The Longest Winter

We lost something special when Marilyn passed away last week.

  I’m getting kind of sick of people dying. My stepmother-in-law Penni has been in poor health for years with diabetes and no immune system to speak of. Three weeks ago she was in the hospital recovering from one of her many illnesses when her brain just stopped functioning. She was kept alive for a few days while relatives flew to South Carolina to say their goodbyes and went quickly once the plug was pulled. Penni was 70. Kathy went to South Carolina for the funeral while I worked and stayed home with the beagles.

  Two weeks ago longtime chess player and organizer Roger from Ames passed away. I wrote about Roger last week and don’t want to repeat myself except to say I liked and respected Roger and he was 77 when he passed. I hadn’t seen Roger or Penni in a number of years and while their passing was a shock it was not something that impacted me very much. Yes that does sound cruel but it is just the way it is and I can’t recall if I’ve seen anything different in anyone I’ve ever known (although not many will admit to it).

  I’ve written in the past about my neighbors Bill and Marilyn from down the block, their daughter Becky, and their Cairn Terrier Abby. When Kathy and I take Daisy and Baxter on their nightly walks if the weather is warm enough we would see them on their front porch and visit for a half hour or more. Bill and Marilyn are in their 90’s so we don’t see them outside unless the weather is very warm. I dislike winter but I figure that if I could get to March I had it made because any snowstorms or freezing weather would be fleeting and it would only be a few weeks before the weather would be warm enough to hang out with Bill and Marilyn which is how I knew winter was over.

  Now when people are in their 90’s making it through the winter is not a sure thing. Over the past 20 years I’ve seen Bill go from walking his Cairn terrier and driving Marilyn and Becky around town to walking his dog with the help of a cane to not being able to drive and having to use a walker to even get to the front porch. And I’ve seen Marilyn rip the skin from her arm from scraping it against a door and then watch it take all summer to heal. But every winter they made it through and every summer we would visit on their front porch.

  This last winter was a rough one for Marilyn. She was in and out of the hospital and we saw the sign outside their house saying there was no smoking because oxygen was in use. Needing oxygen is rarely a good sign but in the last few weeks Kathy and I saw her sitting in her living room waving to us as we walked the dogs past and the oxygen sign went away. Last month Becky let Daisy and Baxter in so Marilyn could pet them. It’s always fun seeing Marilyn’s delight at seeing Daisy and Baxter in the winter. We would hold them up and she would beam as she petted each of them and say ‘You remember me, don’t you?’ Daisy will let anyone pet her and Baxter is standoffish to strangers but Baxter would always let Bill and Marilyn pet him. I had a standoffish relationship with both my grandmothers (especially my dad’s mom who didn’t speak English) but Marilyn reminded me of the idealized sort of grandmothers I would read and hear about – mostly cheerful, mostly wise, and always kind.

  Two weeks ago the oxygen sign returned to Bill and Marilyn’s house and then the Saturday before last when we were taking Daisy and Baxter on their noon walk we saw a funeral home car parked on Bill and Marilyn’s block. We didn’t know what was going bit we had our suspicions and tried to make up a scenario that the funeral home car was just making a cold call or was there for the sick guy that we knew lived across the street. We went about our afternoon but at 4 we got a call from Becky telling us that Marilyn has passed away that morning at home. We went over and hung out with Becky and Bill who told us that Marilyn hadn’t been doing very well for the past week and just couldn’t breathe anymore.

  Becky went out to get dinner and Kathy and I stayed with Bill who told us both he and Marilyn wanted to go first so they wouldn’t have to live without each other. We talked a bit and Becky came back with their dinner so we left. On Tuesday we went to the funeral/memorial service. I don’t go to a lot of funerals but I did go to this one which was about as depressing as I expected. Marilyn was all dressed up, made up, and fixed up for the viewing. One of the relatives marveled at how good she looked and asked my opinion. I felt like saying she looked better a couple of weeks ago but I knew that wouldn’t be a good thing to say which is a big part of why I hardly ever go to funerals. There was a slide show with pictures of Bill and Marilyn all through their lives and some people talked about Marilyn and Bill and this life and the next life. There were a couple of songs (one of which was ‘Happy Trails’) and the ceremony was over.

  Marilyn’s passing bothered me more than the death of any person for at least 30 years and that includes both my parents. I wondered about why that is and I’ve come to the conclusion that it is because her life and death had an impact on me every day. We’ve walked Daisy and Baxter a couple of dozen times past Bill and Marilyn’s house in the past weeks and it just isn’t the same knowing that Marilyn won’t be on the couch waving to the beagles or having us bring them into the house for her to pet them. And I’m not even especially looking forward to winter being over as much. I’m sure we’ll still hang out with Bill and Becky and Abbey but it won’t be the same. Left unspoken is how Bill will handle being without his wife of 73 years. The whole thing is a bummer and while I thought I’d feel better after writing this I don’t feel any different than I did when I started writing this a week ago - I’m getting kind of sick of people dying.

Marilyn chose Happy Trails to be played at her funeral. I haven't thought much about my funeral's playlist but this Johnny Cash song would be a front runner...

...while this Bob Dylan tune would be near the end of the list

An Interesting Month

  It’s been a busy month in Marshalltown Iowa – the All-American city I call home. The last time I wrote about Marshalltown concerned the controversy surrounding the suspension of a high school football player for three games after pictures were posted on social media of him making a ‘White Power’ W hand gesture. The lawsuit is proceeding apace, the suspension was reduced to two games by the Iowa High School Athletic Association (don’t ask me why), and High School Principal Aiddy Phomvisay has tendered his resignation to take a job with the Des Moines school district as the assistant director of the Central Campus. Phomvisay had been absent for months from his principal duties and if the Central Campus has a football team I hope for his sake he has learned from his Marshalltown experiences and will not cross swords with King Football anymore.

  Last month Vince at the Jiffy was robbed at knifepoint while working the overnight shift. Convenience store clerks are trained to put their large bills in a drop safe so the robber only got a little bit of money and as many cigarettes as he could carry out. Four days later the Kum & Go convenience store got robbed by the same people but this time the crook and his accomplice were caught and arrested. There’s a robbery in the local convenience stores every couple of years but this one was different because the criminals (the robber and his getaway girlfriend) were caught.

  In last year’s post I mentioned how Marshalltown was at the top of the Google search rankings for ‘Iowa Corpse Abuse’ and now the town has another top Google rank – this time for ‘Iowa dousing people with gasoline’. On January 14th, Eddie De Los Santos was having a domestic disturbance with his girlfriend and her mother when he doused them with gasoline and set them on fire which unsurprisingly caused a fire in the apartment building less than half a mile from my house. De Los Santos is currently in custody and many of the convenience stores in town have cans set up for donations for the burn victims.

You'll know your town is going downhill when the shootings DON'T make the news...

