Fear, Loathing & Croquet in Post-Woodstock, Lexington, Virginia

The Short Life, Tragic “Death”, and Resurrection of the Rockbridge Open

Published in

W&L Tall Tales…

28 min readDec 25, 2015

The final hand-drawn poster proclaimed that the Rockbridge Open —a festive hybrid sporting-musical event scheduled for the weekend of August 1–2, 1970 in rural Lexington, Virginia, home to Washington & Lee University — was “postponed indefinitely.” When pressed by reporters for clarification, Fran Lawrence clarified — on behalf of the Transcontinental Croquet Association — that this meant cancelled completely for all intents and purposes… or was it!?

That was then, this is now…

The Challenge: With the creation of this archival story containing a digitization of the only remaining copy of the ‘Rockbridge Open’ Memory Book, I propose to my former TCA colleagues that the Transcontinental Croquet Association be revived for the purpose of fulfilling the association’s mission of “demagnetizing the poles,” etc. And I further propose that the revived TCA challenge Washington & Lee University to co-sponsor and host the 50th anniversary celebration of the Rockbridge Open — that amazing hybrid sporting-musical event that never happened due to fear, mistrust, and lack of communication between people in the post-Woodstock era.

Let this article serve as an informal “Call to Quest” for a revived Transcontinental Croquet Association — “veteran” members and new recruits — to work together to plan and host the 50th Anniversary ‘Rockbridge Open’ to be held in Lexington, Virginia on August 1–2, 2020, utilizing as much of the University’s historic campus as possible for the tournament venue! :-)

Wait! What!? The Rockbridge Open? Never heard of it…

To stimulate interest in this worthy endeavor, I have digitized and OCR’ed the “memory book” which documents our initial attempt at joining Art to Life while fusing the Mysterious to the Mundane. As such, this is a work-in-process.

As a Medium.com article — and the second in the W&L Tall Tales publication — I hope this bit of previously untold history of W&L student life will be vigorously annotated through margin comments and conversations so we capture even more bits of history about ‘the Open’ and the Summer of 1970 in Lexington, Virginia. Any TCA member wishing to be added as co-authors of this article with full editing privileges is welcome to contact me.

Here, then, is a digital copy of the official “Rockbridge Open Memory Book” with a just a dash of context-setting commentary along the way...

“The ‘Rockbridge Open’ Memory Book”

This is a digital copy of the Rockbridge Open memory book. The actual book is in terrible shape but still intact.

A number of the pages of the original book were made by photocopying newspaper clipping. These photocopy-produced pages are especially faded. I used Rick Hamrick’s incredible VueScan program to scan the book on a Canon LiDE 700F flatbed scanner at 9,600 dpi. In post-scan processing I sharpened and white balanced certain pages to get them more readable. I then used ABBYY’s Screenshot Reader to OCR the text bits. So far, only the newspaper clippings have been rendered in their textual form. I will do the same for the remaining pages as updates to this story.

So without further ado, here are the pages of The ‘Rockbridge Open’ Memory Book starting with the inside cover:

“MALLETS POISED, these earnest croquet enthusiasts are making plans for the Rockbridge Open. In front, from left, are Wes Pullman, Cia Holdorf, Vicky Kerr and Baine Kerr. Standing are Richard Dillon, Cully Blake, Jim Salmons and Fran Lawrence. — staff photo by Ayres.

Taped to the inside front cover of the book was an actual clipped copy of the photo of the original TCA members that appeared in the Lexington Gazette. This was the initial press coverage of what we hoped would be our Grand Event of the Summer of 1970. (The full story that goes with this photo appears on a later page of the book.)

The first page is a copy of our application for the reservation of the TCA name to sanction the event. As can be seen in this scan, the original application used the hyphenated form of “Trans-Continental” which led to the group being referenced as the TCA, TCCA, T.C.A. and T.C.C.A among other appellations.

The document was signed by Fran Lawrence and a fee of five dollars was paid to ensure that the Open would be officially “sanctioned” by some credible (?) authority that could plausibly make awards in recognition of croquet-playing prowess.

The first TCA press release was penned by TCA member, Vicky Kerr, who (apparently… can’t go by my fading memory) was a member of the press working at the Buena Vista News.

