North Loup Chess Showdown with Uncle Russell

There's no doubt Chess can be a wonderful bridge of communication between generations. The rules are the same for both sides. The experience of the game is right. You can bond over a good move, and even a checkmate. 

Way back in 1977, when I was 12-years-old, I often visited North Loup, Nebraska. My grandfather was ill and I spent my weekends in the Valley County Hospital to help bide the time until his ultimate end.

One of the mental salvations for the weekly three-hour Friday drive from Lincoln to North Loup was Chess, then hours back Sunday afternoon. I memorized the Bobby Fischer book. I took my beloved Chess set with me everywhere.

I come from a family of teachers. Really smart people. There's no hubris in their intelligence or learning; they just know how to share information with new people in a kind and esoteric way that rings.

When the North Loup side of the family learned I was involved in Chess, they immediately told me I had to play Uncle Russell. He was 75-years-old, and the county Chess hustler, and I was to be his victim. He didn't play for money. The price for playing him was his dominance and your humiliation. He knew everything about the game.

Uncle Russell always scared me a little bit. He was tall, muscular, barrel-chested, loud, and he wore a long and wild shock of pure-white hair. He always dressed in black pants and a black t-shirt. He lived alone in what could only be called a tar paper shack. He was always smoking a cigar. His boisterous laugh could rock the walls off a room.

When Uncle Russell learned I was into Chess, he invited me over to his place for a game. I knew I was in for the toughest game of my life, and I was right. I'd never been alone with Uncle Russell before in his home and he was kind and welcoming. As I set up the board, he began to tell me stories about World War II. He was a First Lieutenant in the Army. I have no idea what stories he told me because I was only concentrating as hard as I could on my next position.

As we began the game, he let me play white, and he blew cigar smoke in my face. I don't think that smoking me out was on purpose, the room was small, and we were playing against each other with the board teetering between us on a TV-dinner tray. 

I played aggressively with my Queen. Took the center. He played casually and abruptly; never pausing to not tell me another war story and of his international escapades after the war.

As the game went on into hours -- we didn't use a Chess clock -- I began to build an advantage and his King was in trouble. 

Finally, in that moment we all experience one time or another in our Chess lives, Uncle Russell looked down at the board and immediately stopped talking about WWII, and he deeply studied the board, stubbed out his cigar, and leaned back in his card table chair with his arms above his shock of white hair, and he studied the board with an intensity I had never before witnessed from an opponent. Right then, I knew I was going to be in trouble. For the first time time in our game, he was paying attention, and he knew he was in trouble, and I knew he was in trouble. 

Then, slowly, and with absolute deliberation, the 75-year-old Chess master began to take apart his 12-year-old opponent. I never lost to a peer in my young Chess life, and while I was a little scared to play Uncle Russell, I did find myself astonished he'd let me get away with so much so early in the game; but now, it was clear that inattention was over. There was no more laughter. There was no more smoke. He just dismantled my entire position in 10 moves until I was forced to resign by tipping over my King. 

He told me I played a strong and a good game, and I just sat there, disappointed and wanting, knowing that familial immortality had been mine only 10 moves before the end, and while I said I was okay with "almost beating Uncle Russell!" I was still deeply, and profoundly, disappointed in myself for not being able to finish off the only opponent in my young Chess life that ever mattered to me. I accepted there was no way for him to lose to a kid from Lincoln, even if I happened to be family. This was his Chess reputation on line and he had to defend it to the end. 

Uncle Russell died seven years later of cancer. He was found by his sister-in-law crawling naked on the floor of his kitchen, unable to stand, or take care of himself. He was rushed to the hospital in Ord where he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Uncle Russell died as he lived -- fast and loud and blowing smoke! 

I will always remember the surge of reconciliation Uncle Russell taught me in that instant of both the horror of revelation, and the alarm of recognition of your place in life -- all bound in a single moment. Do you fight for the position, and win, while crushing the soul of a small child? Or do you give in to inattention just to finish a really good war story? 

We who play Chess know Uncle Russell chose well, and lived right.