Yet Another Fischer Thread

I hated to create another Fischer thread, but i wasnted to post the following and couldn't think of any other appropriate fashion:

   Thanks.   Brings back nostalgia to me...I remember those days. 

   The world was far, far less complex. And we played chess on a folding card board used for checkers too (red and black squares)...no vinyl boards yet. Wooden pieces, too, because plastics were just evolving.

   No cell phones, three channels of black-and-white TV, ironing boards were still common, laundromats, no microwave ovens, Dwight Eisenhower as President ("I Like Ike"), I Love Lucy on the TV, ice cream parlors, clothes lines, nickel coffee, no personal computers, Sputnik and, of course, Bobby Fischer.

   And of course, "dungarees" as we called them (and in the article above). Girls had the zipper on the side. Today they are unisex and called jeans. No one ever, ever wore them to work or church...you would have gotten strange stares. You would only wear them for chores. People dressed much more formal. Fedora hats for men were still in vogue (JFK killed the fedora, years later). Women put curlers in their hair at night...imagine sleeping on curlers. Also, boobs were 100% real back then. Only people like Mickey Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor got married multiple times.

   I almost forgot...Vasily Smyslov of the U.S.S.R. was the reigning world chess champion.

Thanks batgirl. It's interesting to hear he had a few other hobbies other than chess. I had never read that he did magic and card tricks or played tennis. That's surprising. Also, telling his opponent to "hurry up and move", truly showed his immaturity.

Compared to Tal, Fischer would be the Brooklyn Magician. 

Fischer had various interests during his life , swimming , bowling , tennis  , and even table tennis ( ping pong  :-)  )   He also loved animals but I dont think he ever had a pet as a child ?  I don't know .... anyone ? 

But, I never heard that he had a pet as a child either.

A couple of cats might have mellowed him, just a bit.  They're fairly low maintenance.  Bobby wasn't.

I thought the new movie did an admirable job depicting him.  What say ye?

bobby should have studied a bit of sociology in school instead of that awful mein kamp stuff.

The 1950s were an entirely different world. I don't think younger people today have any idea how different. Listen to the popular music or watch the movies of that era if you're curious.

Fischer was a weird intersection of the Cold War. His mother was a Communist. He was an American trying single-handedly to overthrow the Soviet hegemony of chess ... and succeeded.

He was also a fatherless child and looked forward to future, larger generations of American children who grow up in single-parent homes. As Fischer said, “Children who miss a parent become wolves.”

We're seeing a lot of that today.

There's an interesting research topic. How many GMs and WCs came from intact families?

ipcress12 wrote:

The 1950s were an entirely different world. I don't think younger people today have any idea how different. Listen to the popular music or watch the movies of that era if you're curious.

For the literary types I can also recommend 11/23/63.

ipcress12 wrote:

Fischer was a weird intersection of the Cold War. His mother was a Communist.

That's putting it rather strongly. Fischer's biographer Frank Brady, who knew both the son and the mother personally, stated he could not claim that (see his letter on chesscafe.com).

batgirl: special thanks for another great post and continuing efforts in the chess history field. You and Spektrowski are the main reason I joined this site.