Quite a long time between shirts from 1998 until 2016. Tragically, our dearly beloved Matthew Borowski succumbed to cancer in 2002, leaving bereft everyone who had had the good fortune to know him. His cheerful disposition, generosity and can-do spirit are an inspiration for all of us. As often is the case, his charismatic nature was the glue that brought and kept people together. Of course, life endures and the survivors mourn and must carry on, even though we can never forget. On a trivial note, in the intervening years I took up the game of competitive croquet. In 2015 I learned that a controversial photograph had surfaced, purporting to show the Kid and other Regulators in the midst of a croquet match. True or not, the unlikely pastime seemed to me an apt subject for a new shirt. Around the same time, during Matt and Becky’s daughter Alena’s wedding, our fellow Pageant-goer of years past, Keith Burns, suggested a grand reunion at the 2016 Pageant. Many of us managed to attend, enjoy Becky’s hospitality and bask in the glow of old friendships.
The models for Olinger and the Kid are respectively Rick and Charles Cooper, fellow members of the Chicago Croquet Club. The conceit is: “The historical record is incomplete, but a scrawled entry in the Tunstall-McSween ledger book indicates that the Kid had a nice 4-ball break going when a continuation shot took a bad hop at a fire-ant hill and subsequently ricocheted off a tent-peg at Colonel Dudley’s encampment, going out of bounds. Ollinger was able to score a Hail-Mary hoop shoot and proceeded to destroy the Kid’s position. Bad luck for the Kid’s faction continued as the Murphy-Dolan mob burned down the McSween home. McSween and 4 others were killed, though a number of others, including the Kid, escaped under the cover of darkness.” This nonsense probably only makes sense to someone like me, who knows a lot about croquet and the Lincoln County War.
This is quite a sinister-looking Kid and admittedly the portrayal is not boyish enough. My neighbor Cliff Brady posed for this and we must have used broom handles or something for the bars. Dated 1998, it was the last shirt I did until this year, although Matt and Becky re-printed some of the earlier efforts from time to time to sell at Lincolnworks.
From 1996, this shirt features choice dialog from the Pageant and crowd-favorite Buckshot Roberts, who was portrayed for many years by local Dan Storm. The role of Buckshot and other cast members are largely filled by residents of Lincoln County and neighboring counties, making it a true folk pageant and probably the oldest continually performed event of its type in the nation. The “actors” perform in pantomime and the dialog is spoken by other locals reading from the script over the PA. The gunfire (with blanks, of course) is provided by the actors on stage. During the actual shoot-out, the Murphy-Dolan leaning Roberts single-handedly held off a group of thirteen Regulators, including the Kid. Regulator leader Dick Brewer was shot between the eyes by the mortally wounded and defiant Buckshot.
From 1995, which is probably the year we went with the kids to Pageant. We had to cut the trip a little short because of my daughter’s medical issues. On the back of the shirt is a bit of dialogue from the pageant relating to this scene, which was the bloody climax to the Lincoln County War. After several days of stalemate between the Murphy-Dolan faction and the Tunstall-McSween party, Colonel Dudley’s troops arrived in Lincoln, camping on what is now Becky and Matt’s property. The “non-interference” of the federal troops allowed the Murphy-Dolan group to set fire to McSween’s home. The besieged Regulators retreated from room to room as the conflagration slowly spread. Under the cover of darkness they made a desperate escape, guns blazing. McSween, Romero, Zamora and Morris were killed by the Murphy-Dolans. Yginio Salazar was left for dead, later crawling away to safety. The Kid and several others escaped with little or no harm. Then the victors inspected the corpse of McSween:
Mathews: “Why, what’s this he was a-carryin’? Looks like a book. Well, boys, he died with a Bible in his hand.” (examines book) Where’s his gun, ya reckon?”
Long: ” ‘pears like, he warn’t a-carryin’ one.”