When Alex was in the 1st grade I came home one evening and he asked if I would teach him to play chess. To my amazement he basically learned the game in one night. He started playing on the chess team at school (which is why he wanted to learn how to play) and he excelled at it. His coach, an older gentleman who volunteered his time with the chess club (I can't recall his name), came to me and said Alex was the best natural player he had ever seen, and suggested Alex play in the annual State Chess Tournament. As luck would have it, Owen Middle was hosting the event that year, so I signed him up in the K-3 division and we went. When play begins all the parents have to leave the room and they close the doors. Lots of parents waiting anxiously outside, including myself, in about two minutes the door opens and out walks Alex. I asked him what happened, he had won the game! "How did you win so quickly" I asked, his reply "Before the game started I asked him if he knew the 4 move checkmate and he said, No".

 

Alex loved sports and played basically year round whatever was in season, football, basketball or baseball. He was just a natural athlete with a great understanding of the rules of the game. One Fall he was playing football, he was in the game on defense and I saw him walk to the line of scrimmage as the offense was set. He bent over and was talking to one of the lineman on the other team. About that time the opposing lineman stood up and walked over to Alex. The Referee throws a flag and the lineman was called for illegal procedure, a 5 yard penalty! Later, when Alex came to the sideline I asked him what he had said to the boy. "I told him I needed to tell him a secret, when he stood up and got the penalty, I told him the secret was that he couldn't do that."

 

We used to spend hours in the front yard throwing the baseball back and forth. We would just talk, about all kinds of things, and throw. I always enjoyed our time spent together doing this and he would often be waiting on me with ball and gloves when I got home. He was very good and we'd often go over 100 throws without a bad throw or a drop. Well, we had a dog (a blue heeler named Gracie) who loved fetching balls more than anything. Gracie would run back and forth, back and forth, hoping for a bad throw or a drop. This could go on for 30 or 45 minutes till the poor dog was frothing at the mouth about to keel over from exhaustion, eventually it would happen, there would be a miss, and Gracie would run get the ball and dutifully drop it at the feet of whomever was closest. The dreaded slobber-ball! We would just laugh and laugh at each other  or whoever had to pick up the slobber covered ball. Eventually, we went to great lengths to get outside without Gracie noticing us, if we were successful, Gracie would just bark nonstop until Susan couldn't take it anymore, she would release the hound, and we would yell "Slobberball begins", that's when the game got serious.

 

But, perhaps one of Alex's best traits was his sense of humor and his beautiful smile. When Alex was in the 2nd grade we went to an Open House at the school. The teacher obviously really liked Alex and was bragging on him. Then she took me aside and said "I just love Alex he is so much fun to teach, but what I really like is his sense of humor, I have a dry wit which none of the other students get, but Alex just laughs and laughs, it's like we have all our own inside jokes and we're the only ones that get it. I've never had a student like him, he is so precious".