Top of the Saturday weekend morning. Readers are moving up to the Home screen. It’s a fair crowd here today at Writeteller.com stadium. One laugh on base so far. Correction. The umpire has ruled this joke to be a foul. And I can tell you this! The blogger is not standing for that call at all! He is screaming for his lawyer! And now a word from our sponsor. Hi there! I hope you have been hitting home runs in your life all this week.
I’m feeling kind of story-ish today. Family channel kind of stuff. I know Christmas cheer is months away, but good tidings ought to be taken down out of the attic every once in a while. Don’t you think? On Blogger, on Spell Checker, on Keyboarder and Fingers! Merry Saturday!
Carvey Edwin Fleener Jr enters into the den area of his grandparents house. He is not particularly happy to be there. But he knows that he would be better off in the den, than in the kitchen with his grandmother, who was about to run him out. So it was just as well she volunteered Carvey to pay his grandfather a visit.
“Paw paw, grandma told me to come ask you to teach me to play chest.” Carvey said this to his Grandpa in a dissatisfied voice. Hearing the question, Grandpa Fleener’s bushy white eyebrows rose quickly to the top of his head in wonder.
Carvey thought that his grandpa looked like the world’s kindliest old man. As long as Carvey could remember, his grandpa mostly wore a red and black flannel shirts, tucked into a pair of rumpled blue jeans, a pair of worn out house shoes, and a face full of wrinkles. His favorite place to sit was his old easy chair in the den. Which is where he is sitting now, as he looked up from his fiction novel to see his grandson walking in.
He already knew that the only reason that Carvey was stopping in front of him was because Carvey was a five year old boy, full of questions, and had probably been driving his grandma nuts in the kitchen.
Grandpa Fleener almost sighed. It looked like it was his turn to entertain Carvey again. So he pushed his black rimmed glasses a little further up his nose, smiled, and said, “You mean chess don’t you Carvey?”
Carvey thought about the word he heard his grandma said in the kitchen, just eight seconds ago. He now stood only two feet away from his grandpa. Grandpa Fleener was very familiar with the way Carvey was standing. His arms were folded and his lips were formed into a hard line.
Grandpa Fleener had to smile at his grandson. To him, Carvey looked like the world’s smallest teenager, dressed in a white T-shirt, new jeans, and faded red tennis shoes.
Carvey wasn’t interested in how perfect he said a word yet. Chest or Chess. He didn’t care much which was correct. But he was pretty sure that if he agreed with his grandpa, he would be okay. So he said positively, “Yeah grandpa. That’s what I mean. The word you just said.”
Grandpa Fleener nodded. “I thought so. Did your grandma tell you why she wants me to teach you chess Carvey? You’re only five years old. Chess isn’t as easy as playing checkers you know.” Grandpa Fleener squinted his eyes and asked another question. “Do you even want to know how to play chess?” Carvey shook his head. “Nuh uh, Paw Paw.” Then like a house cat leaping furniture, Carvey leaped two steps and landed next to his grandpa’s recliner chair, and leans over the arm rest. He says in a quiet voice, so that only his grandpa can hear. “Uh, we was—well, she was cooking and we were talking, and I wanted to know about girls and babies and stuff, and she got cranky at me, like she gets sometimes. And then she stopped cooking to tell me I should hurry up and come see you, so that you can you teach me how to play chess.” Grandpa Fleener grinned and nodded his head again. The mystery of why his wife wanted him to teach a five year the game of Chess was solved!
“Okay. Now I see why she…” Grandpa began speaking under his breath, but stopped himself from thinking out loud. He smiled down on his snaggle toothed grandson, and gave Carvey’s shoulder a little pat.
“You know Carvey, your grandma is a pretty smart old gal, and that’s a fact. So now I’ll tell you what. You go get Paw Paw’s chess board, and I’ll put up my book, and we’ll set up the board on the dining room table. Is that okay?” “Yeah Paw paw. You gotta deal,” Carvey said, giving his grandpa a thumbs-up. If learning how to play chess was going to get him the answers he wanted, then learning to play chess might not be so bad after all. Carvey hustled off to get the chess board.
***
Within seconds, grandfather and grandson were seated at the dining room table. “Thank you Carvey for getting me my chess set. Now let’s just set up the chess board, and I’ll start teaching you how to play chess.” Carvey wriggled his way into one of his grandma’s hand carved dining room chairs, looking adult serious, and asks, “Paw Paw?” “Yes Carvey?” “Paw Paw why do they call this game Chess? It looks like crazy checkers to me.”
