Pieces from the Past: Not all competitions in Iowa City are physical

I covered many things and wrote many columns and stories before this blog was born. Since I'm on vacation and out of America for the week (my Dobermans are staying at home with my house-sitter, a burly fellow who has wild mood swings and a nasty temper), I'm going to try keep the blog moving this week with pieces from the past that will be new to almost all of you.

This column was on a spring day in 2006 when I just felt like writing about something on the downtown side of the Iowa River while in Iowa City, since nearly everything else I cover there is on the Kinnick Stadium side. Or, west side, if you will.

It was four years before Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi made these comments:

“I don't know how other colleges are, but when you walk around here, you've got people … you've got guys walking around in dresses and just these hippies. There's the Ped Mall area down there, right in the middle. Those people are going nowhere. Those people are the people who don't like America.”

Hmmm.

I don't think the Ped Mall was full of America-haters then or now. Iowa City is a college town, and colleges have diversity. People from different places, people with different beliefs, people who act differently and look different. To which I would add, ain't that America?

On with the column, if you've stayed with this long enough to get here:

IOWA CITY - A young woman pedaled her bicycle through the Iowa City Pedestrian Mall Wednesday. She wore a T-shirt that said "Blondes Do It Better."

She was a brunette.

For those whose primary exposure to Iowa City is being among 70,000 frothing fans on football Saturdays, the Ped Mall is sort of a yang to Kinnick Stadium's yin. On a warm afternoon well before late-night bar craziness changes its personality, it's one of the 10 best places in Eastern Iowa.

It's inhabited by young and old, students and townies, people toting briefcases and backpacks. Those who stop for a while sit and read. Or they sit and talk. Or they just sit and watch others. The air is partly filled by the sounds of chirping birds, not bigger animals squawking "Go Hawks!" The preferred sport here appears to be Hacky Sack, which seems to consist solely of people kicking around a bean bag.

Hacky Sack, by the way, is only 34 years old. Its co-inventor died of a heart attack at 28. You could look it up.

So I was reading a newspaper (what did you expect, the essays of Francis Bacon?) in the Ped Mall when two men grabbed the table next to mine and quickly set up a chess board on loan from a nearby tobacco shop. One wore an old T-shirt that suggested he was a member of a local crew that once helped stage "Les Miserables." On the back: "Life is too short. Les Miz is too long."

They didn't do much talking during the first half of the 90-minute game. One had a small dog. The pooch stayed quiet, too. This was, after all, chess.

Eventually, a younger male adult wearing a shirt saying "Life is Good!" sidled up to the table and asked if he could watch.

"Is that your dog?" the young man asked.

"That is not my dog!" barked the player.

"Does he live with you?"

"We cohabitate."

But when the player's opponent left the table for a few minutes, the player asked the young man for chess advice.

"Is that your dog?" the young man again asked.

"Yes."

"Oh, now that you want something ..."

Then the young man, who later said he was a two-time state chess champion, had a whirlwind of insights that I'm guessing were of use.

The other player returned, and things again quieted until a fourth man approached and asked if he could watch. He had a 24-ounce can of Rockstar Energy Drink. He had several keys, his driver's license, a pocket watch, and a couple of tiny kewpie dolls dangling from a thick string around his neck.

He tried to entice the players into learning to play Go. The Iowa City Go Club meets Wednesday nights downtown at House of Aromas. He called Go "a beautiful, beautiful game, the most complex game there is.

"Of course," he said, "it will totally ruin chess for you.

"There are more positions in the game of Go than there are estimated protons in the universe."

For those who need to know, the number of protons in the universe supposedly is 10 followed by 80 zeros.

That makes Go, a 4,000-year-old board game that teaches concentration, balance and discipline, sound harder to grasp than Hacky Sack.

The game proceeded, but with more conversation.

"How old are you?" asked the player with the dog.

"Twenty-two," was the two-time state chess champ's hesitant reply.

The player with the dog perked up, saying "There's a book out called `When They Were 22.' It's in every bookstore. It looks at all these famous people when they were 22.

It was an integral year."

"Actually, I'll be 23 in a month," said the chess champ.

The Go player continued pitching his game.

"Do women play it?" he was asked.

"There are some women," he said, as if it surprised him as much as everyone else.

Suddenly, the game was over and a winner determined. Suddenly, the players packed up the board and pieces, and were gone.

A woman in a business suit came through on her bicycle, standing on one side of the bike the entire way.

Love the Ped Mall.