MEET WALTER J. LEWIS!

I am 61 and have been a prisoner in California's prison system
since 1965. With prison rules fluctuating from facility to facility, I
needed a hobby that would keep me interested, busy, and allowable no
matter where I happened to be housed. Chess was the perfect solution.
Every prison in California allows chess sets. Even in the highly
restrictive security housing units an inmate can make a chess set. You
can draw a board on a piece of paper and form pieces out of toilet
paper. You use coffee water for the dark pieces.

I became a member of USCF in 1972, primarily for the magazine Chess
Life & Review, and began playing in their postal class events in 1973.
I continued playing with APCT until its demise about four years ago.
My rating normally bounced around 2100-2180 with APCT. My "claim to
fame" is occasionally pulling off a big upset. I have wins over
correspondence GM Jason Eckar, TIM Keith Hayward. A fifteen move win
over six time APCT George Fawbush. A ten move win over APCT Life
Master Fred Bender.

The California prison system has allowed political interest groups
to step in and influence programs. Activities like chess clubs, gavel
clubs, hobby craft, stamp clubs, weight lifting, boxing programs, etc.
have all been eliminated from California's prisons. When inmates are
not engaged in an academic or vocational program, their opportunities
for pursuing positive programming have been greatly curtailed. Prison
is like living in a very bad neighborhood; you need to provide
positive activities or inmates gravitate towards gangs, drugs, and
other damaging outlets.

All of the efforts to educate and train inmates have been
compromised. This is what I see today in California's prison system.
A favorite pastime of mine is trying to promote chess within the
prison system. Studies have indicated the game strengthens problem-
solving skills, encourages reading, memory, language and math
abilities. Chess has been linked to raising test scores and improving
self-esteem.

Inmates that normally don't associate with one another will play
chess together. With this common ground, chess builds bridges of
communication between inmates that would never ordinarily give each
other the time of day. I've seen some of the most implausible
friendships develop because of a shared interest in chess.

Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at Soledad.
GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to us.


http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8

* *Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at Soledad.
GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to us.

http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8

Cool!

I'll send you some stuff too [Larry, how do I connect with this guy?]
Including Maurice Ashley's very cool speed chess DVD, and [unknown if
you can use computer?] maybe some Russian Chess Software.

Phil Innes
Vermont

On Jun 28, 12:50*pm, ChessFire wrote:
* *Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at Soledad.
GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to us.

http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8

Cool!

I'll send you some stuff too [Larry, how do I connect with this guy?]
Including Maurice Ashley's very cool speed chess DVD, and [unknown if
you can use computer?] maybe some Russian Chess Software.

Phil Innes
Vermont

He's been 44 years in prison? What the heck did he do? Damn.

Detectorist wrote:
On Jun 28, 12:50 pm, ChessFire wrote:
Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at Soledad.
GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to us.
http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8
Cool!

I'll send you some stuff too [Larry, how do I connect with this guy?]
Including Maurice Ashley's very cool speed chess DVD, and [unknown if
you can use computer?] maybe some Russian Chess Software.

Phil Innes
Vermont

He's been 44 years in prison? What the heck did he do? Damn.

A guess--murder, rape and/or arson.

Detectorist wrote:
On Jun 28, 12:50 pm, ChessFire wrote:
Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at
Soledad. GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to
us.

http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8

Cool!

I'll send you some stuff too [Larry, how do I connect with this guy?]
Including Maurice Ashley's very cool speed chess DVD, and [unknown if
you can use computer?] maybe some Russian Chess Software.

Phil Innes
Vermont

He's been 44 years in prison? What the heck did he do? Damn.

He lived in CA under the reign of Meese and Reagan.

Detectorist wrote:

He's been 44 years in prison? What the heck did he do? Damn.

From the USCF board to FIDE to this guy, chess sure attracts some
winning personalities.

