The Suit: For Deal Me In 2023, ♦♦♦Diamonds♦♦♦ is my suit for short biographies of Indiana Governors and their first ladies. (No, sadly Indiana is yet to elect a woman governor)
The Authors: Ronald J. Allman II (from Governors of Indiana book) and Margaret Moore Post (from First Ladies of Indiana and The Governors book). Allman is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Indiana University Southeast and Post was an accomplished journalist whose career began in Louisiana covering the notorious Huey Long. Read more about Margaret Moore Post here.
The “Story”: Edgar Doud Whitcomb, the 43rd Governor of Indiana and his wife, Patricia Dolfuss Holcomb
Governor Edgar Whitcomb
“Whitcomb escaped from a Japanese prison on May 22, 1942, by swimming eight miles in shark-infested waters between Corregidor and the mainland of the Philippines.”
I was probably eight years old or so the first time I was old enough to answer the question, “Who’s the Governor of Indiana?” And the answer to that question was “Governor Whitcomb!” Admittedly I only possessed this knowledge as a ‘fact in a vacuum’ and probably had very little idea of what a Governor was other than him being the leader of our state. A few years back I bought a book of brief biographies of all the Indiana governors, edited by Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair, who I also had the pleasure of meeting just this past December at the Indiana Historical Society’s annual Holiday Author Fair, featuring scores of Indiana authors.
Whitcomb was a World War 2 veteran who also spent time as a P.O.W held by the Japanese, escaping twice(!) and even wrote a book about his experiences, titled “Escape from Corregidor.” After his escape, he fought with the Philippine Resistance. In short, it seems like he was a real badass.
As governor he had the misfortune of – despite being a member of the party which held large majorities in the state congress – presiding over the state when his party was embroiled in internal strife, making it hard to achieve some of his intended legislation. One thing he held the line on, however, was his promise not to raise taxes (gotta admire an elected official who can do that!).
In his retirement, he lived in a cabin in the Hoosier National Forest and later near the Ohio River, finding peace in solitude which I found enviable.
Below: There is a bust of Whitcomb in the Indiana State House (less than a mile from Bibliophilopolis Headquarters in downtown Indianapolis!) and, before launching Deal Me in 2023, I took pictures of it and those of several other governors who may appear later in the year in this blog.
Patricia Dolfuss Whitcomb was described as “a glamorous brunette beauty” who met Edgar when she was working modeling in a tearoom in an Indianapolis department store (probably the famous L.S. Ayres tea room?). Along with the Governor she raised five children yet still found time to support many worthy causes and was also a much sought after ‘guest of honor’ at local events. She was also an ‘amateur’ fashion designer and once, when a gown of her own making was complimented by the press leading them to ask who the designer was, she said, “Hoosier.”
UPDATE: Bibliophilopolis readers are the best! Upon reading this post, one of them – who worked for many years in the Indiana Statehouse – said that I reminded him that he had bought the Edgar Whitcomb book at a garage sale, and he sent me a couple pictures. Thanks, Geoff!
The Suit: For Deal Me In 2023, Hearts is my suit for stories from the Sci-Fi anthology, “Orbit 5,” which I purchased at the local Benton House’s annual book sale fundraiser.
The Author: Philip Latham – Actually the nom de plume of real life astronomer, Robert Shirley Richardson. Unbeknownst to me when picking my stories for 2023, he’s a fellow Hoosier, born in Kokomo, Indiana in 1902. He also wrote two “Children’s Sci-Fi” novels (I didn’t even realize this was a genre!)
The Story: “The Rose Bowl-Pluto Hypothesis” from the Orbit 5 anthology of science fiction stories, published in 1969.
Are you (like me) one who is interested in the origin stories of works of fiction? That’s one of the things I like about a good anthology – they often have an appendix or chapter with short bios of the authors or even a short explanation of how they came to write their particular contribution to the anthology. That’s why the annual Best American Short Stories volumes are among my favorites. They have great background info. Alas, when I leafed through the Orbit 5 anthology, however, there was none of this background info, BUT, in reading the story myself, I think I can infer something of its origin…
The Rose Bowl-Pluto Hypothesis
“Now, for the first time, he was becoming aware of the awful majesty with which the heavenly bodies went through their motions, enacting a drama the minutest detail of which was inevitable from the beginning.“
Mr. Zinner and Mr. Alyson are professors of, respectively, Physics and Literature at – I assume – a California university. We meet them as they’re spectating a track meet at the Rose Bowl. Zinner is questioning why records in the 100-yard dash – or the mile for that matter – are continuing to get faster and faster. Alyson suggests that there is only one explanation for this fact: ‘The track men today are better than we were forty years ago.‘ Zinner dismisses this and reveals his own shocking theory: ‘…the hundred yards of today are not the hundred yards of yesterday… because space is not the same. It’s shrunk.’ (I did say it was a shocking theory)
Zinner goes on to explain how measurements of the speed of light over the history of scientific inquiry (see here for a brief history) have been inconsistent, with the velocity of light “taking a slump” every now and then. It is in his explanation to his more literary colleague that the potential origin is revealed. He describes an early attempt by Galileo to measure the speed of light (the first such experiment we know of in recorded history). Galileo has an assistant take one lantern a great (but known) distance away. The lanterns have a shutter and Galileo directs his assistant to raise the shutter of his lantern the instant he sees the light from Galileo’s lantern when Galileo raises his shutter. Galileo reasoned that he could time the interval between his revealing light from his lantern and his subsequent observation of his assistant’s lantern. It didn’t work. The speed of light is too fast to be measured in such a way at such short distances (great idea, though, huh?). His only conclusion was that the speed of light it must be very fast indeed.