Here is the text of our first press release:

from: Vicky Kerr
The Buena Vista News
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
*** ********* *******
The Transcontinental Croquet Association
157 Main Street
Lexington, Virginia 2&450
Phone: 463–7226
There will be a croquet tournament in Lexington, Rockbridge County, Virginia, on August 1–2. Sanctioned by the Transcontinental Croquet Association, the combination festival-tournament is expected to draw participants from all over the state and east coast, both professionals in the sport and those who simply like having fun in the country.
A new idea in competitive sport, the occasion will combine discipline and joviality, sense of sport and sense of humor. The “Rockbridge Open” will feature free food, music, swimming and camping throughout the actual tournament.
No admission fee will be requested, but contributions for various concerns listed in the T.C.A.’s by-laws will be gratefully accepted. This activity will be the first of the newly established association, a legally established group. It will hopefully be the jumping-off point for other projects related to a new concept in group involvement and activity.
The tournament will take place on a beautiful farm near Lexington, with creeks and pastureland for camping and play. Referees and croquet sets, with varyingly difficult greens, will be furnished by the association.
Following are directions to the site from Lexington, Va. : Go five miles east of Lexington on Route 60; turn right on State Route 608; continue for about five miles; take a left on dirt road Route #700 (the near side of Buffalo Creek Bridge); continue to the end of Route 700, and you’re there.
For further information, contact the Transcontinental Croquet Association
157 Main Street, Lexington, Virginia, 24450. By mail, please.

What would an association be without a charter!? The TCA’s was appropriately whimsical and yet spot-on in terms of our calling out the problem of the climate of fear, distrust, and lack of communication in the “Post-Woodstock” world. It all seems quaint now in terms of who and what folks were worried about.

CHARTER
TRANSCONTINENTAL CROQUET ASSOCIATION

MAY ALL MEN KNOW BY THESE PRESENTS that the undersigned signatories have
founded a bond, funded in common, for the following objective and passion:
TO FURTHER THE ART OF CROQUET AT OUR OWN PARTICULAR PLACE AND ON THE EARTH AT LARGE.
We commit ourselves through these dedications:
WE ARE DEDICATED TO
1. Joining Art to Life
2. Uniting Vocation to Avocation
3. Fusing the Mysterious to the Mundane
4. Giving Magic to the Moment
5. (optional) Demagnetizing the Poles
ORGANIZATION
We feel that what matters is not how many frenzies are loosed but who releases
them. We have faith in our bonding for we believe in trust and trust belief.
We will not relax the grip. we Took hard into the other eye. There is a time
to gather the talismanic croquet balls, to meet and moonleap on the lawns, to
lollop to the light and heavy, the sun and shade, the game and the glory. Be
you witness to this. We are that we are.
REGULATIONS
As members of the global village, we operate under the tribal-oral dicta.
Though our structure is strict our rules are unwritten. The Law is neither
a jackboot nor a heavy hand, but a zephyr of trust twixt mouth and ear.
Indeed at times non-verbal. For these reasons it is embarrassing to write
further.
WHAT DOES AUGUST AUGUR?
Days of croqueting play without paying it goes without saying (we’re anti-war)
WE BELOW WHO SIGN WILL ADHERE:
[[Note: The original was then signed by members of the TCA. The copy in the memory book is an unsigned copy of this document.]]

The next three pages of the book document our increasingly sophisticated media strategy, here centered around viral marketing through the distribution of small, inexpensive poster/flyers.

Starting with simple yellow-stock paper and a hand-lettered master, our posters celebrated the free spirit of the time and of our group.

The text of these posters has not yet been OCR’ed to capture and document their content. The blue flyer/poster was the first to promote our having negotiated an actual venue for the event. Originally scheduled to be held on A.B. Claytor’s farm outside Lexington, A.B. was destined to become the next Max Yasgur until Fear and Loathing drained the Good Sense of the Lexington town supervisors. But I get ahead of the story…

The third letter-size poster was either printed by Fran in the remnants of his print shop from prior entrepreneurial escapades, or it shows the inroads we were developing into the J-School and its print shop. (Maybe Fran or Cully remembers the provenance of this third and the other posters.)

Our “insurgency” into the J-School was helped by my having a part-time job in the AP (Associated Press) “Actuality* Service.” Through this contract arrangement, the J-School ran a “re-taping and distribution” service to support the news operations of regional radio stations. Through this “hole” in the Mainstream Media’s kimono, I was able to put press releases and audio “sound-bites” out to the local media. The next couple of pages of the memory book include photocopies of clippings of our early exposure in the media.

