Chess on the Mississippi

The Chess Monthly: an American chess serial: Volume 3 - Page 137

(Story below from the May 1859 edition: abridged)

EDITED BY

PAUL MORPHY, ESQ. AND DANIEL W. FISKE, M. A.
PROBLEM DEPARTMENT BY E. B. COOK, ESQ.

In the year 1844 I found myself on board the good steamer Mound City, bound for that great Western metropolis. Our boat was named from St. Louis. The captain was an ardent chess player, and having so strong a bond in common, we soon became intimate. Yet the gallant skipper made but a poor score . . . If a floating log struck the boat, if some dispute, likely to end in a quarrel, was heard in that Pandemonium, the lower deck; or the pilot's voice rung aloft, answered by " 4 feet 6 " from the bows, the skipper was on the hurricane deck in twenty seconds and poor . . . (Chess) forgotten for the time.

One Night in Memphis

The cover of the souvenir playbill from 1993

The year was 1993, and Memphis in May International Festival, Inc. mass mailed fliers to Memphis area USCF chess players introducing the Germantown High School's production of CHESS performed at the Poplar Pike Playhouse.  Mike Barton, the 1993 Memphis Chess Club president, and I decided we would attend one of the shows, in which we did, and it was a night to remember.  Well, the subject of the musical was chess, and somehow I would have felt guilty if allowing this opportunity to pass me by.  I was also curious about what exactly happened that One Night in Bannock.  Mike, having experience with Broadway productions, was not very impressed, but it was one of the best stage performances I had ever seen.