Latham takes some liberties with the Galileo story to make his own short story more interesting, but what I loved about the story is that, to my imagination at least, the light from those lanterns shone roughly 300 years into the future to spark the idea for this short story. Researching the author and finding out he was an astronomer himself added more appeal to this origin.
So, just a little short story in a >50-year old anthology sparked a lot of thinking and learning on my part. Now that’s a short story that has done its job!
The story ends with the following lines from John Donne’s poem “Go and catch a falling star”:
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil’s foot,
Galileo pic found at wondersofphysics,comPicture if you will…
Trivia Addendum: E=mc2… We all learned this formula in school right? (or at least from watching the intro to episodes of The Twilight Zone!) But why does the letter “C” represent velocity (the speed of light in this case)? You may know that the word “celerity” means ‘rapidity of motion or action’ which comes from the Latin word, “celeritas” which was Galileo’s conclusion about the speed of light after his lantern experiment.
Note: for longtime Bibliophilopolis readers & subscribers, I am using my blog for a one-off non-literary post here so that it can be shared with the Indiana State Chess Association’s website/blog. I do hope to return to writing about books and short stories someday soon, however. Don’t give up on me yet!
The Beginning
I am writing this dispatch from the center of Reykjavik, Iceland just the day after the annual Reykjavik Open has ended. This year’s event shattered the existing record for number of participants and – thanks to the help of an Indiana delegation of three (as ISCA President Lester VanMeter pointed out) – the tournament even broke the 400 mark with 401 total entries. Without us, they could only boast of 398 entries, right? 😊
The Delegation
I decided back in November 2022 to make my third trip to Iceland for this great event and, perhaps due to my incessant talking about my past experiences in Reykjavik in chess circles, my friend and chess colleague Bob Banta (fresh among the ranks of us retired folks) decided he would go also. The aforementioned Lester VanMeter hinted he might go too and eventually he became the third when he officially registered for the event. We were also unofficially counting Michael Carey (currently of Rhode Island) as an honorary member of the delegation as he is a longtime friend of Lester, who first met him in Troy, NY, when he (Lester) was a student at RPI. None of us were sporting particularly impressive FIDE ratings heading into the event and for the most part we confirmed their accuracy😊.
Lester at the Board
Bob at the, er, Bobby Fischer Center
Hey, that’s me at the board!
Mike at the “Split Rock” social protest memorial
The Preparations
How does one prepare for any tournament is a tough enough question, but a big, international event like this makes one feel like serious preparation is required. So, I played a lot of chess in early 2023 around Indy, and even played a FIDE rated event in Dallas in February as my “dress rehearsal” for Reykjavik. My results in Dallas were abominable, so I had to cling to the old show biz adage that if the dress rehearsal goes badly, the actual performance will be a success! (Chess players are great at rationalization!). Just before leaving for Iceland, though, I had two consecutive good results in local tournaments, gaining 44 USCF rating points in the process and at least getting some of my confidence back after spending most of my recent chess time sitting on my rating floor of 2000. The first time I went to the Reykjavik Open in 2017 was also after a period of relative success in USCF events, boosting my rating to 2086 at that time – a level where I was ‘less ashamed’ to show my face at an international event (later I learned & reminded myself that nobody cares).
So, playing was my main preparation, but I’d also been reviewing my new opening ‘repertoire’ that I’ve been trying to put into place in recent months. Lastly, on the Sunday before our departure, Lester hosted an ad hoc training tournament at his house, recruiting strong – though largely inactive in recent years – master Nick Adams of Fort Wayne to join the three of us in a double round-robin of rapid games (about an hour each). This provided a final boost of practice and some additional confidence for me, and we were ready to take the plunge. A few pics from our training tournament below.