It just seems to imbue all sorts of good traits in people.

johnny_t wrote:
Detectorist wrote:

He's been 44 years in prison? What the heck did he do? Damn.

From the USCF board to FIDE to this guy, chess sure attracts some
winning personalities.

It just seems to imbue all sorts of good traits in people.

Don't forget Claude Bloodgood.

On Jun 28, 10:47*am, " wrote:
*MEET WALTER J. LEWIS!

* *Due to Grandmaster Larry Evans publishing my letter a few years ago
in Chess Life asking for donations of chess instruction video tapes,
we now have a number of tapes and DVD's that are broadcast over
thousands of TV's throughout three prison facilities here at Soledad.
GM Susan Polgar also donated her whole series of DVD's to us.

http://tinyurl.com/m9prr8

Dear Larry,

I have corresponded with Paul and Susan and it turns out that they
gave their DVD set [10 of them] to the prison system, so never made
direct contact with the cited writer.

I also don't know how to do that, but could make a contribution to
their effort if given a lead... any clues? Does Larry have any?

Unlike other writers here I am not better than my brother-in-jail. I
am possibly more fortunate, or was never caught, or prosecuted for my
thought, and so on.

Here seems to be a genuine means where men can differ and re-direct
aggression from illegal action, utilizing the cultural resource of
chess, which is a symbolic expression of aggression, rather than a
real one. I have always thought this worth pointing out.

Young men are particularly susceptible to converting tension to real
aggression, and have few cultural means of converting that impulse to
any culturally acceptable one - said an interesting shrink on the
radio so while ago, and she continued to say that come an age, the
frontal lobes obtain sufficient uumph [I paraphrase] to audit the
impulse.

Chess, and anything functioning as cultural intermediary like chess
does, was a highly valued cultural necessity, in her opinion.

Thank you anyway for posting this - and I will try to track down some
means to a connection.

[To those who have judged, let you note another historic opinion, and
perhaps even meditate upon it so that the judgement may come to seem
to you as equal to the crime. But that is another matter between you
and your god, or your whatever your call it. This is no intrigue upon
your personal circumstance, merely a notice of its poverty.]


Cordially, Phil Innes

Probably 15 years ago now I went down to a high security prison in
Western Mass in response to their ad for a literat [European term,
mine, not theirs]

I met a guy, the warden of the unit, same age as me. To get to him I
had to go through 2 perimeters of razor wire, and 2 check points -
then enter this metal prison - a prison of industrial trailers
connected to each other. It stank from the start of sweat and
industrial detergent.

Before his self we talked of the job, and as from the previous post,
it was evident he detested his inmates, his charges, and tried his
college try to put me off.

They were murderers he said, rapists, violent offenders, and in one
case a literal mother-****er... who shouldn't be here, but in some
permanent hole in a psycho prison.

Then from my resume he saw some military service; he volunteered his
own recent activity - he had been on the Yugoslavian war crime
commission investigatory team...

As he talked so did his body and voice change, and at a point he
blanched, excused himself, and went to throw-up in his personal
bathroom.

Heuch!

Not only did he not think his inmates, his charges, even deserved to
read real literature, neverrmind study chess, or any remedial or
orienting activity to society, he, contra all you here about prisons
and rehabilitation, thought their impress should be punitive.

===

Did you ever sweat in air conditioning? I did. Of course, there was
nothing for me to do at this place. The inmates were not the
incarcerated, they were damned...

on the way out I met 2 in passing, both black blokes, but we made eye-
contact - you understand? that fast direct 'blink' impression, one to
another soul?

written colla sinistra, yet i have 2 hands, though sometimes this,
this hand, is superior

cordially phil innes

On Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:37:18 -0700 (PDT), ChessFire
wrote:


on the way out I met 2 in passing, both black blokes, but we made eye-
contact - you understand? that fast direct 'blink' impression, one to
another soul?

Was that like between ferret and rabbit or between eagle and mouse?