Bobby Fischer Dies

[filkertom]

When I was growing up, I was something of a chess prodigy. Or at least I thought I was. Turned out I was just better than average. I remember a two-day tournament where, on the first day, I blasted through the competition, and apparently I was somewhichwayhow mathematically ranked as a master for a few hours, because that's all I faced on the second day and they put me in my place. It was a devastating, humbling experience, and probably one of the most important of my life, because it showed me that not only is there likely someone better than you, there's likely a lot of people better than you, so don't get too full of yourself.

Anyway. It was the perfect time to be a chess nut: 1972. Boris Spassky was the dirty lousy undeserving commie chess "champion", but we, the Good Guys, the U. S. of A.... we had Bobby Fischer. Who, it turns out, was not exactly hero material. But Godamighty the man could play chess.

Mr. Fischer has passed away at the age of 64. May he find the rest he never could while alive.

Who were your heroes when you were a kid? The ones who really influenced you? Mine were Doc Savage and Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock, but I never came close to achieving their emotional fortresses. (Thankfully, Mr. Fantastic showed me I didn't have to, and I could still get the girl.) Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, of course. You may not believe it, but Galen and Joseph Lister (I had a fantastic kid's biography of heroes of medicine). My school principal at the time of my tournament-chess days, Dr. Betty Ritzenhein. And then one year, tenth grade, everything changed: I heard the works of Cosby and Carlin, and I picked up books by two guys named Asimov and Ellison, and dubheach told me about this other guy named Tolkien....

Comments

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

My childhood heroes were Mr. Spock and all the Apollo Astronauts- especially the Apollo 13 crew. When I got my DVD of the movie "Apollo 13", I was very glad to see that they'd included a commentary track with Jim and Marilyn Lovell. It was like having them in the living room talking about the whole thing.