  Those cans didn’t last very long as they were soon replaced by cans soliciting donations for Dedrikk Fisher, a 20 year old man who was shot to death on January 18th on the 1200 block of W. Church Street, a very far away mile and a half from my home. There was a candlelight vigil for Fisher and the suspect (Jose Morales) was swiftly identified and a city wide hunt was on for him. Marshalltown has a few murders every year. I don’t think too much about the crime rate in town. I’ve been parking my car on the street for the past 20 years and once got a bb dent in a door. My neighbor’s house to the south was broken four years ago but I think that was by someone they knew based on the people that were hanging around their kids and that a window was broken and a game system stolen within a few minutes. I’m not saying that I leave my doors and windows open and unlocked when I not home but getting my car windows broken in New Jersey was a every couple of year occurrence and murders rarely made the front page of the paper so I don’t think too much of a couple of murders or robberies.

I went to get my mail and a SWAT party broke out up the block...

  I was working at home on Thursday. I was on the phone with a customer around 3pm and walked out the front door to check the mail. There was no mail but there was a roadblock on the corner and some police cars and one of those camouflage SWAT trucks. The customer on the phone was from Iowa and knew all about the recent news and wanted me to send him a picture of the roadblock. I took a couple of pictures and posted them to Facebook and went back to work.

  At 5pm when Kathy and I went out to take Daisy and Baxter for their walk the street was still cordoned off and there was over 100 people hanging out by the roadblocks. People of all ages, races, languages, and religions were talking to each other like old friends speculating about what was going on and what was going to happen next. There were cars parked on both sides of the street for blocks. Everyone thought that the suspected murderer was holed up in one of the houses but I suggested that maybe someone stole Marshalltown’s All-American City awards and the SWAT team was needed to get it back.

Who needs cable when you have this kind of entertainment up the street?

  I had a meeting at 6:30. When I went to leave the street was still cordoned off and even more people were hanging around. I didn’t want to lose the parking space in front of my house so I slipped down the alleyway and took my Kia Rio out of the garage for a rare trip around town. When I got back an hour later I could hear popping sounds coming from up the block. It sounded a lot more like the machines at the ball games that shoot hot dogs and t-shirts into the crowd than gunfire so I assumed that teargas canisters were being fired. When I got to the front of the house the same crowd was still there talking about whether they could smell the teargas or not so I knew my guess was right.

  The story in the paper the next day said that 30 tear gas canisters were fired into the house up the block at 514 N Center St but Jose Morales was not found in the house. Morales was arrested the next day on the south side of town. So that was the month in Marshalltown and it was all pretty depressing except for the impromptu block party that broke out during the SWAT raid up the block. It was such a busy month that I never even got the chance to talk about the police shooting and killing of an armed man down the block from the Jiffy the week before Christmas. This was during the height of concern over police shootings in Ferguson, Cleveland, and New York but once it was determined the victim was armed and not a minority it became old news quickly.

My Kind of Town

  Marshalltown made national news headlines 2 weeks ago when the parents of high school junior Blair Van Staalduine publicized the news that their son had been suspended for the first three football games of his senior season for appearing in a social media picture dressed from head to toe in white clothing making the letter ‘W’ with his hands. The Van Staalduine’s say that Marshalltown High School Principal Aiddy Phomvisay concluded that the ‘W’ symbol in the picture was a ‘white pride’ symbol instead of standing for the ‘W’ as in the white clothing their son was dressed in as the school requested for ‘spirit week’.

  The story was first picked up by the local paper and then by Des Moines WHO-TV. Since the school district does not discuss matters of student discipline publicly the stories are told entirely from the Van Staalduine’s point of view. The father (Jerry) claimed that in a meeting with principal Phomvisay he was told that they were stupid and naïve to think that their son was not a racist. In the TV interview, the mother (Cathy) claimed that she was afraid that if Blair was falsely labelled as a racist he would have difficulty getting in a good college and hurt his scholarship chances. The parents have threatened to sue the school district unless the suspension is reversed and they receive an apology from Phomvisay.

Got the letter down pat...
but why isn't he dressed in white?

  The publicity this story received exploded when Yahoo News picked up the story (you can read it here) as written by the highly conservative website ‘The Daily Caller’. As expected, the Daily Caller put their own spin on the story, mentioning that they couldn’t imagine what ‘W’ symbol could be construed as racist and noting that the ‘quintessential small-town hamlet was 85% white and less than 3 percent black’ according to the 2010 census (not mentioning that the same census showed 24.1% of the population claiming to be Latino or Hispanic or that the public school population is 45% white according to www.schooldigger.com) or that two thirds of the students in the 'hamlet' receive free or reduced lunches. The website called ‘thefederalistpapers.org’ published Phomvisay’s email address and invited their readers to email their thoughts on this issue to him. A website called ‘angrywhitedude.com’ made the story the subject of their Question of the Day and asked their readers if they would sue the school district. A search of Blair Van Staalduine will come up with dozens of similar articles and blog posts on this topic.

  There are a number of odd things about this story. If Cathy Van Staalduine didn’t want her son’s scholarship and college opportunities hurt by being ‘falsely labelled a racist’ why did the family publicize this story? No one knew that Van Staalduine had even been suspended for three football games, never mind what for. And having brought the matter into the public eye, why was the offending picture not made public also? The explanation was that the family was ‘saving the picture for the lawsuit’ but if the goal was to put public pressure on the school district for a reversal of the suspension and get an apology, wouldn't making the picture public helped towards that goal and how would making the picture public hurt the lawsuit? I asked a lot of students if there was a ‘W’ symbol that stood for ‘White Power’ or ‘White Pride’ or ‘White Whatever’ and was told that the ‘W’ probably stood for the white clothing Van Staalduine was asked to wear. I was also told that the swimming team (that Van Staalduine is a member of) has a habit of shouting “White Power” during their meets. I was also told that the girls swimming team was specifically told not to make a ‘W’ sign with their hands this year. And just to confuse matters, someone told me there was an African-American student in the alleged social media picture making the same ‘W’.

  I don’t understand why the Marshalltown School District is monitoring any student’s social media in the first place. I read the student handbook (Click here and you can read it also!) and the section on student conduct is very vague. There is a mention of ‘Display of racial bigotry, intolerance, etc.’ being a violation but no specific examples. The reach of where a violation of student conduct can occur is equally vague. “Conduct of students away from the school grounds is subject to school discipline if it directly affects the good order, efficiency, management or welfare of the school and its activities.” There is nothing specifically mentioning social media and certainly nothing about making a ‘W’ with one’s hands. Could a student that gives someone the finger while driving or wears pants so low the beltline is at the thighs or uses a bad word on Facebook be seen as being a poor reflection on the school and thus directly affecting the welfare of the school and therefore subject to discipline? According to these guidelines not only could those be violations but even criticizing any of those actions could be perceived as racist, bigoted, or intolerant and a violation as well. I originally thought that a lawsuit against the school disciplinary policy wouldn’t have a chance but with guidelines so vague that every disciplinary action is a subjective action I think a competent lawyer would have a decent chance of getting Van Staalduine’s football suspension lifted.

  The actual incident doesn't have a lot of interest for me but the media reaction has been fascinating. Right now the right wing media is having a field day with the story of the young white athlete being suspended from the football team after being told to wear white and happening to make the letter ‘W’ with his hands but if the case goes to court and the suspension is overturned or if the school voluntarily reduces or reverses the suspension I expect the left-wing media will research every utterance and post starting with the Van Staalduine family and circling outward until they have enough material to have their own field day writing about the racist-tolerant ‘quintessential small-town hamlet’ of Marshalltown and making Principal Phomvisay the victim.

