The Coldest Game (2019)

October 1962 was the scariest period of the post-World War II Cold War between the NATO powers (specifically the United States of America) and the Communist Warsaw Pact (specifically the Soviet Union).

It was the month of my 18th birthday, I was now eligible for the draft, and we learned that the U.S. had detected Soviet nuclear missile rockets on Cuba.

As a freshman at the University of Hawaii Manoa, I was required to take two years of ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps). In addition to weekly uniformed Air Force drills once a week, I was required to a class in discipline and strategy.

Our instructor advised us to pray because very soon, we’d be (1) drafted and sent to Cuba, or (2) dead from a nuclear attack.

The day that President John F. Kennedy announced the impending crisis was one of the scariest days of my life. Soviet warships were approaching the Caribbean, and American ships were poised to intercept them. Walking to ROTC class, I passed several groups of silent and worried male students huddled around portable transistor radios.

The Coldest Game stars Bill Pullman as former American chess champion Joshua Mansky, who’s called upon to play the Russian champ for the world championship. It turns out to be a tense political affair, full of intrigue, as the Cuban missile crisis is played out and he is pressured into winning.

Streaming on Netflix, the film has not gotten great reviews, but I liked it because I remembered the international situation of the time, bolstered with black and white TV coverage of the crisis. What unsettling memories it evoked.

My Summer of ‘75

Tilda Cobham-Hersey as Helen Reddy

It’s no secret that music has been a great influence in my life. In college (1965-68) I was a member of The Januaries, a folk trio (“two guitars, two guys and a gal”) in Los Angeles. Why I mention this is because of an experience I had in Las Vegas.

In June 1975, at the start of my term as president of the Honolulu Jaycees, I joined the Hawaii State Jaycees delegation to the Jaycees National Convention in Miami.

When the convention ended, two of my Jaycee friends and I met up with in Las Vegas. We stayed at Caesar’s Palace (no skimping, just first-class enjoyment). We also attended one of my more memorable dinner shows at the casino-hotel.

A nice $25 tip (that was big money those days) got us front row seats at a stage-side table. I forget what I ordered, but it was probably prime rib. What I do remember was the name of the expensive wine we ordered — Piesporter Goldtropfchen Reisling Spatlese (can’t recall the winery). It was so good that I searched it out when we returned home to Hawaii.

Around that time, Australian-American singer Helen Reddy was a huge success in the U.S. and after dinner, there she was, singing her hits on stage, only a few yards away from us. Comedian Ruth Buzzi opened the show. She wasn’t particularly special, but I did chuckle a lot, anxious to hear Reddy sing.

Her recording, “I Am Woman,” of course, was very popular and had soared up the charts. Up until the Vegas show, I had no idea what a powerful impact it had on women. Okay, I thought, here’s another woman trying to make it in a man’s world.

Maybe, I wondered, maybe I can learn something about her when she performed live.

I wasn’t disappointed. When she sang her anthem, “I Am Woman,” and the women in the audience joined in with great volume, enthusiasm, and power, it floored me. I got it. I became so emotional, felt a lump in my throat and tears welling up in my eyes. She received a standing ovation from all the women, and a helluva lotta men (me included).

This memory manifested recently when I watched her bio-pic, “I Am Woman,” on Netflix. It was so enjoyable! I learned a lot about the personal problems she had to bear, and sang along with her concerts, cementing in my heart how women had struggled for equality during my lifetime.

The closing scene, when she sang “I Am Woman” before thousands at the Lincoln Memorial during the 1989 “Mobilize for Women's Lives Rally” in Washington, D.C., was so emotionally powerful. Great cinematography, thousands — men included, me too — joined her in singing.