Chess in 30 Minutes

One day in the 8th grade during recess two of my classmates started playing a board game with the strangest looking checkers I had ever seen.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Chess”, they said.

I watched, mesmerized by all the strange moves of the different pieces.

The next day, two others brought in a chess board and started playing before school, during recess and after school.

Our teacher let the boards stay in the room on top of the back cabinets.

Soon all the boys were playing chess, and even some of the girls.

Since I was getting my clock cleaned by the chess masters I got a book entitled “Chess in 30 Minutes”.

I thought about suing for deceptive advertising because it took me 2 hours to read it!

As I think back on why we did not ridicule the two who started the “chess craze”, it became clear: one boy was the most athletic boy in class, the other was the smartest boy in class.

We saw them as leaders, and we followed.