Creative Summer Chess Job

Picture by Lloyd DeGrane

Chess as a Summer Job
Sign painter Cecil Locke has figured out how to play his favorite game all season—and make a buck off it too.
September 7, 2007
By Gus Garcia-Roberts

About a dozen men stand shoulder to shoulder against a long, bubble-gum pink table at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Jackson Boulevard on a hot Wednesday afternoon. The table is decorated with strings of multicolored pennants and bright, hand-painted signs, luring passersby on their way to Taste of Chicago a block to the east. As “Sweet Home Alabama” pours from homemade speakers suspended on metal rods decorated with red and yellow plastic pinwheels, 48-year-old Cecil Locke, the table’s creator and proprietor, goes head-to-head against a man half his age in a serious game of chess.

Stocky and a bit unkempt, Locke is wearing a yellow safety vest over a grubby white T-shirt and cutoffs. His salt-and-pepper hair frames a high forehead and a bushy black mustache. Between moves, he collects money from people stepping up to play. In his left hand he holds a small bag of Cheetos, which he dips into whenever he gets a chance. His fingers are dusted bright orange, as are many of his white pieces.

A veteran sign painter from the south side, Locke has been setting up his table near Millennium and Grant parks for the past three years. Large signs on the sides of the table announce his business, the Touch & Go Chess Party. Thirteen smaller signs, one in Spanish, explain how it works: “$2 Donation to Play Chess all Day, $1 to Play Checkers all Day.”

Here is the full story which was sent to me by Jon Buckley.