This is the full story that appeared in the Lexington Gazette that includes the photo that was taped to the inside cover of the memory book.

Source: News-Gazette, Lexington
Date: 22 July 1970
Author: Alice C. Rabe

PHOTO CAPTION: MALLETS POISED, these earnest croquet enthusiasts are making plans for the Rockbridge Open. In front, from left, are Wes Pullman, Cia Holdorf, Vicky Kerr and Baine Kerr. Standing are Richard Dillon, Cully Blake, Jim Salmons and Fran Lawrence. — staff photo by Ayres.

HEADLINE: Croquet Tourney Could Prove ‘In’ Occasion Of The Summer

by Alice C. Rabe
If their purpose, fervor and advertisements arc good enough, local members and friends of the Transcontinental Croquet Association are going to be responsible for the “in” occasion of summer, 1970. In Rockbridge County, anyway.
Boys, girls, men, women, families, tribes and nations are invited to join in competitive efforts for real trophies in a specially arranged croquet tournament on Aug. 1 and 2, at the A. B. Claytor farm about ten miles from Lexington off Rt. 603 near Buffalo Creek.
The newly chartered TCA, which sanctions the tournament wants to see croquet brought back to the sporting life importance they feel it deserves. They’ve sent notices all over the state, out of state and across the country, according to Jim Salmons, Washington and Lee sophomore and one of the tournament sponsors. Advertisements have been posted to attract local citizens. Campsites will be provided for those who may come from afar, the sponsors state.
“Everything will be in a holiday spirit, only there really will be nothing to celebrate except community joviality,” said Jim. “We just want everyone to have a fun time at a fun thing.”
The tournament will be officiated by stewards, all members of the TCA, who will supervise courts of play in sets of six participants each. Croquet sets, to be furnished by the association, will be placed on greens of varying degrees of difficulty. Good sportsmanship will be encouraged. Temper tantrums will be discouraged.
There will be free food, in case some forget lunch, and a place to swim if any get hot. Plans include local music but don’t preclude surprise talent. There might even be the crowning of a queen.
There will be no fees, but an honest man will pass the hat. Collected monies will go to a charitable organization, probably a local one.
The TCA, comprised of an uncertain number of Washington and Lee students, states its “objectives and passions: To further the art of croquet at our own particular place and on the earth at large.”
They are dedicated to: 1. Joining art to life. 2. Uniting vocation to avocation. 3. Fusing the mysterious to the mundane. 4. Giving magic to the moment. 5. (optional) Demagnetizing the poles.
They also have indicated they would die happy if they should receive notice in Sports Illustrated.

While a couple additional mentions were to hit the local Lexington and Buena Vista press, our “big break” publicity-wise came with a column feature by the Roanoke Times’ Sports Editor, Bill Cate:

Source: The Roanoke Times
Date: (Sunday) 26 July 1970
Author: Bill Cate

HEADLINE: Rockbridge Open: Anyone for Croquet?

