My brother Jay (right) and I (on the left) joined the Mechanics’ Institute Chess Club in late 1972, soon after Bobby Fischer wrestled the World Championship title from Boris Spassky in Iceland. We were chess-mad, spending as much time at the club as the constraints of school and our parents’ good will allowed. The club then was probably not what a parent of today would think of as a healthy environment for kids: thick with cigarette and cigar smoke, populated by adults (some without visible means of support) who might swear openly and tell off-color jokes...
Despite being the only kids in the club, despite being brash, green, and – I confess— sometimes downright obnoxious, Jay and I were accepted. We were treated as equals in this heady atmosphere of chess: chess-learning, chess-playing, chess-tournaments, chess-talking … chess-chess-chess!
The cast of characters was endless: Morgan, pop-eyed, shouting, “Give the boy a break! You can’t do that, that’s impossible!” as he checkmated some unsuspecting tyro; Alexander Sinkevitch, a Russian émigré – never seen without dark sunglasses and a visor – showing chess problems; “Two-Gun “ Raymond Conway, the club’s director at the time: with his stogie and his red nose, he resembled W.C. Fields. There were waiters from the Palace Hotel, there were cabbies and bankers, psychiatrists and lawyers, there were gamblers on their way to Bay Meadows or Golden Gate Fields.
With the recent passing of Steve Brandwein (my predecessor as Chess Room Coordinator) and Peter Grey (who joined the Mechanics’ Institute in the 1960’s), as well as the untimely death of my brother (from cancer in 2011) the numbers of those who greeted me so warmly 44 years ago are fast dwindling. Yet the chess club lives on.
As new eccentrics have replaced the old (you know who you are!), with tech-workers dropping by on their lunch breaks and more women and children playing in the club than ever before, I want to extend my thanks to the few who remain from those distant old days, those who welcomed my brother and I so unreservedly, friends from the land of chess; Tony Lama, Joe Tracy and Peter Stevens: May your time never run out.
-Paul Whitehead.
