Just what in the heck have you got yourself into?

[naccoachbob]

Ever get into a crazy situation before that has stayed in your memory for a long time?

I'll start. In 1967 (the year is very important) my family and I had returned to rural Marshall, Tx., from having lived in Austin a couple of years.

My stepfather was on sabbatical working on his PHD in math at UT. While in Austin, I had learned to play chess. I'd even joined the Austin chess club, and in that club, your first opponent is the club champion, who basically senses where you are in your abilities, and helps you get to play others maybe a bit better than you. Chess folks use points to determine who's best. Well, this guy and I played, he killed me, then we played again and let me win. When I won, I got his points since I didn't have any. Well, I played another guy right after that, who had way fewer points than the champ, and wanted to beat me and pick up a bunch of points. Somehow I toasted the guy. So for about an hour, I was the highest rated chess player in Austin.

Fast forward on to Marshall, Tx. Young Bob (I was either a Jr or Sr in Highschool) didn't have anyone to play chess with. Now where are the best chess players in the world? Well, they're or were in Russia. So I decided since we had a State Dept, that they had one, and I mailed their "State Dept" (lawd knows where the letter ended up) and asked them to find someone my age who I could play chess by mail with. I didn't hear anything for 3-4 months. All of a sudden, I received a really thick envelope filled with all kinds of communist propaganda celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution - remember the year?

My mother worked for a Defense contractor at the time, and had access to sensitive information. The next day she told her people what we'd got, and in the middle of 3rd period, I got called out of class to go to the courthouse and talk to the FBI.

They grilled me for about an hour or so wanting to know who in Austin told me where to mail to in Russia? Was I on the UT campus ever? Did some professor give me the info? Who did I address it to? They initially weren't buying the State Dept thing. Later they did. Those 2 agents knew everything in the world about me before I got into the office where they were. Scared me to death. That evening, they drove out to our house to get all that material. By the way, the FBI was a TV show back then, with Efrem Zimbalist Jr, and they drove fancy cars, like the gang on Criminal Minds drive. Hah!! Humbug, these agents drove an ole cheap Dodge!! Myth busted.
I haven't played a lot of chess since then.

[tippie53]

makes for a great memory

[johnnparchem]

That is quite a story. I do remember growing up in the cold war time. I went to a catholic school so they really beat (some time literally) the anti Soviet message. I can imagine what it would like then to have FBI showing up.

[Darryl Young]

Now that is a great story!

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Bob, wasn't the world champion chess player a Russian right about then, as I remember?
Remember the drills where we had to get under our desks and curl up into a ball? That was suppose to protect us from the flying broken glass or something, it sure wasn't going to protect us from the nuclear fall out. :>)

Kevin

[naccoachbob]

Bob, wasn't the world champion chess player a Russian right about then, as I remember?
Remember the drills where we had to get under our desks and curl up into a ball? That was suppose to protect us from the flying broken glass or something, it sure wasn't going to protect us from the nuclear fall out. :>)

Kevin

I'm pretty sure it was a Russian around that time. Bobby Fisher didn't come up until much later, right? And I'm not sure he ever was world champ. Have to Google it.
We also got under our desks, or went into the hall, faced the walls with hands behind our necks. We weren't naive were we? :)