arrayed in her armor.  I think she had grown to 20 feet by now.  She was holding her spear, which now resembled an oak tree.  Her very short squire stood by laughing maniacally.  I didn’t see but sensed the presence of hordes of people on the slopes ready to watch the action.

I stood about 100 yards away from her on the other slope of the valley dressed in my normal school clothes and holding no weapon.

Her loud booming voice could be heard across the entire valley, “Send one man to fight me. If I win he will be my slave.  If he wins….  Well there is no need to be concerned with that.”  She then stared at me with fire in her eyes.  She raised her spear up to her head and began to spring toward me.  She pulled her arm back and was about to release the spear when I awoke.  I was breathing heavy and sweating.  At this point I wish I had never signed up for the tournament.

 

What’s the point?

Oh, Lord what calms the belly of the soul?

Each day men seek

and do not find.

Each day false idols to,

men do wrongly bind.

 

Greed eyes money,

that happiness should bring.

Lust eyes sex,

to make the soul fully sing.

 

Vigor eyes fame,

from fans that surround.

Age eyes purpose,

from the world around.

 

Yet all rings hollow

at life’s sunset.

For nothings lasts

past death’s onset.

 

So are we destined

for pain and despair?

Lord, is life beyond

hope of your repair?

 

So seem the words

of the wise old king.

Who sought those answers

away from your wing.

 

After all was said

what did he see?

After all was searched

what was the decree?

 

Fear God and obey

whatever his command.

For wholly this is

the purpose of man.

 

Happiness, wholeness

Power and delight

Reside in this.

Life’s made aright.

 

Promises he makes not

Of life trouble free.

Only that its purpose

will be fulfilled in yee.

 

For this the savior

did truly die.

Because we’re his

The apple of his eye.

 

To God be the glory.

Great things does He.

To God be the glory

Great things for me.

 

“Every time you go away….”

Sorry for repeating a story you have heard but I want to see if I can write a post one day and have it post a few days later.  The last post reminded me of when I worked as an orderly for my dad in an operating room.  A most interesting moment came when a nurse handed me a big trash bag and asked me to take it down to the incinerator.  I asked her what was in the bag at which she mater of factly replied, “A leg.”  It had just been amputated off an older gentleman who had diabetes.  As I am walking down the hall, slightly freaked out by the fact that I am carrying someone’s leg, the only thing that was going through my mind was that wonderful 80s hit, “Everytime you go away, you take a piece of you with me.”

 

“You Stab’em. We Slab’em.”

A nurse friend of mine told me that was the motto of the morgue where she used to work.

 

The Chess Match: Part 3

            “Brandy!” I yelled at my Shetland as I climbed on the bus, ”will you get out of the way of the bus!  We’ve got to get to school!”  This particular dog of ours had an irritating habit of playing chicken with the school bus most every morning.  Standing proud and erect though only just over a foot high the dumb dog would force the bus to stop.  Once the bus stopped Brandy would seem to say to himself, “I have conquered you bus!  Now in an act of great compassion I will let you pass.”  He would then walk off the road letting the bus roll by.  Looking back Mr. Atkinson, the bus driver, showed great restraint in not making a greasy spot out of that dog.  I loved that dog but as my friend Tony used to say he was about as bright as a 2 watt light bulb.

 

            I worked my way to the back of bus No. 17.  Mr. Atkinson was his usually stoically quite self.  I found a seat next to my best friend Tony Daniel, a person of unique personality and talents.  He was the first real movie buff I had ever met.  He, along with Ted Turner’s WTCG, introduced me to the world of old movies.  I eventually became a movie geek much preferring anything made prior to the early 60’s to the newer movies.  We were really very different personalities.  I was a skinny, low-key, introvert who loved sports.  Tony was a husky, flamboyant extrovert, who loved the arts.  By all accounts we had little in common but for some reason really enjoyed each other’s company.  For me he was one of the bright spots in high school.

 

            “Hey I hear you won your chess match yesterday.”  Tony greeted me.  A wave of pride swelled in me.

 

            “Yes, I did.” I was tempted to embellish my victory but decided truth was a much better idea. “I got lucky.  He made a bad mistake and I just happen to have the right piece in the right place at the right time.”

 

            “So is the next match the championship?”

 

            “Friday.  Its after school again.”

 

            “So is your mom going to pick you up?”

 

            “Yea.”

 

            “You better not forget to ask her before Friday afternoon.  Your memory isn’t exactly a steel trap, you know.”

 

            “Yea, I know.  I’ll remember, Dad!”  I answered sarcastically.

 

            “Do you know who you are playing yet?”

