Rite of Passage

Cultures have rites of passage, experiences that young folk pass through to be conferred the honor of being one of the adults.  There were sweat lodges for Native Americans, faith based ones like baptism or confirmation, there are school graduations but there are also cultural ones like driving or drinking alcohol.  One of my rites of passage was chess.

As a teenager, one of my favorite games was chess.  In ninth grade my usual group of friends was changed when the kids from the Catholic School arrived on the scene.  Though you think in a small town, I would have been aware of a whole other school, I was not.  Hence, that is how I met Mary Ester Anastasia Moriaty.  She was named like a fictional character and left a lasting impression where ever she went.  Mary Ester taught me how to play chess.  I walked to her house after school.  We had the house to ourselves and she patiently taught me the pieces, and the moves.  She baptized me into an adult world of games.

There was a scene in the movie Camelot, which came out in 1967, of King Arthur playing chess with King Pellinore, an old King who just stumbles into the life of Camelot.  I realize now that this set the stage for me to understand that chess was a game of power.   Check out these ten movie chess scenes and you will see that power and authority ooze from the confrontation in the games.  The last movie from 1957 is amazing.

Chess is a game of strategy.  A game for grown-ups.  You know that when there are two minutes devoted to the game in a James Bond movie

You learn strategy by playing.  I played as much as I could in my college years, mostly with men.  I transferred to the University of Minnesota, living in Middlebrook Hall, in my junior year.  In 1976, living in a co-ed dorm was an adventure.  In the top floor lived the grad-students and my girlfriends hung out with them, a serious studying, serious drinking crowd.  One day I arranged to play chess with Bruce, a very handsome man who was getting a PhD. In Chemical Engineering.  He was also one of the nicest, guys I knew.  In the back of my mind I was hoping he would ask me out.  Of course I lost at chess, but we had a good game.  He did ask me out to dinner that night.  But I had agreed to go to a play with another man.  I wanted to ditch him to go with Bruce.  Another woman might have.  But I did not.  Over the years, that decision of turning down Bruce has helped me to face other ethical decisions.  

For ten years I did not play chess much.  I started a career, got married and added a masters to my resume.  Then I got divorced.  I was starting over in a small apartment in the Uptown area.  Chess came back into my life on Memorial Day weekend.  I was alone that weekend.  A man lived next door and I was doing the Minnesota nice thing.  We decided to meet and play chess Saturday afternoon.  We had a nice afternoon.  I beat him at chess.  I realized he was not my type, but he did not realize the same thing.  We were in garden level apartments across from each other.  That is how I got my stalker.  We would talk off and on but he would not leave me alone.  The sense of him watching me was unnerving.  He made comment about my well-dressed twin sister and I just let him live in that fantasy.  He would make an excuse to stop by drunk on a Friday night.  I had bought a house and was moving soon but he was getting worse.  Finally, a guy friend of mine agreed to answer the door when my stalker showed up, drunk the next Friday night.  That was the end of it.  Oddly enough over the years, surviving the stalker situation did give a sense of power.

You just never know where a game of chess is going to take you!