checkers isn't child's play: an autobiographical note

3
Contemporaries Checkers isn't child's play: autobiographical note An It is an illuminating experience when a friend invites you to write, for the prestigious journal he edits, an article intended to give the reader--who may be a total stranger--an intimate insight, as if he were your psychiatrist, into the manner of man you think you are. A yearning for the spotlight conflicts with the deeply seated conviction you hold that nothing you ever thought or did was of much interest to anyone else. On consideration, [ propose to reveal my habits of seeking to learn, and of being grateful to who- ever teaches me. The corollary has been my fear, and later my expectation, that I should die ignor- ant. Only recently have 1 revised this. I now intend to. Over the years I have written a good deal, and 1 quote one preface: "If the reader doesn't under- stand a sentence, the writer probably didn't." In the eight books I wrote from 1937 to 1975, I tried to establish the etiologic classification of diseases of the skin. The following data concern a traction of my life from 1943, when I entered military service, until about 1948. The title of my story is a truth so unexcep- tionable in the opinion of devotees of the game that it risks affront, but you will see that my re- spect and admiration for checkers--the most crys- talline of competitive sports--are befitting and sincere. Checkers, here, provides mainly the backdrop of educational experience, for much of which I am indebted to a kindly gentleman who in his nineties played better checkers than I ever did. For several years in the 1940s, I was a medical officer of the Army of the United States in a gen- eral hospital in the Zone of the Interior, where we fought the battle of the Shenandoah Valley apple orchards and were never shot at. As a der- matologist I was inundated with soldiers from the 754 Richard L. Sutton, Jr., M.D. Southwest Pacific with jungle rot, a wretched admixture of antimalarial drugs, bad food, hot, humid environment where an infected skin had no chance, and the anxiety of serving as quarry for a resourceful and devious enemy. Once 1 had con- trol of such a soldier, and as soon as he was will- ing, I would exploit my best regimen, a 30-day furlough to visit his mother, who would provide tender loving care, good food, a favorable cli- mate, and peace. Not all of my patients were pri- vates and corporals. There was that major who, ordinarily composed, burst into tears with the mention of "New Guinea." It was during the leisure in the Officers' Club after lunch one day when Ed Palmer, the Post psychiatrist, invited me to platy checkers. "That child's game?" I said, ingenuous/y, "I haven't played checkers since I graduated into long pants," which in the era I refer to represented a signal advance toward manly maturation. "Come on, Dick, play me a game." 0190-9622/81 / 120754+ 03500,30/0 © 1981 Am Acad Dermatol

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Contemporaries

Checkers isn't child's play: autobiographical note

An

It is an illuminating experience when a friend invites you to write, for the prestigious journal he edits, an article intended to give the reader--who may be a total s t ranger--an intimate insight, as if he were your psychiatrist, into the manner of man you think you are. A yearning for the spotlight conflicts with the deeply seated conviction you hold that nothing you ever thought or did was of much interest to anyone else.

On consideration, [ propose to reveal my habits of seeking to learn, and of being grateful to who- ever teaches me. The corollary has been my fear, and later my expectation, that I should die ignor- ant. Only recently have 1 revised this. I now intend to.

Over the years I have written a good deal, and 1 quote one preface: " I f the reader doesn't under- stand a sentence, the writer probably d idn ' t . " In the eight books I wrote from 1937 to 1975, I tried to establish the etiologic classification of diseases of the skin.

The following data concern a traction of my life from 1943, when I entered military service, until about 1948.

• • •

The title of my story is a truth so unexcep- tionable in the opinion of devotees of the game that it risks affront, but you will see that my re- spect and admiration for checkers - - the most crys- talline of competit ive spor t s - -a re befitting and sincere. Checkers, here, provides mainly the backdrop of educational experience, for much of which I am indebted to a kindly gentleman who in his nineties played better checkers than I ever did.

For several years in the 1940s, I was a medical officer of the Army of the United States in a gen- eral hospital in the Zone o f the Interior, where we fought the battle of the Shenandoah Valley apple orchards and were never shot at. As a der- matologist I was inundated with soldiers from the

754

Richard L. Sutton, Jr., M.D.