Grandpa Fleener smiled his amusement as he sets up the pieces on the board. “Now that’s a good question grandson. Nobody’s every asked me that before.” He rubbed his chin a little, then had an idea.
“Tell you what grandson. I’ll tell you only what I know about this game. Okay?” “Okay Paw Paw,” Carvey agreed.
“Good. Now before we get started, I want you to know that this game got it’s start in a country called India.” Carvey immediately interrupted. “Where’s that Paw paw?” “A place near Africa,” Grandpa Fleener informed him. Carvey’s eyebrows came together like low lying thunderclouds. “Afrita?” “No. A-fri-ca,” grandpa Fleener corrected.
“Now in India, chess was first called Chaturanga.” “Chat-tu-hango? Why didn’t they just call it Chess Paw Paw?” With a deep sigh, Grandpa Fleener smiled a grandfatherly smile at his wide eyed grandson. “The word is Chat-tu-ranga Carvey. And it means four divisions. It also means something about Yoga. But now hold on. Close your face. Before you ask me, we’re only going to talk about what the Indian people called Chess.” “Hey Grandpa! You didn’t tell me that there was gonna be Indians in this game! Whoop whoop whoop!!!”
“Carvey Edwin Fleener Junior. I’ll not have a war party raiding in my dining room,” Grandpa Fleener voiced with a chuckle. “And I’m not talking about those kind of Indians. These kinds of Indians don’t wear war paint. Now where was I?” “The Chata-something word Paw paw.” “The Chata-something?” Grandpa Fleener repeated. He stroked his chin trying to remember, and quickly did. “Oh yes. Chaturanga. It means four parts of an army. The Infantry, Elephantry… Carvey let me finish. …The Calvary, and the Chariotry. Okay. Now you can ask.”
“Wow, Paw paw, elephants! This game is going to be a lot more cooler than I thought. But wait. I don’t see any of the things you just said here on the board. No elephants, and none of those other things I don’t know what you were talking about.” Grandpa Fleener didn’t either. And he knew that he was going to have a little trouble explaining why not. But he had to try.
“Uh, well Carvey, Chaturanga is now the game you see on the table. It’s now called Chess. And Chess is supposed to be about battle thinking. Capturing the other guy’s chess pieces and other war stuff. It’s not really about elephants and the other things I was talking about.”
War stuff? Carvey’s face lit right up. “Ooooh like Call of Duty, Paw paw?!” “What’s Call of Duty Carvey?” Grandpa Fleener was confused and wanted to know.
“Oh, my friend Riz. I mean Rizzo. His big brother has it! It’s a video game where you get to shoot guns and stuff. It’s really cool.” Carvey leaned towards his grandpa with a big sneaky smile, and whispered. “Mom says I’m not supposed to play it. But when I go over to Riz’s house to play, I play it. And I’m really good at it Paw paw!”
Grandpa Fleener shakes his head and holds up an index finger. He then reaches for his cell phone sitting on the table. “Call of Duty, huh? Let me just put a reminder in my phone to look that one up later. And me and your mom will… Okay. Call…of…Duty. Got it.”
Carvey watched his grandpa set his cell phone back down on the table. And as his grandpa rubed his hands together, getting ready to continue, Carvey could picture himself being big-time busted by this same time tomorrow. That is… If Grandpa Fleener didn’t forget to tell his mom.
“Okay young fella. Let’s get back to our chess lesson. And we better hurry it up. Because I smell fried chicken in the kitchen.”
Grandpa Fleener picked up a chess piece from the board. “Now Carvey, this piece here is called a pawn. It can only go, straight ahead, one space at a time. But on its first move it can move one space or two.”
“That’s a pawn?” Carvey said, with a disapproving look. “That’s right Carvey. This is a pawn.” Wait for it, Grandpa Fleener thought with a tiny grin.
“Paw paw, can I ask you something?” Grandpa Fleener let the rest of his smile show through. “Sure. Go ahead.” “Okay. The pawn is so little. Is it really any good?” Grandpa Fleener stroked his chin again and looked at the ceiling. And as fast as snapping a finger, he knew what he wanted to say. “Carvey, you sure ask a lot of questions for a boy your age. I want you to know that.” Both grandpa and grandson grinned at each other for a moment, before Grandpa spoke again.
“Okay Carvey. How can I put this? Uh… Yep. I got it. A pawn; is the weakest piece on the board. It does a lot of guarding. That’s so the guy you’re playing against can’t move his pieces on to your side of the game board to mess you up. You understand so far?”
“Sure Paw paw. Kinda like Mr. Merdy, the guard down at the bank keeps people from messing up, right?” “Well, ah, yes. That’s close enough kiddo.”
