Meeting Bobby Fischer
Alexander Dolitsky once turned down Bobby Fischer's request to play chess.
"I couldn't," said Dolitsky, a longtime Juneau resident. "I was working."
After hearing of the recent death of the chess giant, Dolitsky reminisced on the meeting.
Dolitsky was working for Temple University doing an archeological survey near New Hope, Pa., when he ran across Fischer.
The two struck up a brief conversation about the Soviet Union, where Dolitsky was born, and chess, an activity they both enjoyed.
Then Dolitsky went back to his co-workers and told them: "Believe it or not, I just met Bobby Fisher in the corn field picking berries."
He said his co-workers laughed at him.
Fischer died Thursday in a hospital in Reykjavik, Iceland. The same city saw Fischer's 1972 victory over the Russian Boris Spassky, when he became the first and only American world champion chess player.
His victory at the height of the cold war caught the world's attention and put chess in the limelight.
Fischer became a star and an American hero.
The chess player's accomplishment was the equivalent to the U.S. Olympic hockey team's improbable victory over the Soviet Union in 1980, Dolitsky said.
But not long after his win, Fischer became a recluse whose infrequent resurfacings were marked by anti-Semitic or anti-American rants. Fischer was 64 when he died.
And as for Dolitsky, he said he didn't have to play Fischer to know he wouldn't have won.
"No, no chance," Dolitsky said. "Absolutely no chance."