From Earl Hangen's Scrapbook....

[Jay H]

Greetings All,
I have recently discovered Earl Hangen's Scrapbook amongst my possesions, and I have asked Earl if he minded if I would post some of the items in it.....to which he has granted me his blessing. !!!!


During his almost 25 years as ACF Mail Play Director, Earl was in contact with (certainly) almost every mail player in the world, and had developed a friendly relationship with (certainly) almost all of them.
As a result of this, players from all over the world would send him anything that they had that they thought he could use in his "Wood's Ladder Report"......and he (Earl) would use what he could. But, even if he did not use it in his "WLR",he kept EVERYTHING that was ever sent to him, and he kept a scrapbook.....
I will post these here and there, and I could think of no better way to start this thread than with an article sent to Earl by THE MAN himself..
Mr. Richard Fortman...!!!




If you look closely, you will see that it is actually two seperate articles......
Thanx Earl for allowing this, and thanx to Dick Fortman for his incredible contributions to the game !!!!

AND
As always,

Comments are welcomed, encouraged and appreciated !!!!!




Regards

Jay H

[Jay H]

Holay Jay....how old is Earl?...

Greetings Irma,
Earl Hangen turned 80 years old in April.


Regards,
Jay H

[tommyc]

Thats a fantastic piece on Fortman a look if i might say so on the 2nd greatest after Tisley.......Thanks Jay..

[Jay H]

Thats a fantastic piece on Fortman a look if i might say so on the 2nd greatest after Tisley.......Thanks Jay..

Thanx Tommyc,
Glad you enjoy it !!!!!
I think most will agree that Dick Fortman is , indeed, one of the greatest "Checkerists" of all time !!!

I will be posting others now and then, so stay tuned !!!


Regards,
Jay H

[EdTrice]

I remember some conversations with Don Lafferty where he admired how Dick Fortman could retrieve a position from "any game ever played" in about 5 minutes. Don would say something like:

"I'd call Dick on the phone and give him the runup. And, my oh my, good ole' Dick would be able to tell me who, what, where, when, and how it came to be before I could scratch my belly."

... or something like that.

The amazing thing was: this was an analog retrieval system, without using computer technology at all!

I still have no idea how he did this.

[Jay H]

I remember some conversations with Don Lafferty where he admired how Dick Fortman could retrieve a position from "any game ever played" in about 5 minutes. Don would say something like:

"I'd call Dick on the phone and give him the runup. And, my oh my, good ole' Dick would be able to tell me who, what, where, when, and how it came to be before I could scratch my belly."

... or something like that.

The amazing thing was: this was an analog retrieval system, without using computer technology at all!

I still have no idea how he did this.

Greetings EdTrice,
LOL!!!
Earl Hangen was capable of the exact same thing !!
Back in the mid-late eighties, when I was playing regularly by mail, every now and then I would give Earl a call with a question about a certain game, or run up....it would take longer than the time to scratch my belly, but not much longer ( !), until Earl would come at me with twenty different games on that line, with who played them, and where they were published, win or loss, etc. !!!!
Remarkable !!
I know Earl and Dick spoke and corresponded quite regularly , and developed a friendship over the years....maybe they both developed and utilized the same inventory system....

Regards,
Jay H

[Jay H]

Greetings All

On the eve of what appears to be ( if I am reading the most recent results correclty...) Mr. Ron "SUKI" King's amazing performance at the GAYP National in Las Vegas, I thought I would post another item from Earl's scrapbook....
I do not know who sent this one to Earl, but it is dated 1995......and it does mention the Mississippi Championship tourney.....
But, look at the picture itself !!!! A CLASSIC !!!!
Ron King and Elbert Lowder !!!! And obviously, very much in the HEAT OF BATTLE !!!!!






Sadly, some of the article is missing,.......but most of it is there.

Hope you enjoy it !!


Regards,

Jay H

[Jay H]

Greetings All,
To elaborate on Tommy C's post in the Dennis Cayton thread...
A little background on Dennis....

This a scan of an article that was sent to Earl Hangen, (probably by Dennis himself) which he used in his Wood's Ladder Report.



When I first started playing by mail,back in 1986 , Dennis was a few months from gaining the #1 rung on Wood's Ladder.
Dennis started a continuous run on Woods Ladder in January of 1977, and after almost 10 years of plugging away, he finally won the #1 rung , defeating Bob Burroughs by the score 2-0-4 draws in a 6 game match.

Over the next few years, he had shared top rung, on and off with Burroughs , Gene Zuber and Matt Long....
During this same time period, he also won the ACF Inter-district Mail playoffs, and then the World qualifying Tourney, which gave him a shot at the World Mail Play Title, held at that time by Dick Fortman.
This article was published during their match....May, 1990.
He also had his own Mail Play Ladder, and compiled alot of analysis in his "Cayton's Compilation".

Dennis was a GIANT among mail players in his heyday, and he was like a Checker playing GOD in my book.


I have another article, but I could not fit it onto my scanner, I may try to configure it in the future.....
In the article, Dennis refers to himself as being "like the Lone Ranger".

