Belated Good-bye

Last week I happened to stop by the Park Forest Chess Club on the way back home after traffic school. I hadn't seen several of the players there in quite a while, so it was nice to catch up. Late in the evening, I asked Larry Cohen if he had seen Bernie Ostrowsky ( a club member) at all recently. Larry was kind enough to send me the article on Bernie's passing that I have linked to below from 2 years ago.

http://nwitimes.com/articles/2006/04/07/lives_lived/lives_lived/48af8c22cef2f4d986257148007b939b.txt


I highly recommend reading the article for comedic value. This is what sometimes happens when a non-chess person writes about chess events. In this article our valiant hero Bernie provides valuable propaganda for the cold war by holding evil Soviet GM Samuel Reshevsky to a draw. Great stuff, this newpaper writer would have had a great career penning the script for Rocky IV (darn, they were 25 years too late for that).

I played Bernie in my very first tournament (lost to him), and ever since had one of those friendly chess acquaintanceships where you take the time to ask how the other is doing every time you see them at a tournament, and of course wish them good luck. Bernie was an eccentric dude, not like there aren't that many people like that in our pastime, but he loved people. People like Bernie make up the fabric of our tournaments and are missed even by those that only knew him casually.

Glenn