Southwest Pacific with jungle rot, a wretched admixture of antimalarial drugs, bad food, hot, humid environment where an infected skin had no chance, and the anxiety of serving as quarry for a resourceful and devious enemy. Once 1 had con- trol of such a soldier, and as soon as he was will- ing, I would exploit my best regimen, a 30-day furlough to visit his mother, who would provide tender loving care, good food, a favorable cli- mate, and peace. Not all of my patients were pri- vates and corporals. There was that major who, ordinarily composed, burst into tears with the mention of "New Guinea ."

It was during the leisure in the Officers' Club after lunch one day when Ed Palmer, the Post psychiatrist, invited me to platy checkers.

"That child's game?" I said, ingenuous/y, "I haven't played checkers since I graduated into long pants ," which in the era I refer to represented a signal advance toward manly maturation.

"Come on, Dick, play me a g a m e . "

0190-9622/81 / 120754+ 03500,30/0 © 1981 Am Acad Dermatol

Volume 5 Number 6 December, 1981

Checkers isn' t chiM's play 755

He beat me. He beat me after lunch so regularly that shortly before noon my fingers would go pale, cool, and sweaty, and at night I would sleep fit- fully, knowing that next day, try as I might, Ed was going to beat me again. I lost weight, became inattentive to my wife and children, and spent se- cretive moments looking at imaginary checkers boards. Ed had spent years in his youth playing with an older sister. As all checkers players know, the good player beats the bad one every time. It's a brittle game that shatters with the first error. It is the tensest game I know that looks innocent, and I do not recommend it to people with high blood pressure.

I was assigned to another hospital. There I played checkers with peers of equal ineptitude. On one such occasion I became aware of an onlooker, a corporal with pale blue eyes, not much hair, and a gently receding ch in - -a face in no way memor- able. He stood alongside watching us intently.

"'You like this game, soldier?" I asked, look- ing up.

"Yes indeed, Sir!" he replied. "Si t down and play with us," I invited. "Thank you very much, Sir," he said, and

quietly, unobtrusively, and efficiently beat us, one after the Other, with no change of expression and only the gentlest remonstrance when one of us made an illegal move.

From somewhere near Boston, he had played regularly in the New England tournaments and was a player of recognized mastery in the higher echelons. I was the only one who would play with him, and he played with me for lack of a more skillful alternative. Patiently he taught me funda- mentals. He introduced me to the mysteries of Millard Hopper's "How to Play Winning Check- e r s , " borrowed from the Red Cross library. In time I became able to run down by the numbers, without a real board, the 3-kings to 2-kings forced win, and I was solving puzzle positions unaided. Then he located for me a copy of "Lees' Guide to the Game of Draughts." This is a holy writ, an analogue of Goren on bridge, with verbiage cut to the bone, consisting mostly of lists of moves by numbers and of pictures of board positions. I be- came acquainted with the several standard open- ings, such as the Edinburgh, Dundee, and Ayr- shire Lassie.

I returned to my original post. "How about a game, Dick?" Ed asked. I beat

him. I beat him every lunch hour thereafter until World War [I ended and we went home. Ed had never read the textbooks.

I resumed my normal way of life in my home town, wife, children, the practice of medicine, schoolteaching, and textbook writing.

In any large, diverse community, and many a small one, there is a checkers club. I located the one in our town and was welcomed. My new friends were sincere and sober fellows of widely ranging ages. Their voices were soft, their hands were clean, their competition on the highest level of propriety. They taught the tyro generously, and they showed him what he did wrong, and rules were adhered to reverently. They won and lost and drew games like gentlemen.

The membership included a man of middle age and modest stature who year after year was the state champion and who always wore a bowler hat. There was the youth from Birmingham whose father, well to do, begged him to go to law school. Maurice, however, wanted to play checkers and, in particular, to win the National Junior Cham- pionship. This ambition unfortunately was denied him. The young Iowan whom he could not put down eventually held the U.S. title for several years. Maurice sang cowboy songs for a radio sta- tion from 7 to 7:15 A.M. for room and board money and played checkers the rest of the time unless he was sleeping. There were the Rock Is- land engineer, the real estate agent, the elderly retired farmer, several others, and myself. Those were happy Sundays of comradeship in the park in the summertime. [ developed enough skill so that I didn't look bad in good company, but practicing medicine took up a lot of my time.