  The situation had led to a lot of unwanted attention and could have been prevented at a number of points from the children not being told to wear a particular color to the children not making ‘W’ symbols to the adults having specific examples of forbidden hand symbols listed in the student handbook to Principal Phomvisay assigning detention or diversity training as opposed to the football suspension to the parents not using the media to publicize their frustration and just getting on with their lawsuit.

  I don’t know whether Phomvisay is a good principal or not but he has proven to be a gifted fundraiser, having helped garner 2.5 million dollars towards the renovation of the sports activity center/auditorium known as the 'Roundhouse' and grants for a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math center) center as part of Project Lead the Way. He was also named 2014 School Administrators of Iowa Secondary Principal of the Year. I can’t imagine he foresaw this kind of reaction to the suspension. Without knowing if there is a history between Phomvisay and the Van Staalduines the suspension of the student for three football games seems to be an overreaction. If Phomvisay met with Van Staalduine’s parents without videotaping it or having a witness that was a grave tactical error since he cannot discuss what was said but the parents can put any spin on the discussion they want and paint him however they like. As innocent or racist or juvenile making a had sign with the letter ‘W’ was I think asking students to wear white or red or blue to show school spirit is equally juvenile. If Van Staalduine had been suspended for three swim meets I don’t think this story would have had legs but there is something about football that makes small towns go crazy and I imagine that Phomvisay underestimated the reaction to messing with king football. With his fundraising prowess and award Phomvisay will be able to pick and choose from a number of school districts that would be delighted to have him and I can’t see him staying in Marshalltown for very long. I can't imagine the there not being hard feelings no matter how this plays out and I suspect his fund raising abilities to be hampered as a result.

  Marshalltown received the All-American City award granted by the National Civic League in 2012 and was a finalist in 2014. I don’t think that this incident will hurt the town’s chances of being in the running in future years and it may even help since standing up against racism, bigotry, and intolerance are always popular social causes for these type of awards. The town’s ‘Not In Our Town’ campaign was widely lauded as a model for for other towns to follow. In fact, this entire incident may turn out to be a blessing in disguise by placing some of the towns other 'attributes' in the background.

  Aside from being an All-American City in 2012, did you know Marshalltown is the corpse abuse capital of Iowa? Just google the words ‘Iowa corpse abuse’ and right below the legal definition of corpse abuse is the news story from February conviction of Jeremy Gartin of murdering David Warnell at 502 North 4th Avenue (3 blocks away from the Kum & Go we take Daisy and Baxter for their beef stick treats) in an apparent drug deal gone bad. After shooting the victim in the head, Gartin and accomplice Max Nelson were either high on meth or had just watched an episode of CSI when they decided to hack off his teeth, fingertips, and tattoos in order to render the body unidentifiable. After calling the garbage company to verify the trash would be picked up that day, the body parts, bloody clothes, etc…, were put in garbage bags and left to be picked up, but in an ending straight out of Criminal Minds, the police beat the garbage company to the scene, the body parts were recovered, and the arrests were made.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...When a wacko drives through your porch, make a wind break!

  And if corpse abuse wasn't enough to put Marshalltown on the map, we may also be Iowa's leader in porch abuse. Detailed statistics aren't kept on porch abuse but in April Jason Collins ran his car into his ex-wife's house and car and while he was at it decided to lop off the porches of two other neighboring houses to complete his 'triple play'. This happened just two blocks from my house and I got to see the results of Collin's porch rage when I walked Daisy and Baxter every few days. One porch was fixed right away but the other porch's roof was set up as a combination wind-break/privacy fence. This story didn't have near the legs of the 'W' story or the corpse abuse story which to me shows that there is a niche market for a porch abuse advocacy group that is waiting to be filled to raise the visibility of porch abuse in the social consciousness and to make people aware of this growing problem.

  When I lived in New Jersey I’m not sure which town was the leader in corpse abuse or porch abuse but in Iowa there is no doubt it is Marshalltown - that quintessential small-town hamlet I call home. When you live in the corpse and porch abuse capitals of the state I just can’t take some kid making a ‘W’ with hands very seriously. I’m hopeful the judges for the All-American City awards feel the same way.

What I would tell my past self from the future

“And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.” (Luke 9:5)

“It ain’t over till it’s over” Yogi Berra

  I watched the movie ’12 Monkeys’ on Sunday night. It was an amazing movie with some of the same time travel concepts as ‘Looper’ with people from the future heading into the past to alter the present which will affect their present which is in the future since they are in the past but will be the present once they return to the future…I’m sure you get the idea. The movie got me thinking about what I would tell my past self if I could go back in time and what I would like to be told when I was younger and I came up with the two quotes at the top of the post.

  In the first quote, Jesus tells his apostles that as they go forth to spread the gospel that this they shouldn’t even retain a speck of dust on their feet of those who reject what they say. Matthew:10:14 says ‘It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city’. When I hear this phrase used in a biblical context it is generally used by people who are believers as a reason to avoid non-believers or at least believers who don’t believe like they believe.

  I don’t try to judge people on whether they believe like I believe and I don’t try to avoid anyone because of it in any case. What I get from this verse is that if people don’t want you around (‘not receive you’) the best thing to do is get away from them, get far away from them, and stay far away from them (‘shake off the very dust from your feet’). The other practical advice I get from this verse is that when you’re done with an activity or a group or a job (with or without recriminations) make a clean break, shake the dust off your feet, and get on down the road to the next city or adventure.

  At first blush, the second quote may not seem to be a match to the first one but to me they are very compatible. While the first quote tells me to make a clean break when I’m done or not wanted, the Yogism tells me that as long as you are involved in the group or activity you are obligated to give your best effort because ‘it ain’t over’. One of Yogi’s less quoted sayings is ‘But when it’s over, it’s over!’ and that’s where everything comes together for me – when it’s not over do the best you can and when it’s over shake the dust from your feet and move on.

  I didn’t learn this by reading or thinking – I learned this by experience. When I got fired from my job at the Roy Rogers fast food restaurant (a long story for another day), I used to head over to the restaurant after I got done with my new job to hang out with my old friends. What it took me quite a while to realize was that these were indeed my old friends and that it made them uncomfortable to have me at their place of work since I was no longer one of the gang. It was over and I didn’t recognize it. Since then I can count on one hand the times I visited a place I used to work after I stopped working there. I’ll have lunch or emails with an old co-worker or even take an old employer’s money for doing some work but I don’t visit because I don’t belong there anymore.

  My friend Keith was laid off by the Salvation Army last week. Keith was the at-risk youth director and ran the thrift store among many other functions. I don’t know why he was let go but I do know the Salvation Army was short of their fundraising goals and there was talk of reducing staff if they didn’t reach it. Keith had been on the job for eight years and for a lot of people he was the face of the Salvation Army. He was who I talked to when I wanted to hold a tournament or the alarm wasn’t set or I needed anything else. Everyone was in shock when they heard but none more so than Keith was both times I saw him while he was cleaning out his office during chess club.