Dennis,
I am hopeing that posting this article will remind you of some happier times in your life, and the ones that are sure to come. We are all rooting for you to pull your bootstraps up, and get back on that horse and ride again !!!!
Here's to wishing you the best of luck, and to letting you know that you are in all of our thoughts !!!!

With all of my sincerest regards

Jay H

[Jay H]

Greetings Fellow Forumites....
Rather quiet around here...
Anyway, I finally got my son to help out with resizing the "other" Dennis Cayton article I wrote of in my previous post, but....here it is, as promised.
This is a copy of the original article, as this is what is in Earl's Scrapbook.....probably sent to Earl by Dennis himself.....( Dennis...???)Some of the last few lines were cropped off....indeed, this is two seperate scans that were combined....but, we could not make it any smaller and still be readable.....





Again, Dennis....wishing you all the best !!!!!!!!

Regards

Jay H

[JR Smith]

Jay I continue to enjoy your articles from Earl Hangen's Scrapbook, keep'em coming... And Thanks again!

[Jay H]

Jay I continue to enjoy your articles from Earl Hangen's Scrapbook, keep'em coming... And Thanks again!

Greetings JR Smith,
Glad you are enjoying them.......
I am glad just to have the opportunity to share some of the items from the Earl Hangen Library/Collection here on the forum boards

But, it makes it sooooo much more enjoyable when I know that others appreciate seeing them
There is much more....so, stay tuned !!!!

And ...THANX !!!!

Regards


Jay H

[Jay H]

JR Smith,
Because you enjoy them so much , here is another,..... this one on Arkansas checkerist Jerry Childers .



As the Mail Play Director for the ACF, Earl was involved with nearly every major mail play event from 1980-2005. And, as such, he was in contact with all of the major players
I believe that this was sent to Earl by Jerry Childers , as he (Childers) was another GIANT in the world of mail play, and would have had many an occasion to correspond with Earl.

Enjoy.

Regards



Jay H

[Jay H]

Greetings All,
Here is an article on my friend, and the greatest inspiration to me as a Checkerist.....
MR. EARL HANGEN



IMHO, There has NEVER been anyone who gave more to our game.........Earl gave all he had to give,
There is no more respect that I could give,
to anyone
Part 2 of this article will be coming very shortly.....
With all of my regards,



Jay H

[Jay H]

AND, AS PROMISED ....PART TWO OF THE SAME ARTICLE



The top part of the page is actually a different article,....a "checkers primer". The article on Earl continues halfway down the page.



A little inside info on this article.
I was present during the reporter's interview with Earl. As with any story the media publishes on the game, the writer applied his own artistic license, in an effort to make a more sensational story.
Earl was disappointed with the article, as, we had both made the writer promise us that we could proof read the article prior to publication, to which he agreed.
Well, he lied.
Shows what I get for having any faith in the news media, especially when covering the subject of Checkers.
Earl was misquoted several times. And I can remember the anxiety Earl felt when he thought of how fellow checkerists would view some of the mis-quoted comments.
One in particular was that Tinsley was offering $5000.00 to anyone who could beat him across the board.
Of course, the words never left Earl’s lips.
This was from back in the day when Tinsley offered $5000.00 to anyone who could develop a computer program that could beat him.
Even during the interview itself, I corrected the writer of the article, as he had read some quotes back to us, just before finishing…
“ NO, sir,….the $5000.00 offer is not for anyone who can beat Tinsley, but for a programmer….etc., etc.”
“Okay, I understand” replied the reporter….and yet he STILL published the wrong statement.
I guess to him, (the writer), it makes a much more sensational story as published.

One of the best components of the whole experience was that the Reading Eagle pulled their "ace" photographer (Cliff Yeich) for the project, and several years later, the Reading Public Museum had an exhibition of Yeich's work on display....one of the centerpieces of the exhibit was the main photo for the article, the one with the superimposed hand coming from the mailbox.....I believe Earl was given the copy that hung in the museum.....sadly, this is (I believe) lost.


Anyway,
I hope you enjoy......


Regards

Jay H
BTW, I want to publicly thank my son Jay H jr., for the work he did scanning this article. It was too big for my scanner, and he had to make 4 scans of each page, and then recombine them into one image.....over 3 hours of work !!!! And it turned out very well !!! THANX JAY JR.

[Jay H]

Greetings All,

Here is somewhat of a follow up to the Earl Hangen article......
Several years after the publication of the previous article, the writer, Ray Koehler, called Earl and asked if he could do some type of "updated" article on Checkers mail play.
Earl, thinking not much had changed, thought of another interesting idea, about how mail play is played throughout different cultures, and means different things to different people......Earl gave the writer Louis Van Deven's number, and he called Van....you will see a quote or two from him in the article....


Hope you enjoy it !!!

Regards

Jay H

JR Smith....In another thread you questioned
" why are most scans posted with the right hand side clipped?"

I am not quite sure what you mean....? PM me with some examples....