 | I grew up on a farm in West Tennessee and playing checkers was my game of choice; plus there were no electronic games in 1969 when I was in Mrs. Craig’s fifth grade class. I played checkers at home with my uncle Grady Earl Johnson and at school with my school classmates. I didn’t realize it then but I was learning a lot about life while playing checkers; lessons that I have applied to many areas of my life as I have grown a little older.
As a kid I had fun making my own checker game both board and pieces. I would cut the side off of an old corrugated brown box and paint the squares with black shoe polish. Then I would get bottle caps from soda machines and make them the checkers. I used green Sprite bottle caps and red Pepsi bottle caps. So playing checkers and making my own checker board was always in my creative DNA. Even then I had a different color scheme for the board and pieces. As an adult I would long for the old days of playing checkers on a homemade board.
One day on a plane flight from Memphis, Tennessee to Atlanta, Georgia I had a burst of God’s given inspiration. I could see in my mind’s eye how to play checkers on a new structured checker board. Within 30 minutes the idea of how the board would look and be played was set in my mind. The feeling was accelerating. I realized that I had created something bigger than just another homemade checkerboard. I sensed that I was on the verge of making a newer and better checkerboard.
That moment was somewhat frightening because I already knew that it was going to be a success. I believed that it was going to be an evolution in "checkerboard technology" and could become the checkerboard for the 21st century and future generations. The name for the new board simply flowed. When you add playing checkers on a hexagon shaped checker board, it equals Chexagon, well you do the math. The rest is becoming history. |