  Aside from being in shock, Keith seemed more worried with how things would run without him than what his next job would be. He told me that he went to the store over the weekend because the staff didn’t know how to operate the machine that bales the donated clothes and some other equipment.

  I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the years about situations where they want to leave their job or stop some volunteer effort but feel duty bound to continue because they have skills and knowledge that aren’t easily replaced. Over the years I’ve honed my answer to a fine point and I told Keith what I’d tell anyone : “If you got hit by a truck tomorrow and died do you think the thrift shop wouldn’t open and they’d tell their customers that Keith got hit by a truck so we have to go out of business? No! They would keep going. It wouldn’t be easy and they wouldn’t know how to do a lot of things and they would make a ton of mistakes. But they would muddle through all their mistakes and keep going because they wouldn’t have a choice”. I think Keith took what I had to say in the spirit that it was offered and I know he is going to find a place to continue his work with at-risk youth because that’s what he is driven to do.

  I’m sure Keith would have liked more than a week’s time to transition and pass on his knowledge. I think a clean break is the best kind of break and the gaps in knowledge will be quickly filled in. I designed and laid out our church’s newsletter for eight years and when I decided to stop doing it (in the face of some criticism). I sent an email saying that the issue I had just completed would be my last and invited no discussion on the subject. That was four years ago and if I had offered to stay on until someone else stepped up to take on the task I have no doubt that I’d still be putting it together. But someone did step up and the newsletter is still being published.

  So these are the two things I would tell myself if I could go back in time like Bruce Willis did in ’12 Monkeys’. I don’t know which is more implausible: whether I could ever go back in time or whether my past self would actually listen.

  Normally this is the part of my blog where I'd show off a one-minute chess game I'd recently won and make a joke about wanting to tell my past self about this game and I would except that I've given up one-minute chess for Lent. I haven't given up chess for Lent and have been following the Reykjavik Open in far away Iceland. If you remembered that I wrote about International Master John Bartholomew's incredible play last year (here is the post) you've earned some Broken Pawn bonus points! John isn't at Reykjavik this year but I have been able to follow the games of two other players whose have very bright futures : World 10-year old champion Awonder Liang from Madison Wisconsin who played in Okoboji last year and Marshalltown last month and will be at Okoboji again in April and Richard Rapport from Hungary, the world's top rated player under the age of 18. With one round to go, Awonder has 4 wins, 4 losses, and one draw and is playing to his status as a FIDE master. In this game Awonder accepts wrecked pawns in return for a central pawn majority and continually grinds his opponent until he gets a winning endgame:

pgn4web chessboards courtesy of pgn4web.casaschi.net

  Rapport has an energetic playing style and is constantly searching for active piece play. Rapport lost on the top board to tournament leader Chao Li yesterday but held to his uncompromising style even when playing for the tournament lead. Here are two of his wins:

See Food

What's more offensive? The frog legs themselves or the fact that they are a product of China yet the freezer holding them proclaims it contains 'Delectable seafood from Southern Louisiana'! Is there deception afoot or has China purchased Louisiana?

  Almost every Saturday I don’t have a chess tournament, I go on an expedition with Kathy to the Salvation Army Thrift Store, the Goodwill Store, and occasionally the Jonathan House thrift store that benefits an orphanage in Sierra Leone. Kathy looks for Christmas candles to add to her collection (700+ and counting) and I just poke around looking at the old books, movies, and music.

  The merchandise from the Goodwill comes to them in a big truck, but the Jonathon House and Salvation Army take donated merchandise from town and sell it in their stores. Every once in a while one of the stores will have a box of music or books that haven’t been put on their shelves yet. Last week I saw a big box of records at the Jonathon House. They were all country music records from the 1960’s and 1970’s. The first record was a Roy Clark album recorded live from the old Austin City Limits TV show (You may remember Roy Clark as one of the guitar playing jokesters on Hee-Haw) and right behind it were country music records from many of the stars of the time. Once at the Salvation Army I saw an entire box of records of easy listening music. Robert Goulet, Rosemary Clooney, Dean Martin, etc…

  Vinyl records are part of a long-ago past (although they are making a comeback of sorts). These records were likely dropped off by the family of someone who had died or had been committed to a nursing home. I often wonder what the owner of a box of 8-track tapes or records would think of them sitting on sale in a thrift store for pennies on the dollars. I have over a thousand records from my younger days and I can’t imagine giving them away even though I haven’t listened to any of them in at least ten years. Some of my records have collectible value (picture discs, 45 picture sleeves, etc.) and I even have the Rolling Stones album ‘Some Girls’ with the original cover that had to be replaced when they were sued by many of the celebrities who graced the original cover without permission. But the fact is anyone who wants my records probably just has to outlive me and then head to the nearest thrift store a few weeks later.

  In between going to the thrift stores we went to the Hy-Vee grocery store to pick up a birthday cake for Ben, who turned 17 on Saturday. After picking up the cake, we walked through the store and there was a freezer labeled as a ‘Cajun Fest’, containing all sorts of goodies from the Bayou. My curiosity was piqued and I wandered over to the freezer.

 
Alligator...eww

  The freezer had all sorts of odd meats. I saw breaded catfish, crawfish, catfish nuggets, alligator, and frog legs. I’m not much of a fish eater. The thought of eating catfish and crawfish doesn’t whet my appetite. The idea of reducing the alligator population appealed to me somewhat, but I didn’t enjoy the alligator dinner I had in July so passed on that. Besides, the alligator patty packages mentioned that the alligators were farm raised and having seen Planet of The Apes, I didn’t want to support the idea of some farm raising all these alligators who may escape and take over the world someday.

  That left the frog legs. Kathy had never seen frog legs in a supermarket meat case before and was completely disgusted by the sight of them. I had a plate of fried frog legs in Syracuse at a chess tournament almost 30 years ago and as I recall, they were fairly tasty. I’m no frog expert, but these looked to be very muscular frogs and the thought crossed my mind that they may have been genetically modified. I felt kind of sorry for the poor frogs. They had obviously grown to a healthy size only to be unceremoniously (Maybe there was a ceremony – I wasn’t there) chopped in half, skinned, and wrapped in plastic as part of a Cajun food display. Despite that, I was still thinking about getting the frog legs but then I saw the three magic words – PRODUCT OF CHINA. That did it for me. I decided to make a stand for truth, justice, and the American Way and passed on the frog legs. Shame on Hy-Vee for pitching Chinese frog legs in a freezer meant to celebrate Cajun foods from Southern Louisiana.

 
Frostbitten Strawberries!

  After we left the Hy-Vee, we made our way south to the Goodwill store and then headed back home, making our final stop at the Hy-Vee Drug Store. The store used to be called Drug Town, but I think they had to change the name when the new to town drug dealers would head there to restock.

  Not only is the Hy-Vee Drug Store a full service pharmacy, it also has a post office, sells lottery tickets, and sells regular food as well as close out food from the Hy-Vee supermarkets. Last year I wrote about how I got apple juice for $1.16 a gallon and 15 stick packs of Wrigley gum for 44 cents there. Every week when we get to the Hy-Vee Drug store, we walk around the store and I always make sure to see how much frost has accumulated on the ancient containers of frozen strawberries.