 

            “Not yet.  I think the other semi-final is today.  I don’t know either of the players so Friday will be the first time I play against them.”

 

            “You haven’t played them in the chess club before?”

 

            “The tournament is open to the whole school and those players were not in the club.”

 

            “Doesn’t say much for the quality of the chess club does it?”

 

            “Hey!” I said with a small amount of indignation, “ I am still a member of the chess club.  The chess club may yet claim the school title.”

 

            “Well, I hope you win.”

 

            “Thanks Tony.”  I answered him and then changed the subject.  “I saw North by Northwest last night!”

Tony’s eyes brightened, “So did you like it?”

 

“It was pretty intriguing.”  I answered.  We then vicariously entered the world of the movies for the next twenty minutes.  Professor Daniels extolled the virtues of Hitchcock to me for a while, recommending a plethora of movies to view.  I would eventually get around to seeing all of them.  Really liking some, like The Rear Window and To Catch A Thief.  Some of the others he recommended where so distasteful I cannot even recall their names now.

 

The next day in Mr. Moore’s algebra class Tony leaned over and whispered, “Did you find out who you play next week?”

 

“No,” I whispered back quietly.  I didn’t want to start a conversation because we were supposed to be doing our work.  Tony hated math so he really didn’t care.  It is not so much that I liked math is that I liked not being in trouble.  Mr. Moore was a nice teacher but like any good one he didn’t like students talking when they were supposed to be working.  Besides, Tony had already gotten on Mr. Moore’s bad side by bothering Narissa Ponder.  He tilted her desk and almost sent her crashing to the floor.  And later to the amazement of everyone started singing “Mr. Moore loves Miss Arrington”.  Miss Arrington, a tall attractive English teacher, and Mr. Moore were dating.  I am not really sure why Mr. Moore didn’t nuke Tony after that incident, maybe because it was true, but after blushing simply gave Tony the evil eye and Tony stopped.  So Tony was not exactly in Mr. Moore’s good graces now.  Mr. Moore didn’t notice me and that was fine with me at that moment.

 

“So when do you find out?” came back a whisper.

 

“Be quiet Tony!  I’m trying to do my work.”  I whispered a little too loudly.

 

“Is there anything you two gentlemen would like to discuss with the class?”  Mr. Moore said as he gave us both the evil eye.  Oh, I wanted to clobber Tony.  I had never been given the evil eye by any teacher, much less the calm Mr. Moore.

 

“No sir.” I said.

 

“Then get about your work quietly.”  Mr. Moore replied.

 

Mercifully the bell rang and we all started to file out for lunch.  We all shuffled through the line to grab something that was interesting and even edible.  After snarfing down the food we all went outside to claim our corner of the courtyard to yak until lunch was over.

 

Tony, Mark Lee, Lisa Reed and I started to engage in our favorite lunchtime activity: standing by the air conditioner next to the teacher’s lounge and bending the vanes off the unit.  It is somewhat painful to see how my conscience didn’t see much wrong with that.  I was in the middle of enjoying that when Kevin Whiteside came over.  Kevin was slightly taller than average and was somewhat of an athlete.  He kind of leaned toward the cool athlete type, though in Newnan,
Georgia that was also usually mixed in with a healthy amount of redneck.  Kevin definitely had that in him as he spit out a big wad of skoal laced spit.  “Hey, I hear you are playing Lisa Fridell for the chess championship next week.” He said to me as he prepared to ‘skoal’ a spider on the ground near us.

 

“Is she the winner of the other match?” I asked.

 

“Yeh,” Kevin looked up at me and said, “I just heard it last period.”  He stared back at the ground for a second as if thinking.  “You are going to be toast.”  He said rather matter-of-factly.

 

“Lisa Fridel!!”, interjected Tony as he laughed.  “I feel for you man.” He said as he turned to me.

 

“It’s going to be an uphill battle”, added Mark “I had her in Trig class.  She knows her stuff.”

 

“It’s not over yet.” Lisa Reed added trying to defend my mental honor, though not convincingly.  It didn’t help.  As far as my friends were concerned the match had already been played and I lost.

 

“What!?” I protested at this pre-game show analysis.

 

“Lisa is going to kill you, man.”  Kevin said

 

“How do you know that?” I replied, starting to feel slighted.

 

“You don’t know her?” He asked in some disbelief, as if her mental genius was known to the whole world.

 

“No, I’ve never heard her name.” I answered

 

“Oh man!” he said chuckling.  “She is the smartest kid around here.  She going to medical school.”

