Brick

From left: Steve Clark, Tom Rys­trom, Dr. E. Vester Wol­ber, Kay Arnold, Jim­mie Lou Fisher, Jo Luck Wil­son. Mahlon Mar­tin behind Clark (sleeve visible).

The story of the June 14, 1986, cro­quet match played by for­mer Arkansas Attor­ney Gen­eral Steve Clark was so mem­o­rable to me I did not bother to check the facts when I sum­ma­rized it last week. I had doc­u­ments, I kept them in a file — a real manila paper folder, not an icon on a com­puter screen, so you know they’re true.

The folder has pho­to­copies of my own write-up, now online. The humor col­umn ran on the Voices, or op-ed, page of the Arkansas Demo­c­rat (no hyphen), Page 9C, a cou­ple of weeks after the event. It men­tions Tom Rys­trom, about whom I for­got, and that needs cor­rect­ing. I wrote the U.S. Cro­quet Asso­ci­a­tion about the form­ing in spring 1986 of the Democrat’s cro­quet team Mal­lets Afore­thought. The reply men­tioned Tom and his Lit­tle Rock Cro­quet Club. Its mem­bers were young busi­ness­men like Tom. Rys­trom at the time was in real estate — leas­ing agent? — and while months later he left Lit­tle Rock, he and I orga­nized the Arkansas Sesqui­cen­ten­nial cro­quet setup.

Next in the file are press releases. Tom’s and my role in plan­ning is doc­u­mented in a May 26, 1986, release from the Arkansas Depart­ment of Parks and Tourism. The pur­pose of the state­ment was to encour­age peo­ple to sign up to play. The Demo­c­rat, the Arkansas Gazette, even the alt-weekly Spec­trum ran info from the piece, in a vari­ety of spots, but on the day just the two clubs and the state VIPs showed up.

The most incrim­i­nat­ing doc­u­ment I’ve kept is a pho­to­graph of the state’s team. It is as fac­tual as my story of how the game played out was not — a guest col­umn. I made up how the game went, because oth­er­wise the piece would be as dull as explain­ing bad­minton. Some games are bet­ter played than read.

From the pic­ture I have to admit that Tom looked per­fect, as proper cro­quet nowa­days is more of a resort or coun­try club activ­ity. Nei­ther club planned for the state work­ers don­ning 1920s’ garb so Tom’s peo­ple came in week­end casual. Mal­lets Afore­thought showed up in our uni­forms: jeans or shorts, our logo caps and loudest-available Hawai­ian shirts. I have no idea why we’re not in the picture.

A June 19, 1986, Parks press release states that the team of state Trea­surer Jim­mie Lou Fisher and Clark defeated Depart­ment of Her­itage Direc­tor Kay Arnold and Finance and Admin­is­tra­tion Direc­tor Mahlon Mar­tin. The release goes on to say that Rys­trom and his part­ner, Dr. E. Vester Wol­ber, defeated Randy Lille­ston, Sarah Sny­der, C.W. Brown­ing and myself.

I’d like to remem­ber it dif­fer­ently, but facts are facts, and the ones I made up for a col­umn 22 years ago have hard­ened into some­thing. –30–