Arrival
I learned my lesson after my first trip here to give yourself some time to settle in before you have to start playing chess. In 2017, I arrived at 7:40 in the morning and then had to sit at the board less than six hours later – not the best recipe for success! As I told Lester before we left “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing that first trip!” So, this year I arrived >48 hours ahead of kickoff as did Lester, while Bob arrived >24 hours and got in a ‘Walking Food Tour’ of Reykjavik, while I spent the day on a tour of the Southern Coast of Iceland, as weather deteriorated rapidly, eventually featuring >100kph sustained winds. People in my tour group were literally being BLOWN OVER by the wind and started walking with arms interlocked at the elbows. At one point, near the town of Vik, I was swinging my backpack over my shoulder to put it on and the wind caught its broad surface and treated it like a kite, trying to tug me across the famous black sand and into the sea (which WAS angry that day, my friends. Very. Angry). I remember thinking, “And I paid to be on this tour!”
Opening Party & Playing Location
Reykjavik’s stunning Harpa Concert Hall and Conference Center (above) has in recent years taken over as the playing site for this storied tournament (which has been held since 1964 – a nearly 60 year run!). Situated right on the shore of Reykjavik’s harbor on the Sea of Greenland, it’s my favorite place of all the tournaments I’ve ever played in. With this year’s record number of entries, we were a bit more cramped than in prior years. The Indiana contingent often joked amongst ourselves about scoring well enough to stay out of the ’steerage’ section of the lower boards. The lowest boards were down a short hallway with the sea ‘just outside ‘ the wincows. A Dutch player, Eric de Winter (who I’ve gotten to know over my prior visits), was having a bad tournament and quipped to me that he kept dropping to lower and lower boards and feared by the last round he’d “be in the water!” Funny all the things we chessplayers find to keep ourselves entertained during a competition.
Below: The lowest boards of the ‘steerage’ section.
On the eve of the tournament, there was an opening party for the registered players. I was the only one of our group who attended, but ran into a few familiar faces, including FM Todd Andrews, who I didn’t recognize at first, and Craig Jones. Todd said, “Aren’t you from Indiana? I think we’ve played…” When he said his name, I remembered that we’d played in the 2005 Louisville Open.
I also met a German player, Gerd Densing, who told me of a multi-year project he’d been working on – getting autographs of players whose games are featured in the studies in the great book, “Perfect Your Chess” he’d accumulated over 250 so far and hoped to add a couple more at this tournament. Interesting idea! I didn’t stay that long at the party though as I was still jet-lagged and wanted to at least try to get some sleep before we began play the next day.
Tournament Peculiarities
After playing a lot of smaller swisses lately, I’d gotten used to ‘never’ knowing what color I would have for a particular round, in a tournament with 400 players, though, the pool of potential opponents is usually so large that having to play the same color in consecutive games is a rarity, and indeed none of the Indiana contingent got the same color twice in a row. Another feature was that the white pieces were on the same side of the board throughout the entire playing hall – the player playing white would always be facing west. I started my tournament with black while Bob and Lester started with white, meaning we would be facing opposite directions, and they were usually in my range of vision. This last factor meant that I could not employ one of my many superstitions. In tournaments where one gets to pick which side of the table to sit at, I always keep facing the same direction if I’m winning and change directions if I’m losing.
Scenic skittles area:
There was also a “Streamers Corner” section of the playing hall where chess streaming ‘celebrities’ played their games regardless of their score in the tournament. This section included some extra space for cameras, wiring, etc. Names you might recognize are Alexandra Botez, Simon Williams, Anna Cramling (pictured below being interviewed by local television), Dina Belenkaya and Eric Rosen.
The Results
Well, Mike actually led the way from our group with a last round win putting him at 4.5/9. The rest of us followed closely. I only drew the last round and finished on 4/9 and Lester and Bob each settled on 3.5/9. As for the tournament as a whole, Swedish Grandmaster Nils Grandelius finished in sole first place with an impressive 7.5/9 “finally” winning the event on his eleventh attempt. Indonesian IM Irine Sukandar won the top women’s prize (with 6/9) on tiebreaks over German WGM Sarah Papp and Indian IM Nisha Mohota.
Turkish GM Mustafa Yilmaz (L) and Grandelius (R)Women’s winners (L-R) Papp, Sukandar, Molhota
The Games
Well, I’ve finished lightly annotating my nine games and will share them here. I will append any games or positions that Lester and Bob want to share with me from their games, although Lester told me that his games were ‘remarkable for being unremarkable’ so don’t hold your breath. The link to view my games in chessbase is Manage Your Favourite Games (chessbase.com) Or you can just view the .PDF file “printout” below:
Bibliophilopolis 