Carvey suddenly see’s something on the board that strikes him as very interesting. “Paw paw?” “Yes Carvey?” “How come there are more pawns on the board than any of the other kind of these toy things?” “That’s another very good question you’ve asked. Well I guess—hey. Don’t you want to go and see if lunch is ready yet?” “Nuh uh. I want to know about the pawns. Why is there more of them on the board than any of the other pieces?”
“I see only two horses, and two of these rocket looking thingies, and only one of this guy with a beard and a hat on, and one of the lady with a hat on, and two of these things that look like… I don’t know what they are.” And Carvey kept his opinion going.
“The pawns should be the best-ess guys in the game, cause like my dad says…” Carvey stops to remember just how his dad had put it to him. “Dad says that the bigger the group you got the stronger you are, or…” Then it hits him just what exactly his dad mentioned about somebody rules. “I remember now. He told me the mi-nor-ity rules.”
“The word you meant to say is majority. And I have to agree with what your dad says Carvey. But that’s not how you play chess young man. The pieces behind the pawns are the more powerful pieces on the board.” Uh oh. Here it comes. I know that look.
The way Carvey’s face instantly turned into an expression of disagreement reminded Grandpa Fleener of his son, Carvey senior, when Carvey senior was little Carvey’s age. Grandpa Fleener knew that he was in for it now. “C’mon, Paw paw. I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense,” Carvey said, trying to sound grown up. Then his face lights up with an idea.
“You know who the Minions are Paw paw?” “What? Those cute little guys from Despicable Me?” Carvey nodded. “That’s them.” “Okay Carvey. What about those guys?” Carvey was only too happy to explain.
“Well paw paw. If all them Minions got really mad at Gru, they could really beat his hynie.”
“Uh, Carvey,” Grandpa Fleener said quietly, and with restraint. “Yes Paw paw?” For some reason, Carvey got the feeling that the ceiling was about to fall down on him.
But Grandpa Fleener breathed in a deep breath. He thought of the word hynie for a second, and decided that hynie didn’t count as curse word. “Never mind Carvey. We’ll get back to the pawns later. Do let’s talk about the most important piece on the board for a minute. He’s the king.” “Oh wow, a king! What’s he do Paw Paw?” “Well he gets to… Well if he gets captured—taken out, you lose the game.”
Carvey heard his grandpa talking, but had zeroed in on something else. “Yeah, but what’s he do? Can he take out a lot of guys or something? Trash the other pieces, or what?”
Grandpa Fleener cringed at the way a five year old could talk these days. And he made himself a mental note that he and Mr. Carvey were going to have a talk about it right after lunch. Carvey made a mental note to himself as well. But his mental note was about how to avoid any conversations leading up to the subject of what was proper for a grandson to say.
But Grandpa Fleener automatically started smiling again. “Uh… No Carvey, he doesn’t tra… I mean, he can only move one space at a time in any direction, and he always needs to be protected.”
Carvey squirmed in his chair, and cast a serious look at his grandfather.
“Paw Paw? Can I tell you something?” “Yes Carvey, you may.” Carvey looked as though he were between two minds, but in the end, he chose his first mind to speak from.
“I don’t want to make you mad Paw Paw, but don’t you think this game is kinda silly?”
Grandpa Fleener was hardly expecting this turn of events. Chess? A silly game? He had to take a moment to cock an eyebrow at his only grandson. “Why do you say that Carvey?”
“Well, you say the King is the most important piece in this game, and the pawns are the weakest.” “That’s right,” Grandpa Fleener answered. “Okay, if you say so Paw Paw. But don’t you think it’s silly that the most important piece in this game needs so many weak pieces, like pawns, to keep him from getting tra—I mean tooken out?”
Grandpa Fleener froze with his mouth hanging open. And for the life of him, he couldn’t really get anything wise to come out it. But after only a few seconds he finally manages to say something.
“Now wait a minute young man. Chess is not a silly game,” Grandpa Fleener said calmly. “You have to have some really good smarts to play this game. Don’t you want to be a smart guy?”
Carvey picks up a pawn on his side of the board, and sets it next to his king. Suddenly he grins like a cat with a mouse under its paw. “Yeah Paw paw. But I’ll be a smarter smart guy if I know why girls wear dresses and where my baby sister comes from.”
The great thing about being a kid is they don’t have to teach very much, explain how the world works, or take the blame for what they don’t know.
Thanks for dropping by. God’s cellphone is always on. His toll free number is p-r-a-y, extension #1.