Paydirt!

  As we walked through the store, there was a big display of Chicken of the Sea Coastal Cuisine at the end of one aisle. It is a box with a sealed pouch of rice and a sealed pouch of Tuna mixed with one of four flavors (Tuna in a Teriyaki Sauce, Tuna in Tomato Herb Sauce, Tuna in a Ginger Sauce, and Tuna in a Light Pineapple Sauce). I’d purchased the Pineapple Sauce variety the week before and not only did it taste good, it only took two minutes to make, and best of all only cost a dollar!

  I love a bargain and at a dollar for each meal of 400 to 500 calories, this certainly qualified. I bought eight boxes of Coastal Cuisine, making sure to get some of every coastal flavor. Even though they are a ‘Product of Thailand’, they’re labeled as ‘Coastal Cuisine’ which at least sounds international and not pretending to be from the Bayou.

You don't have to take my word for how easy Chicken of the Sea Coastal Cuisine tastes or how easy it is to prepare. You can see for yourself!

A special relationship

  Every weeknight, Kathy and I take Daisy and Baxter for a walk 3 blocks towards downtown and then we head north. One our way back, we pass an empty building right across the street from the Salvation Army building that used to house a local internet provider. The last couple of months there was a sign saying the area was planning on being rezoned with a number to call for questions.

  I had heard that a microbrewery wanted to open there I didn’t think too much about it. I thought that a brewery would just make beer and bring it to the bars where it would be consumed. This week I saw in the local paper that the rezoning had been approved and a microbrewery was going to be put in this building. I noticed in the article that the Salvation Army opposed the rezoning because the microbrewery would be selling beer to consumed on the premises and there was a prohibition on selling alcohol 300 feet from a church. As part of the rezoning, the prohibition was lifted and the project will be going forward.

  One of the big objections that the Salvation Army had to an establishment selling alcohol across the street from their building was that the Salvation Army hosts alcoholic and narcotics anonymous meetings and looking right at a bar after leaving the meeting was going to be a serious temptation to the people attending these meetings. And after reading some of the articles in the paper that I missed, this new business certainly seems more like a bar than a brewery. In an April newspaper article, the owner, Roger Brown said he was looking for a building “suitable for a small business that offers beer aficionados a place to sample different types of home-brewed beers.” Only time will tell if Brown will categorize Budweiser and Miller as ‘home-brewed beer’ or start staying open at night instead of his planned daytime schedule if business gets slow.

  There is a grocery store down the block form the Salvation Army building that sells beer and a full-fledged liquor store a block away from the proposed microbrewery so there are already plenty of nearby options for the AA and NA participants to hop off the wagon if they choose to. But to have a bar directly across from the Salvation Army parking lot seems a little much. And it’s not just the AA and NA crowd that will be so close to a bar. The Boy Scouts meet weekly at the building as well as the Head Start program and during the flu epidemic 2 years ago, hundreds of people come to the building to get the only free flu shots offered in Marshalltown. Just a few years ago, the Marshalltown Business Community was helping raise money for the Salvation Army to get matching funds for a huge addition for the building, but I suppose when there is a little tax money or prestige in luring a startup microbrewery to be had, anything goes.

A sampling of the alcohol opportunities within 3 blocks of the Salvation Army Building in Marshalltown:
Left : The Depot Liquor Store
Center : The Corner Tap bar, where the patrons gather outside to carpet the ground with cigarette butts
Right : The Center Street Station, where drinking is 'What We Do'!

  To be fair to the city council, the Central Business District was the only area in town that had the 300 foot limit in effect before it was repealed but the head of the Marshall Economic Development Impact Committee (MEDIC) Tom Deimerly was in full defense mode of the bar being so close to the Salvation Army building, noting that while the 300 foot restriction prevented alcohol from being sold near a church or school, there was nothing to prevent a church or school from opening within 300 feet of a business that sells alcohol. I don’t know what Deimerly’s stand on the separation of church and state is, but I know he is firmly against the separation of schools, churches, and alcohol. He may have a point. The grammar school I went to in Hillside, New Jersey was within 500 feet from the College Inn Bar & Grill. If it was any farther away many of my teachers like Mrs. Vernon and Mr. Guardino wouldn’t have been able to stagger back to sleep through the afternoon classes and countless lives were saved because they didn’t have to drive back from their liquid lunch. There is no word if Deimerly will be changing the I in MEDIC to stand for IMBECILE.

  This is only the latest chapter in Marshalltown and Iowa’s love affair with beer. The annual bike ride through Iowa, RAGBRAI is scheduled to stop in Marshalltown on July 25th and not only will the courthouse square be converted into a beer, ahem…beverage garden for the stopover, Marshalltown’s logo (complete with T-shirts) for the stopover is a Red Solo Cup inside a bicycle tire based on the drinking song by country star Toby Keith complete with the official slogan ‘Proceed to Party’. I’m sure the organizers aren’t promoting overuse of alcohol by the visiting bicyclists and when they talk about partying they’re planning some really mean games of ‘Twister’.

  In other Alcohol in Iowa news, the University of Iowa has inked a 4 year deal with Anhueser-Busch to allow the beer company to use the school’s Hawkeye logo on posters, flags, beer cups, and T-shirts. The use of the Tigerhawk logo will have to be accompanied by the phrase ‘Responsibility Matters’, which I assume will be very helpful in curbing the rampant binge drinking by Iowa college students and numerous public intoxication arrests of the Iowa football team. I’m sure when some college student on their 13th beer sees ‘Responsibility Matters’ on the beer can they’ll put their beer down and head to their dorm to study or look for some service opportunities. This is just an extension of an existing contract with the addition of the use of the logo and every other big time school (except for Brigham Young and a few others) have a similar deal in place. Iowa President Sally Mason said all proceeds from the beer deal will fund the university’s alcohol harm reduction plan to reduce binge drinking. I don’t suppose that banning alcohol from the campus ever entered the president’s consideration. Since the university must approve all uses of their logo, I hope they will draw the line at a giant bucket of beer with the logo on the bottom that can only be seen when the bucket’s contents are consumed!

Judging from this early morning picture, my neighbors may be starting their own microbewery!
I don't see any Hawkeye logos -- they must be Cyclone fans!

Jury Duty

  In April, I got a letter telling me I was selected for jury duty for the months of May and June. Just like the last 2 times I got this letter over the 17 years I’ve lived in Iowa, I had to call every Friday to see if my jury pool had to go in to the courthouse the next week. But unlike the last 2 times, this past Friday I was told to call back on Wednesday night because a trial was scheduled for my jury pool on Thursday. When I called, I was told the trial was still on and I needed to go to the courthouse Thursday morning.

  I really didn’t want to miss a day of work (even though I was going to be paid), but if there had to a day to miss work for jury duty, last Thursday would have been my choice. I’d been fighting a cold all week that made the hour drive seem like 2 and 8 hours behind a desk like an eternity and on Thursdays I get to work an hour early so I can get back to Marshalltown for Thursday Night Chess Club. But on this Thursday, even though I woke up at 4:30 like normal to take Daisy and Baxter for their 5 am walk, I was able to hang out in the morning and catch a nap before heading out to the courthouse at 8:15.