 

“

Medical
School! Yikes!” I thought to myself.  Heck I didn’t even know where I was going this weekend.  I didn’t even know if I was going to college much less graduate school.  This was more than a little intimidating.

 

“Well
Harvey,” added Tony “you gave it a good shot.”

 

“What shot? We haven’t even played the match yet!”  I was starting to get really steamed.

 

“I think you can beat her.” Mark added.  From anyone else I might have believed it but Mark was such a nice guy I knew he was just trying to cheer me up.

 

“Don’t listen to them”, added Lisa.  “I think you can do it.”  Lisa tried to sound encouraging but then added without thinking.  “I like rooting for the underdog.”

 

The bell rang.  Tony, Mark, Lisa and Kevin filed out to their next classes.  I stood there stunned for a moment.

 

“What?!!” I thought to myself.  I was still a little dumbfounded.  “Who IS this I’m playing?” I thought

 

Ring! Ring! Ring!  I heard the bell ring.  Startled, I stopped and all the previous thoughts in my mind vanished as I raced to my next class hoping the teacher wouldn’t see me come in late.

 

How not to Chat

My computer has been acting up lately, running slowly and crashing with lots of memory errors.  In an effort to fix this I recently researched some system utilities.  I happened across one vendor’s web site that offered mulitple utility programs that I thought would be helpful.  Each program had its own information page.  The first program I looked at was great but I wanted to see the features of the other programs.  When I went to exit the page for this first program (Registry Repair Pro), I was greeting with an invitation to chat with a “live agent”.  In this case the “live” chat representative was Kelly.  I thought this is great because they would be able to answer all my questions without me having to look in multiple places.  The resulting chat was so…… well judge for yourself.  I cut and pasted the whole chat because I found it interesting.

Kelly Says: Hey wait! We hate to see you go. So we’d like to offer you a 15% Discount on our Registry Repair Pro AND if you act now we will also throw in Ashampoo AntiVirus for FREE. This is a ONE TIME fee of $16.99 for both products! Simply CLICK HERE 

Kelly Says: Just type ‘HI’ or ‘Hello’ in the space below to let me know you are there. 

Kelly Says: This is a limited time offer and is only available through this chat session! So CLICK HERE to act now! 

Kelly Says: Whenever you are ready, just type ‘HI’ or ‘HELLO’ and we can get started… 

You: That is great but I have some questions about your other utilities. 

Kelly Says: With a simple click of the mouse, Registry Repair Pro, searches for invalid registry entries you can do without. Through every step of the process, you remain completely in charge – Registry Repair will never delete a file without your permission! Registry Repair is so flexible, it even allows you to specify custom registry entries to locate and erase! 

You: Registry Pro sounds great but can you tell me about your System Pro utilities? 

Kelly Says: I am authorized to offer you a 15% discount! Just CLICK HERE 

You: Thanks for the discount but can you tell me about your other programs? 

Kelly Says: The 15% is ONLY for Registry Repair Pro, the discount will show up in the checkout. CLICK HERE to get this deal right now! 

You: umm….  I heard that already.  Can you answer my question? 

Kelly Says: I am sorry to hear you are having problems. 

Kelly Says: However, I am not a Customer Service agent. You can reach one by CLICKING HERE 

You: So is there a real person on the other end of this chat? 

Kelly Says: Registry Repair Pro scans the Windows Registry and finds incorrect or obsolete information in the Registry. By fixing this obsolete information in Windows Registry, your system will run faster and error free. 

You: This is worse than the scripts that telemarketers use.  At least they are real people. 

Kelly Says: With Ashampoo AntiVirus find and kill 400,000 different kinds of threats that may be lurking on your PC! 

Kelly Says:  Key features include: Comprehensive Virus protection, Daily updates with multiple Scan Modes, Quarantine and Windows Explorer integration. 

You: I am having a conversation with a computer:( 

Kelly Says: With the growing of the Registry, it can degrade the performance of the whole system and cause many weird software problems unless you fix them. 

You: I feel like Charley brown when he got rocks in his bag for Halloween. 

Kelly Says: This is a limited time offer for the price of $16.99  that I am authorized to give you. Can I interest you in this limited time offer? 

You: I think this is going to end up on my blog.

 

The Chess Match: Part 2

The story really starts a week earlier one afternoon after school.  The chess club was sponsoring its yearly school championship match.  I say yearly but I really have no idea if it was ever held before or afterwards.  I wasn’t in the club the year before and the year after I was at a different school.  I suspect the only reason the club existed that year was that Mr. Smith, one of the teachers at CHS, wanted to start the club.  Who knows if he was in the mood to sponsor the club the next year?

