Jerry

Perhaps my favorite thing about Jerry was that he looked nothing like your Typical Chessplayer.

He didn't wear glasses. And he wasn't shabby or unkempt, nor wild-haired or bald. In fact, he sported a fine shock of white hair (something I'm rather envious of now, I must say).

He looked to be (and acted) exactly like what he was: a used car salesman (picture to yourself a rather more energetic version of Dick Van Patten). And yes, it did look at times like he did his clothes shopping from a golf catalog (the man was a veritable Master of Plaid!). :) But I'm happy to report that he was no shyster. A few people at the club bought cars from him and they seemed well-satisfied with their purchases.

Anyway, Jerry would get to the club a half-hour early every Tuesday evening and set up the tables and boards. Then afterwards he (generally with one of us helping) would fold the tables back and put them against the wall and put the sets back in the closet on the second floor.

Jerry was the first chessplayer I ever knew to keep a running commentary on things. His favorite expression was (whenever you made some vaguely attacking sort of move): "He's coming on like Gangbusters!"

The first time he did this I thought he was highly perturbed. Eventually though I caught on and realized that it was all part of his traditional patter (something which he fortunately discontinued if ever there was a tournament game).

Anyway, on to San Quentin!

Jerry had arranged for our club to play a match over at the prison in the next few days. The trouble was, he had to get in touch with everyone (and discovered too late he didn't have my phone number)

So he turned to the local phone book. My real last name is (if anything) even odder than Pushwood, so when he saw somebody else with that name he made a natural assumption.

Unfortunately though, I'd never met the lady. :) And so Jerry spent a minute or two arguing with poor Gretchen (who incidentally I never did meet) over the fact that I certainly had to be somewhere in the vicinity, if not immediately underfoot!

Finally she managed to convince him that--even though that was indeed her last name--her name wasn't my name too. :) At which point it began to dawn on him that I just might have a stepfather.

So he called up a friend who knew my number...and it all got resolved. And a couple nights later we were heading out, all four of us from RVCC, for an evening of chess at the Big House!

I went up against the biggest guy there. Jerry pointed out afterwards how all the extra sets and everything were stored right underneath my (huge) opponent's chair...all so as to mimimize the possibility of other inmates trying to pick something off. To us it was after all just another game, but for those guys it was a major event. Walking around inside there--to the extent that we did--you could see how important a board game could be to those having very little else to while away their time.

Early on in my game I gained a couple pawns, and I no doubt wrote my opponent off at that point. But he proceeded to demonstrate why you should never do that (by digging in and holding on...and eventually managing to win).

We played only one game. I guess that's all there was time for.

Incidentally, I do have one other memory of San Quentin. When I was (even) younger I lived only a mile away from the prison, and it turned out that a classmate's dad was a guard. They lived right on the grounds, and one Saturday I headed over there.

I still have to smile about that. I mean, how did you get onto (and out of) the grounds of this legendary world-famous maximum-security prison (sort of like an Alcatraz on dry land)? You just crawled under the chicken-wire fence. :)