  My phone call said I couldn’t bring my cell phone, but it didn’t say anything about other devices so I brought my iPod and pen camera in the hopes of being able to capture some jury duty action for my blog, but when I got to the courthouse elevator there was a huge sign saying NO electronic devices were allowed in the courtroom, so I went back to my car and put away my iPod and pen camera. When I got to the fourth floor courtroom there were 60 people hanging around in the open space between the courtrooms being checked in by the court clerk. There were only 10 or so chairs so almost everyone was standing around until 8:45 when we were brought into a bigger courtroom where all of us could sit down. We waited around until 9 and then were brought into a smaller courtroom which had enough chairs for almost everyone but there were 20 chairs no one was allowed to sit in so many of us had to stand up. Then the judge came in and the court clerk read off 20 names of people who got to sit in the chairs. I was one of the 20 and we were selected to be on the jury for the trial.

  It was explained was that the prosecutor and defense attorney were going to ask us questions and then each would eliminate 4 jurors, leaving a jury of 12 people. I wasn’t that concerned whether I would be eliminated or not, although being selected for the jury gave a bonus of being excused from calling for jury duty for the rest of the 2 month period. The prosecutor got to ask first. He was a young guy who talked about himself for at least 5 minutes and then talked about being a juror for another 5 minutes and then he read a long list of names and asked if we knew any of them. Then he asked if we knew any of each other. Marshalltown isn’t that big so a lot of these people knew each other or went to high school together or worked with one of the other jurors spouses year ago and on and on and on and since I didn’t know anyone of the other jurors I didn’t get to say anything but got to listen to all the trivial ways that some of these people knew each other. Then the prosecutor started talking about the police and asked if any of us ever got traffic tickets. Finally I got to raise my hand. Most of the other jurors said they got tickets but it was OK because they were speeding and they were guilty. Then the prosecutor called on me and I said I get a speeding ticket at least every other year and I never get a ticket for driving crazy; I’m just driving in back of the guy in front of me and in front of the guy in back of me and we all happen to be going too fast so there was never any reason to give me a ticket. The prosecutor then asked if I was upset about it and I said in my best New Jersey voice that ‘Nah. Everybody’s gotta eat.’ That got the courtroom laughing and I figured that I would be excused from the jury any moment. Then the prosecutor asked if we would have problems listing to witnesses with Spanish accents and also asked if any of has had any dealings with Jensen Ford (the only Ford dealer in Marshalltown). That led to another round of people talking about how they got their dent fixed or bought a car there or almost bought a car or was really good friends with someone who worked there and how they could be objective about Jensen Ford in Marshalltown. Then the prosecutor asked if any of us had had our property vandalized. Other people mentioned how their car had been vandalized and I talked about my neighbors driving through my fence or bushes every year or so. The prosecutor asked us how we felt about our vandalism experiences and while everyone else said they just wanted to be reimbursed, I mentioned how I’d like to throw a brick through my neighbor’s window when they break my stuff. I must have sounded like I meant it because only a couple of people laughed this time.

  Then it was time for the defense attorney to ask questions. He was an older guy who introduced himself and said he wasn’t going to ask a lot of questions and then he asked for the lady who was really good friends with someone who worked at Jensen Ford to be excused from the jury and she was. A new juror was selected and the prosecutor talked to her for 5 minutes asking a lot of the same questions and then one of the jurors fainted and we all had to clear out of the courtroom for the EMTS and firefighters. We went back into the open space where there were only 10 chairs and I just sat on the floor reading ‘Chess For Tigers’ by Simon Webb. A little before 11, we were called back in to the courtroom, the fainting juror was replaced and asked 5 minutes of questions by the prosecutor and then the defense attorney said he was done questioning the jury.

  Both the prosecutor and defense attorney then secretly picked 4 jurors each to be excused and the clerk named the 12 jurors that would hear the trial. Much to my surprise, I was not excluded from the jury. The prosecutor and defense gave their opening arguments and we finally got to hear what the case was about. On April 20th, 2011 a Ms. Tovar was in the meat packing plant parking lot before her 6:30 am shift when she heard a scrape sound and saw a Ms. Jones (a small oriental woman) put something in her pocket and walk quickly past her. Tovar then got out of her car and saw her car had a deep scratch on her month old Toyota’s minivan sliding door. Ms. Jones was being charged with 4th degree criminal mischief which is for damage not exceeding $500. It didn’t seem like the kind of case that needed 60 people to take off from work, but there we were.

  After the short opening arguments, Mrs. Tovar took the stand as the prosecution’s first witness. She said that while she didn’t see Ms. Jones scrape the car, she heard a long scraping sound, saw Mrs. Jones put something in her pocket, got out of her car, saw a long deep gray and white scratch on the sliding door behind her, and went to the security office. Then the defense attorney asked her what side of the car the scratch was on, the driver or passenger side. Tovar said the driver side and the defense attorney asked why in a deposition last month she said the scratch was on the passenger side. Tovar said she didn’t understand English that well and misunderstood the question. That made sense to me since the scratched door wasn’t the on the passenger side, but it was a passenger door. Then Tovar was asked why she didn’t confront Jones and Tovar said she couldn’t afford to lose her job.

  The next witness was the service manager from Jensen Ford who had been the service manager for 26 years. He was asked about his estimate and established that it would cost $469 to repair the scratch and all the steps that would have to be done to fix the scratch. The prosecution then entered the estimate into evidence. The defense attorney then asked the service manager to read a date on the top of the estimate and the service manager read the date: March 28th, 2011. Then the service manager was asked what the date meant and he said that would be the date he made the estimate. The prosecutor then had a chance to ask some more questions and he didn’t ask the service manager if the ever entered the wrong date in the computer or if their service department was a bunch of screw-ups. Instead he asked if there was a date on the bottom of the estimate and the service manager said yes: April 25th, 2011.

  Then the arresting police officer was called to the stand. He looked so out of shape that he seemed winded by having to raise his right hand for his oath. He was asked some details about his investigation and he didn’t know the plaintiffs name and didn’t know the dates and said ‘I guess’ about 3 times. He eventually said he charged Jones in June of 2011. Then the defense attorney asked why he waited almost 2 months to charge Jones and the officer said that he was waiting for the estimate from the plaintiff so he would be able to make the proper charge.

  At that point, the prosecution rested and it was the defense attorney’s turn to present his case. But at this point it was 5 minutes till noon and the judge let us break for lunch and told us to be back at 1pm. I was home at 12:05, eating a bowl of soup at 12:10, going on a walk to the Kum & Go with Kathy to get Daisy and Baxter some beef stick treats at 12:20, and back in the juror’s waiting room at 1:00.

  The juror’s room was very nice, with chairs, couches, water, coffee, and a mens and ladies bathroom. We hung out there for a few minutes until we were called back into the courtroom. One of the jurors had parked on the street but had his tire over one of the lines that separate imaginary parking spaces and got a ticket! When we got back, we were told that the defense had rested and wouldn’t be presenting their case and the judge read us 21 pages of jury instructions. Then the prosecutor gave his closing argument. He made some joke about cat-scratch fever and relating it to the scratch on Ms. Tovar’s minivan and told us that we should believe the witness and not the date on the estimate. Then the defense attorney gave his closing argument. He pointed out that the defendant and plaintiff had no proven grudge against each other and that Ms. Tovar didn’t actually see Ms. Jones scratch the van door and that the estimate dated a month before the accident provided enough reasonable doubt to acquit his client.