 

It was 3:15pm after school in the library.  In my previous period I had study hall so I got to the room before both Mr. Smith and my opponent, whom I had never met before.  They both must have had a class because I waited for at least ten minutes.  My thoughts began to drift around to class and girls, soccer and girls, movies and girls, football and girls.  You may notice a pattern.. something always got in the way of thinking about girls.  My thoughts eventually drifted to chess and one game in particular.  It was with my dad.  He and I didn’t do too many things together but we did play chess every so often.  Dad loved to teach, no matter what activity we did together.  He was always trying explain why something worked the way it did, why Winston Churchill was the greatest leader of the 20^th century, or why the Braves couldn’t seem to win another World Series.  Dad and I had just sat down and I was getting in the mood for a nice long game.  I was white so I went first.  I thought for a moment and decided to position my defense in the way I usually did.  So out went a pawn two spaces.  Before I had even drawn my hand back to my side dad had moved the pawn in front of his King.

 

I didn’t think anything of the quickness of his move.  I was moving my pieces according to my usual defense and wasn’t really thinking about Dad.  On his next move dad quickly moved his queen out diagonally so that it was even with the pawn he had moved out previously.

 

I was starting to sense he was up to something but I didn’t know what it was.  No matter, I figured if I just concentrated on my defense he couldn’t harm me.  Bam! As quick as a gunshot he moved the bishop that was next to his king out in the only direction it could go.  He had set it up to take the pawn in front of the bishop next to my king.

 

His pieces were still on his side of the board, so I didn’t sense any danger.  I felt I needed to get my defense set before I went to attack.  And then he showed me the error of my ways when he moved his queen all the way across the board and took the pawn in front of my bishop that was next to my queen.

 

“Check mate.” He said softly.

 

I was a little startled and said “That’s not check mate.  I can take the queen with my my…”

 

I was going to say bishop when I noticed that the queen was in front of the bishop and noted that the bishop can only move diagonally.

 

“Well I can take it with my king.” I said until I noticed that in taking the queen I would then be in check by his bishop.  I was shocked.  Check mate in four moves!  I was astounded.  He had gotten me in checkmate in under five minutes.  That had to be a world record, at least for our house. Dad smiled that dadly smile they smile when they know something that you don’t.

 

“How did you do that?” I asked in disbelief.

 

“It’s called fools mate.” He said.  “Let me show you the moves.”

 

My daydream was interrupted when Mr. Smith and my opponent entered the room.  There wasn’t much ceremony.  Mr. Smith introduced us and we got down to playing the match.  There wasn’t much said.  We sat and stared at the board for a good half hour.  The quiet setting betrayed the slaughter that was going on.  I was losing men faster than an Arnold Schwartzneger movie.  My opponent was obviously a very gifted chess player.  After about 20 minutes I started to give up hope.  He had taken all the power pieces I usually use, the queen, both bishops, one rook and a knight.  It was really only a matter of time before I went the way of Napoleon at Waterloo.

 

Just when the game looked its most hopeless he made a big mistake.   He was chasing my king around my side of the board.  He would move and I would be in check.  I would make the only move I could to get out of check only to see him get me in check the very next move.  It was only a few moves before it was checkmate.  Then he made the same mistake I had made against my Dad.  He was so focused on his part of the game, trying to get me in checkmate; he forgot that I was trying to get him in checkmate.  In order to make sure that he got me in checkmate he had to make a move that didn’t leave my king in check.  So I had one free move.  I looked around to see if I could strengthen my defense and to my surprise noticed that he had left his king exposed.  His king was trapped on the right side of the last row behind a row of pawns.  His only move with the king was along that last row toward the left.  I looked to see if I could take advantage.

 

I noticed that my rook had an unobstructed path to row on which his king resided.  I checked the spot where my rook would land.  No danger there.  He wouldn’t be able to take my piece.  Then I checked if he would be able to block my rook.  A thoughtful scan of the board seemed to reveal that he wouldn’t be able to block the rook.  I sat silent scanning the board.  It seemed too easy.  Checkmate in one simple move?

 

After looking at the board again I could see no reason why it wouldn’t work and decided to give a try.  I wanted the game to be over anyway.  If it did get over soon (and the bus was late) I might still be able to catch my bus and mom wouldn’t have to drive the 20 minutes to pick me up.  So I picked up the piece and moved it to the last row.  My hand stayed on the rook for a long time as I tried to see one last time if there were any kinks in my plan.  As I could see no other I slowly removed my hand and slowly stated, “Checkmate.”