It was in the summer of 1948, I believe, when our checkers club invited Willie Ryan of New York City to visit and exhibit his amazing mastery of the game. Willie was editor of The American Checkerist, "the only magazine devoted to the science." He was superlatively talented at playing checkers blindfolded, the world's champion in fact at this variation, yet found it so difficult to earn a living that he accepted quite modest fees for exhibitions. Checkers in the twentieth century is not remunerative as golf or tennis or even bowling

756 Sutton Journal of the

American Academy of Dermatology

is, but the occasion of Willie's visit was conspicu- ously grand, and I induced my wife to invite our visitor and the membership of our club to a buffet supper at our home. I added a few of my medical friends to the guest list so they could meet Willie and my checkers coterie, for such a group would have to be looked upon as containing collectors' items.

In the morning 2 days before the party, the doorbell rang, and my wife answered, embar- rassed at being seen in housekeeping habiliment. At the door was a tall, distinguished looking el- derly man, his hair white and wavy, his manner courtly, his suit dark and formal, his hat in hand.

"Is this where Dr. Sutton l ives?" he inquired. "Yes, it i s . " "Then this is where Mr. Ryan is coming to

supper?" " Y e s , " said Mrs. Sutton, "day after tomor-

r o w . " " A h , " said Mr. Marr, 90 years of age and still

a tournament contender, "I wanted to be sure of finding the right p lace . "

The affair was gala. My wife had got together her mother 's and our best silver, china, and reci- pes, and the food was delicious. On entering our home the State Champion removed his bowler, and I observed for the first time that he was totally bald.

Our guests talked of nothing but checkers and played interesting games by the number: "Black moves 9 to 14," one might say, and another might interrupt, "I think 11 to 15 would be stronger," and they would debate, speaking series of num- bers incomprehensible save to the cognoscenti. It was a grand success.

When dinner came to an end, it was time to depart for the YMCA salon several miles distant where Willie would perform. I was last to leave and found that I was to provide transportation for old Mr. Marr. It was raining, and traffic was dense, and I paid more attention to the streets than to my respected companion. He was speaking in his low, gentle, somewhat monotonous intonation.

"Yes , D o c , " he said, "there are things you just can't teach some people . "

i gave him a fraction of my attention and dodged some idiot who was in an outrageous hurry.

"For instance, there was that fellow, Sam Ben- der ," old Mr. Mart continued. "It was early one Sunday morning, the light real pretty on the pasture, when I looked out to see what my dogs was makin' such a fuss about. They was in the back lot near the road, and I could see something lyin' there in the grass."

I gave him a larger fraction of my consciousness and slowed down a bit.

"It looked like maybe it was another dog, or a calf lying there, and I walked over to see up close. Doc, it was Sam, lyin' on his back snoring, drunk again. I don't hold for drink. No one can play good checkers and fool with that stuff. And it was Sunday, too ."

I slowed further and held to the right curb. Mr. Matt now had my attention.

"Well sir, Doc, the dogs was carryin' on, and Sam was snorin' away, and Dan, my pointer pup-- turned out to be a fine bi rddog--he sniffed at Sam's feet and then at his face, and then he lifted up his hind leg and let Sam have i t . "

I stopped the car. "Sam, he jumped up and he swiped at his face

and he spit~and cussed and cussed and spit, and Doc, I never heerd a man go on like that before. Well, I chased my dogs off and looked at Sam. A sorry sight he was. I was minded to tell him, Sam, you ought to give up liquor. And then I thought, no I won' t telI him that. He ought to figure that out for hisself. "

Old man Marr fell into a reverie, and I resumed driving downtown.

Willie sat blindfolded in the middle of a circle of twelve checkers boards, and the Rock Island engineer called the moves.

"Willie, table number seven moved 28 to 24 ." "16 to 19," said Willie without hesitation. Pretty soon Willie had won eight games and

drawn four. I got a draw with Willie that night, 33 years ago, and I haven't stopped talking about it. Or about my delightful checkers club friends, whose devotion to the science long outlasted my own.

Additional biographical material is to be found in my book, The Suttons' Texts of 1916-1975, published in 1981 by The Lowell Press of Kansas City, MO.

Richard L. Sutton, Jr., M.D., Leawood, KS