  We got into the jury room and the guy that got the parking ticket was named the foreman. The first thing we all wanted to see was the date on the estimate. When we saw the date as March 28th, we all talked about whether it could have been a mistake on the part of the service manager. But we all thought the prosecutor should have found a way to show how the date could have been entered in error. Then we started talking about the damage to the car. I volunteered that I had experience keying a car and one of the other jurors also had similar experience. We both agreed that to make a scratch that was described by the plaintiff (we never saw a picture of it) in one continuous scratch would take quite an effort and make a huge screeching noise.

  After only a few minutes deliberation, we decided that because of the date discrepancy on the estimate we had to acquit Ms. Jones. No one could understand what reason she could possibly have had to scratch up someone else’s car, but I could see vandalizing something a co-worker has that you don’t see how they can afford when you can’t. I would have been interested in knowing if Ms. Jones had been in this sort of trouble before and I would have liked to have known what kind of car she had. I mean, there must have been a reason this case went all the way to a trial! Once we all signed the not guilty verdict and gave it to the court clerk, the judge came by a few minutes later, congratulated us on our quickness, and dismissed us. I thought we would have to go back to the courtroom to deliver the verdict, but instead I was home by 2:10, checking on work, walking the dogs, and taking a nap before chess club.

  It was an interesting day in the courtroom, but I was glad to get back to the normalcy of our Thursday night chess club and blitz tournament. After losing 30 rating points to 2012 Iowa Class B champ Joe from Waterloo over 2 weeks, I got to play him in the second round of the tournament. For the first time on over 3 months I didn’t make any silly mistakes and after the normal twists and turns of a 10 minute game we reached the following position:

  I had about a minute left on my clock to 2 and a half for Joe. After trying to provoke a mistake for 10 or 15 moves, I couldn’t find a win and forced a draw with 20 seconds left. My son Matt and Jaleb both thought I lost the game and were surprised that I managed to draw it. I think I must have a win here (with 20 seconds left I have been more likely to hang my queen!), but Joe and Matt both thought it was a draw even with best play. The jury is still out on this case…

Playing My Drum

  I spent the week before Christmas transfixed by the song ‘The Little Drummer Boy’. My Rhapsody subscription ($15 a month for access to their entire catalog) combined with my amazing iPod allowed me to create a playlist of 30+ artist’s renditions which I found myself listening to over and over. I found the song inspirational all week long and especially liked the duet by Bing Crosby & David Bowie, with the versions by Ringo Starr, Smokey Robinson, and Stevie Wonder close behind. Like the drummer boy (and the wise men for that matter), none of our gifts are fit for the King but what little we have to offer is met with a smile as long as we offer our best. It is a tremendous thought for any time of the year and it’s important to recognize all the gifts that come our way, both big and small.

Top Left:New new guy Tony and I with our Christmas Cheetos. The rest of the pictures are of the Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewing Co. including the Salmon Sandwich lunch special.

  I got my first present on Tuesday at work when new guy Tony brought me a big bag of Cheetos Puffs. Just having Tony around is a present to me in and of itself. Before he came on board, I was not only the new guy – I was the old guy, too. I remember when I was always the youngest person at work and now I’m older than my boss, my bosses’ boss and twice the age of some of my co-workers. There are some older network and marketing guys, but I’m the oldest programmer and I think it’s by a big margin. I pull my weight and no one calls me ‘pops’ or anything, but since Tony is older than me, he has relieved me of being the new guy and the old guy. Now I’m just the bald guy, but as the prophet Meat Loaf said “Don’t be sad, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad”.

  My day got even better when I was taken out to lunch by the project manager of the company I work for. Last week the government agency we interact with had a systems changeover and the customer was very pleased that we were able to match their changes with a minimal amount of problems. Because the customer contracts my time through my company, they aren’t allowed to give me a bonus or presents, but a ‘working lunch’ was arranged. We walked to the ‘Court Avenue Restaurant and Brewing Company’ via the Skywalk. The restaurant is a business lunch spot and night time hangout in a bar, band, and restaurant district just off downtown Des Moines. I had the lunch special which was a grilled salmon sandwich with potato salad and the project manager had a giant burrito. The sandwich was good, the potato salad was awesome, and the price was excellent (for me, that is)! It was nice to be taken out to lunch and after the tense weeks leading up to the government changeover, and I enjoyed celebrating the success of a mostly problem free upgrade.

Jaleb Jay vs. Jon McCord

Roger & Cypher
in Cyclone gear.

  On Thursday at chess club, I got more presents with the return of Jaleb Jay and a visit from Roger Gotschall, the legendary Ames chess coach and tournament director and his traveling companion, Cypher the Boston Terrier. Jaleb hadn’t been to the club since August due to school and other scheduling issues, but will be around for a couple of weeks with school off for winter break and Roger’s Cyclone Chess Club (which also meets on Thursday) is also off for a few weeks since they are a college chess club stationed on the Iowa State University campus. Except for Jaleb, I had no other school-age kids at club. Maybe they thought there’d be no club, but since Christmas wasn’t on a Thursday, it was business as usual at the Marshalltown Chess Club!

  We had an odd number of players so I sat out of the tournament. Jaleb shook off 4 months of rust to win the tournament, but I managed to beat him 3 out of 3 in 5 minute games. I won one convincingly, and was even and lost in the other 2 when Jaleb ran out of time. When coming back after a long layoff, most players tend not to trust their calculation of tactics and use precious seconds double checking themselves. It used to be an upset when Jaleb beat me, but now I feel lucky when I win so I was thrilled to get 3 out of 3 any way I can.

Roger and Me,
Cypher & Italian Sausage!

  I didn’t get to play Roger, but we got to talk about chess, dogs, and life for around an hour. Roger and I have had our share of differences about youth chess and the direction of Iowa Chess over the years, but we get each other and have a lot in common. We're both stong-willed and indefatigable! We both have weekly chess clubs on Thursdays and while I get myself out of the house early every Friday to go to Des Moines and teach chess at St. Francis, Roger has taught chess at a minimum of 3 schools in the Ames area for years. He has had some health problems this year and is in his 70s, yet he still gets to these schools every week to teach chess. His is an enduring legacy that will last generations, but Roger isn't interested in collecting accolades. When I asked him to see if he could find a way in his capacity as Iowa's representative to the USCF to get a discounted one day youth membership established so high schools could compete in the state team championships without having to buy expensive annual memberships for only one tournament, Roger got it passed. The USCF higher-ups took the credit for getting this innovative idea, but Roger was more interested in being of service to Iowa chess players than who got credit. We are also big baseball fans, with Roger getting the leg up on me this year with his favorite Cardinals thrill-a-minute World Series victory. Now that Roger has Cypher, we also share a love of dogs. Cypher had a Cyclone colored coat with his name embroidered in it. Daisy and Baxter are so yappy I could never have them at a chess tournament, but Cypher's quieter than most chess players. It was a pleasure to have Roger and Cypher come to visit and I was surprised and pleased when they gave me a beagle calendar for Christmas. We all received another present at chess club. The Salvation Army had just had their holiday food box distribution (300+ families fed) and had boxes and boxes of close dated frozen Italian sausages left over so we each received a frozen pack of sausage.

