OK..... So I once again found myself sitting along Carroll Creek Park today just enjoying the spring weather and contemplating life in general. When out of the blue, a very friendly dog jumped up on the bench I was on. It's owner, also a very friendly person, started to apologize for the dog. I just told her not to worry about it since I'm a dog person anyway. We had a brief conversation about her dog and the ones I've had throughout my life. It was then I noticed the shirt she was wearing had a chess piece on it with the caption, I'm The Queen. That brought up a memory from my Jr. High School days. I had this friend by the name of Tom Ikelspock, the man had a mind that would have put Carl Sagan, and other great minds all throughout time to shame. Since we lived within 3 blocks of each other, we would stop at his house everyday after school to play a few games of chess. Now, here's the interesting part, while we played the game, we would be blasting Led Zeppelin music. I think we invented the sport of Extreme heavy metal chess. Too bad it never caught on as an Olympic sport LOL. Tom is only 1 of 2 people that I NEVER beat in a game of chess. The other person was a guy by the name of John Tobry. Now John was a pretty decent guy, it's just that he had some learning disabilities, lacked some social skills and he was what we would call today as being someone on the spectrum. (We had another term for it back then that would not be considered politically correct today) Anyway, if you made the mistake of getting this man on a chess board, all bets were off. The man didn't even need to see the board, all you needed to do was call out your moves and he would still beat you, he was that good. I haven't seen him for about 25 years as of today and if memory serves me right, he was the last person I ever played a game of chess against. And even to this day, I believe that not even Fisher, Spassky, or even Deep Blue would have stood a chance against him on a chess board........

Then something interesting happened, some guy, already 1/2 drunk at 12:30 in the afternoon, got on me about not having anything green on being it was Saint Patricks day. Well, being the fact that I've never seen, met, or spoken 2 words to before today, and that he was already 1/2 drunk, kind of set off my "Smart [BLEEP]" mode. I kindly informed him that I was of Scottish ancestry, Not Irish so......... And that I have never met an Irishman, or for that matter, an Australian that I couldn't drink under the table so I have that going for me....... Shut his drunk [BLEEP] up real fast....... LOL

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