 

My opponent was in disbelief he scanned the board but quickly realized that he was indeed in checkmate.  He looked up offered his hand in congratulations and we parted.  I don’t think I ever saw him again.  Internally I was breathing a sigh of relief.  I knew I had beaten a far superior player not because I was better but because he made a silly mistake.  Though, as I thought about it I began to feel pride about my accomplishment.  I had actually made it to the championship game.  Technically I was one of the two best chess players at Central High School.  Now for a boy who didn’t perceive himself as really good in any particular activity this was a real boost.  I was Mr. Chess!  Unfortunately, the next day I would learn about Miss Chess, Lisa Fridell.

 

The Chess Match: Part 1

Many years ago I took to writing as a way of relaxing.  I am not sure why it relaxes me so much.  Especially because I’m never really satisfied with what I wrote.  But for some reason I get a real joy out of doing it.  The following is the first part of a story I wrote about a chess match that I played in during my sophomore year of high school.  I have wanted to put the story down on paper for years but never liked any of the resulting texts.  About two years ago I dermined to put it down in written form and after several days working in spare moments I came up with the following.  I still find errors in it but am pleased with the overall text.  I will post it in sections until the story is complete.  So without further delay:

 

 

The Chess Match:  Part 1

 

I am not sure why some events are burned into our memories but this one stuck in mine because it seemed like a David and Goliath story.  Only, my goliath was a gorgeous 4ft 10in brunette.  “Goliath’s” name was Lisa Fridell.  She was a smart attractive brunette in the tenth grade in Central High School.  We had never met before our meeting at the CHS chess club championship match the fall of 1981.  A couple of years later we would develop a crush on each other… unfortunately our crushes on each other never overlapped.  I don’t know if she had heard of me before that match but, boy, had I heard of her.  I had heard enough to make me sick but that is getting ahead of myself.

 

It was a warm sunny day with a slight wind, the kind of day where it was hard to find a problem, even if you went looking for one.  Tony and I sauntered out to the bus stop.   It was the same every day.  Get out at 3:00pm wait in front of the gym until 3:15pm when Mr. Atkinson would pull up bus no. 17.  Thump! went our backpacks as we dropped them on the ground and waited.

 

“On the road again..” Tony began to sing the Willie Nelson hit.  “I just can’t wait to get on the road again…”

 

I smiled.  “You know Tony, for some reason I don’t even seem to mind the country music today.  It is a good day.”

 

“Yeh” he said.  “Its good to get home.  What are you going to do this weekend?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know.  I just want to relax after the week I’ve had.”

 

“It’s been bad?” Tony asked.  I couldn’t believe he asked such a stupid question.

 

“Oh be serious!” I said.  “You know… the chess match……, Lisa Fridell and all that mess.  Surely you couldn’t have forgotten about that!?”

 

Tony smiled and was just about to say something when I blurted out, “Oh man!  I can’t believe that I’ve forgotten!  See you!”  I shouted as I grabbed my bag and ran for the library.

 

I was nervous but…  I am sorry.  I really am getting ahead of myself.

 

Go with the Flow

Ah! the days of childrens’ science projects.  As a parent I found I learned more than just science in helping my daughter with her project.  My daughter recently chose electricity as the subject of her 5th grade science project.  I must admit that I was very surprised when she told me the experiment that she wanted to run.  I am not sure what I was expecting (maybe something like having to explain that we can’t stick screwdrivers in wall sockets).  I was very surprised when she explained that she wanted to use a small electrical current to determine the conductivity of water with different materials dissolved in the water.  She explained how she wanted make a circuit with a battery, a small light and a bowl of water, which would be changed for each material that she wanted to test.  She was planning to observe the brightness of the lightbulb to determine the conductivity of the water.  She even had a clever name for the project, “A Bright Idea.”  I was dumbfounded that my 5th grade daughter came up with this all by herself.

This is the same girl that can’t stand to go into Home Depot because of the smell and whose favorite activity is shoe shopping.  Now she is telling me not only how to construct electric circuits but also practical applications of those circuits.  I was …. well I don’t really have a word for it but it is some sort of mixture of surprise, disbelief and mostly pride.  My little girl does work hard at school and for all her girlishness she learns a lot and it shows.

Anyway, it gave me a great chance to breakout an electric lab kit that I had picked up a year or so ago from another electrical engineer wannabee who never used it.  Ruth Ann and I used it to put together a circuit and test the water.  I did explain to her it would be better to use a meter instead of a lightbulb to determine the current flow through the water because it would be easier to measure.  We had fun and I learned a lot about electricity …. and even more about my daughter.

 Oh, I like my daughter’s second title for the project even better, “Go with the Flow.”