  Saturday was my turn for some giving. The past 2 years, Matt had conducted a simultaneous chess exhibition where he would play 10 to 15 players at once. The idea was that all the participants would make a donation to the Salvation Army in order to play and that anyone who beat him would win a tournament chess set. No one ever beat Matt and except for the set I gave to Daniel Carson in 2009 for lasting the longest against Matt, I still have all the ones I bought 2 years ago. This year, when Major John asked about the chess exhibition, I didn’t have time to coordinate a simul with Matt (he’s is college and has his own plans for the holidays), so I volunteered to play speed chess against all comers on Christmas Eve. The last 2 years, we had very little participation in Matt’s simuls outside the chess club and I wanted to try to get new people in town to play some chess, so I decided to play all comers with 1 minute on my clock and 10 minutes for the challengers and give away chess sets to anyone who I couldn’t beat before I ran out of time. I cleared it with the mall, got a press release printed in the newspaper, and was off.

Johnny summed
it up in 2 words!

  I’m OK at speed chess, but almost any tournament player could beat me at these time odds. I didn’t care since I had all the chess sets I bought for Matt’s simuls sitting in a box for over 2 years and they weren't doing anyone any good in a closet. I told the mall management that I wanted to do the exhibition by the entrance to the JC Penney store where the bell ringers always are with a 4x8 table or 2 off to the side where Matt held his simul. The mall manager said it was OK with him, but he didn’t want a big table by the entrance and didn’t have anything smaller than a 4x8 table. I told him I’d bring a card table and I arrived with it at 10:30 yesterday along with my box of chess sets, a couple of chess clocks, and a Salvation Army kettle and bell.

The JC Penney manager before
banishing us to the corner.

  I was all set up by 10:50 and had the exhibition planned from 11 to 3. The first player was a kid named Rico. He didn’t want to play speed chess, so we played a couple of games until his dad told him he had to leave. Then a high schooler named Johnny came to play. He also didn’t want to try the speed chess challenge so we played some offhand games. I beat Johnny twice and he paid me my first compliment of the day when he said “You Suck”. Since he was smiling when he said it, I assume he meant it in a good way. We started a new game, but then Chandler and Dalton from the chess club came with their parents and 3 foster kids their folks are taking care of. Dalton paid his entry fee and we started playing time odds chess. Dalton is the newest tournament player at club and while he has won a few games, he was no match for me in the 3 speed games we played and never even made me use more than 20 seconds. During the second game, 2 managers from JC Penney (a man and a woman) came out and told me that I was 'impeding' their customer’s access to the store and could I move to one side or the other of the entrance. The entrance is 40 feet wide and I was 5 feet from one side so I moved the 5 feet over. Then after our third game, the lady manager came over and demanded I move to the other side of the entrance. While she was demanding, she pointed out the JC Penney was being quite gracious in allowing bell ringers to even be anywhere near their store entrance since no one else in the mall wanted the bell ringers anywhere near them. I moved the chess table and the red kettle to the other side of the entrance and proceeded to play Chandler.

Chandler's foster brothers
were donation magnets!

   Chandler played a smart game, keeping his king protected and trading pieces. I only had 8 seconds left when I hung a rook in an even position and had given away my first chess set of the day, when Keith from the Salvation Army came over and told me the woman manager had called him to let him know that the bell ringers were ‘playing chess’. I imagine no one told her about the exhibition. We moved the chess table and the kettle far away from the entrance on a landing behind a ‘hurricane machine’. Since its Christmas I’m not going to say anything bad about the manager, but if I ever have a business where I need to drive away customers, I know where I'm going first. Chandler didn’t want to play after winning the first game, so I played Dalton for another hour until I finally ran out of time and gave away my second chess set. Except for one guy that watched for a bit, no one was interested in playing speed chess, so I did some bell ringing along with Dalton and 2 of his foster brothers until about 2:15. While bell-ringing, I learned the valuable lesson that little kids ringing the bell really bring in the money as an incredible number of people would see the cute 3 or 4 year old foster brothers ringing the bell and give the kids money to drop in the kettle, including one lady who emptied handfuls of change out of her purse to give the kids to put in the kettle.

  While the youngsters were ringing the bell, the fellow who was watching me play Dalton came over and decided to play a game. His name was Gary and he really enjoyed playing even after I checkmated him using only 20 seconds. I gave him a flyer to the chess club and hope I’ll see him again. When Dalton and his family left, Major John showed up and we talked for a bit. I told him about the problems with the JC Penney manager and he said not to worry about it so I didn’t. Then a lady named Marsha and her husband Denny came over and said Marsha wanted to play a game. We started our game when Kathy came over to see how the exhibition was going. Marsha was a pretty good player and I just managed to win with 10 seconds left (Marsha used about 8 minutes). Marsha and Denny live 20 miles away in Gilman and I hope to see them again at the club someday since I think she could play even with Scott, Jon and the other regulars. I was about ready to pack up when 4 college kids came by, looked at the sign detailing the exhibition, talked amongst themselves, and started walking away when I pointed out they only had to last a minute with me over a chess board and it wasn’t like Spiderman trying to last a round with the professional wrestler. That convinced one of the kids to try his luck.

After a slow start, the speed chess exhibition picked up with 5 players in the last hour.

  It turned out the kid who was playing was Corey McMillan, a high school classmate of Matt’s. I told him I remembered how they were on the same soccer team as youngsters and that I remember he was a real good soccer player. Corey said he was playing soccer at Alleghany College in Pennsylvania and was home for the holidays. I beat Corey with 26 seconds to spare and told his friends that I’d give any of them a chess set if they could last longer and if they couldn’t Corey would get the set. 2 of Corey’s friends, Ian and Jason played, but neither lasted more than 34 seconds so one of my chess sets will be heading to Alleghany College with Corey!

  It was a slow start to the exhibition but a fantastic end with 4 games in the last half hour. I hadn’t given any money to any bell ringers once I knew I would be doing the exhibition, and put it in my kettle before I packed up and went home with Kathy to walk the dogs for another beef stick. I always like to do what I can for the Salvation Army. They host our chess club (and dozens of other groups), they get food for the hungry, and anyone who is in need of clothes or furniture can get a voucher from them to get what they need at their thrift store. In addition to all that, they have had a singularly transformative impact on my life. If I hadn’t been challenged to start a chess club by Major Joan in 2002 when I asked if the Salvation Army had one, I’d never have run a chess tournament, met many of the people that have enriched me so much, taught chess at St. Francis, or started my blog. And that’s just off the top of my head. When I get the chance to do something for the Salvation Army, I feel like the drummer boy whose gifts aren’t worthy of the recipient, but are accepted with a smile anyway because I’m giving my best effort.