The Great Bicentennial Chess Tour of 1976

And yeah, I know that title sounds like a John Prine song. :) But a couple friends of mine did in fact do this.

Of course, Fischer fever was still fairly rampant. Patriotism was looked upon with a rather jaundiced eye by many at the time though, so there was little if any of that sort of fervor to their odyssey. It was more just a matter of finally getting out there and living life on your own!

Eric (the guy from another blog) and Scott (the guy I went to my first tourney ever with) fired up Eric's jalopy in June. They scanned the latest copy of Chess Life for the tournament life section; it covered the next couple months, and so they devised an itinerary for themselves. They even used to send their entry fees into the sites ahead of time, as I recall (to save 5 bucks!).

Unfortunately, I was still attending high school at the time (although admittedly "attendance" was never my strong suit). Anyway, I would get these postcards from Scott (he bought those jumbo ones so he could cram all his games onto it too) detailing their lives on the road.

There was Nevada: "Its main industry is dust." And Detroit: "You know the place must be a pit if they built a 20-foot wall around it." Even his pairings were funny: "I played 2 B players, an A player, and a Whitehead."

Then there was Eric's car. At the time the Mazda was being advertised as utilizing revolutionary technology "with only 3 moving parts"...which was still generally 3 more moving parts than Eric's Mazda had. In fact, we were often the only moving parts to it (pushing our way to some gas station or other).

From my point of view at the time though all of this was a reminder that the rest of the world was still out there, turning. I was in the midst of a decided downturn in my life--culminating in my dropping out of high school in the fall--and so it would often seem like a sort of lifeline to discover that latest postcard in the mail. I would send him the occasional letter too, addressed to GENERAL DELIVERY in whatever city he was due to be in next (I remember how it felt almost like a magic trick to be able to do that!).

Scott and Eric ended up in Richmond, Virginia, for the US Open. Scott btw had a colossal tourney there, gaining 150 rating points. He started out by drawing 3 2100s in a row (not a bad beginning for a 1630!).

From there the two split up: Eric heading back home to the SF Bay Area, and Scott aimed in the direction of Phoenix (to help out his dad, ensconced at some regional office or other).

And I went back to school. Well, for as long as that lasted anyway. ;)