[Skybird]

when I was still at school (finished school in 1985), I was heavily enagged in chess, and chess computers as they were coomon back then. I had a Chess Challenger Voice, a Mephisto II, later a Mephisto Exclusive M-IV. In recent years I have started to collect certain machines from that time, those objects that i was hungry for when I was younger. I have several early Fidelity machines now, several Mephistos, a Novag super conny, and - the pride of that time back then - a Sargon 2.5 ARB, that is the wooden sensor board by Chafitz.

However, my search is coming to an end, the only machine missing on my list I finally have found, now, and since some days negotiated with a certain guy about the price. I only palyed against that beauty once in my life, as a boy. It was owned by the father of a boy who was in my class. And when i once visited him and his father was out, he secretly put up the computer (his father had forbidden it), and we played. A Chess Challenger Sensory Champion (I already have one of the extremely rare pieces of the higher model "Elite Champion"), the pride and glory back in it's time! See it thorugh the eyes of a small boy that I still was - it was fantastic.

so this guy now and me, we negotioiate the price, and talk about our experiences back then, and what computer we owned during our life. He then mentioned that he used to go to the KaDeWe (a very big warehouse in Berlin...), back then they used to have a big table with chess computer where you cpould play, like today kids are playing at playstations and nintendos in stores. I said i did the same, every day, after school, and they had a certainsalesman there, an old gentleman whom he remembered, too. We talked on and it came to out that we visited the same school, and shared alot of memories on teachers. Finally we had the price fixed, and exchanged our real names and adresses - surprise! He is the same guy I who was in my class back then, and the machine he is selling now is that same piece of equipment his father had owened and forbid us to play with! Die Welt ist ein Dorf, ich sag's immer wieder! since 1985, we haven't heared anything from each other, and did not spend any thoughts on that, since we were no close friends back then.

that reminds me of another incident that is even more unlikely, but really took place, I swear it. After school was done, two boys from a parallel class received a world travel as a gift. The one started to the East, wanting to travel Asia and Australia, and then returning via the US, the other guy started into the opposite direction, directly heading for the US, and later wanting to go to China, or Japan. In a class meeting several months after school was over we learned that both guys met by pure chance six months later on the airport in L.A. - the one just arriving from Australia on his way to the East Coast, the other leaving the US for Japan! "Die Welt ist ein verdammtes Dorf, ich sag's euch immer wieder!"