LEXINGTON — The Rockbridge Open may prove to be the athletic and social revelation of our time.
The RO, as it shall be known here, is not just any little ole golf tournament. In fact, the RO isn’t a golf tournament at all.
The Rockbridge Open, scheduled — and, my friends, it will go on as scheduled — for next Saturday and Sunday, is a very absurd croquet tournament sanctioned by the Trans-Continental Croquet Association.
Sanctioning such an important event should not — and will not — be taken lightly. Therefore, the TCCA has put forth one of Lexington’s most substantial citizens to spearhead this gathering at the A. B. Claytor farm.
Fran Lawrence, a six-year student at Washington & Lee (one more year and he’ll have tenure), is one of the organizers of the TCCA and this croquet tournament. Fran, the W&L student body president, knows where it’s at. (The croquet tournament, I mean.)
One must understand, before passing the RO off as funny stuff, the five-fold purpose of this great organization.
The charter states that the TCCA is dedicated to: (1.) joining art to life; (2.) uniting vocation to avocation; (3.) fusing the mysterious to the mundane; (4.) giving magic to the moment; (5. optional) demagnetizing the poles.
With these purposes and dedication, how can this croquet tournament fail?
It should also be understood that the TCCA has founded a bond, funded in common, for the following objective and passion: to further the art of croquet at their own particular place and on the earth at large.
I know you think this is some kind of joke. But it isn’t. Now get this. The Rockbridge Open croquet tournament (for real) will be held at the A. B. Claytor Farm about 10 miles from Lexington Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 1–2. (Follow the signs from Lexington.)
This doesn’t mean you have to play croquet or plan to enter the tournament to come. It’s a croquet tournament, sure, but there’ll be rock and Blue Grass music, food (bring your own if you’re a big eater), camping and restroom facilities, swimming in Buffalo Creek and the Maury River, and plenty of woods for you to play around in.
“In other words,” said Lawrence, “make your own thing. We want everybody to come and have fun, doing just what they want to do.”
There will be eight croquet courses (it costs nothing to enter the tournament or partake of the festivities, but a hat will be passed by an honest man), one in the shape of a peace sign. The tournament will continue (there will be candles strategically positioned for night-time croqueting) 24 hours a day until a winner is decided.
(Each game, of course, will have a winner. That winner will compete with other winners until there is only one winner winning.)
Lawrence expects a big crowd, maybe in the 5,000 to 7,500 range. (Sounds kinda like a rock festival.) Maybe some croquet hustlers will come down from Chicago. Temper tantrums will be discouraged.
To provide the background music for the tournament, Elvis Presley, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Tom Paxton have been invited but probably will not show up. The New Deal String Band from faraway North Carolina and other area talent are expected.
Lawrence and his fellow TCCA members are trying to promote a new altitude toward croquet. They, understandably, are tired of the snobbish folk and white flannel pants often associated with the
sport.
Some W&L faculty members are being caught up in the spirit of the thing. One ROTC instructor donated a manual on field sanitation.
To understand the originality of this event, one must come to grips with Fran Lawrence.
Lawrence came to W&L in ’65 on a George F. Baker grant. He was, until sustaining a serious injury in ’67, a football player.
In ’66 Fran opened a dance hall and brought the first (and last) go-go girls to Lexington. This operation lasted a month before being discontinued by the local police. It seems that Fran bad not gotten a permit to bold a public dance.
But Fran had rented the building and, not being a wasteful sort, was determined to put it to use. He immediately went into the antique furniture business and printing business simultaneously. He. soon sold out of furniture (three weeks) and discovered the printing business was not look good.
Then, using the same location, he opened a coffee house with a printing press in the back. The coffee was good, business was good but Fran s grades were bad. He lost his George F. Baker scholarship, the coffee shop and went on academic probation.
Now, with the RO, Fran is springing back into action. His plans for the future are somewhat undetermined. (“I may hang around Lexington and make croquet mallets with a lathe.”)
“Everything will be in a holiday spirit at the RO,” Fran said, “only there really will be nothing to celebrate except community joviality. We just want everyone to have a fun time at a fun thing.
Wow, man. I can dig it.

On the next page of clippings — along with the continuation of Bill Cate’s piece from the Roanoke Times — are short clips from the Lexington Gazette and the Buena Vista News:

Source: Lexington News-Gazette
Date: 15 July 1970
HEADLINE: None
America, or at least Rockbridge County, is returning temporarily to the traditions of her motherland on Aug. 1 and 2 when anywhere from 10 to 100,000 loyalists will vie for trophies at the Rockbridge Open Croquet Tournament at the A. B. Claytor Farm about ten miles outside of Lexington. The tournament is officially sanctioned by the Transcontinental Croquet Association, 157 Main Street, Lexington, according to advertising posters. Prince Charles and the Queen mother are unable to attend but competition will be no less stiff and all the frustrated athletes of the world will finally have their day. The above information comes directly from Fran Lawrence, a W&L student and one of the chief creators and organizers of the competition.
Source: Buena Vista News
Date: (Thursday) 30 July 1970
Page: 4A

HEADLINE: Croquet Tourney

The Transcontinental Croquet Association met Monday night, July 27, for an organizational meeting relating to the final details in preparation for the tournament-festival in Rockbridge County on the weekend of August 1–2. During the meeting the directors also decided that all profits and energies coming out of the weekend’s activities would go to the furthering of the cause of the Save Marble Valley Association.
The festival will not take place at the previously announced site, and the site has now be finally decided upon to be at “Zolman’s Pavilion”, closer to Lexington and also situated on Buffalo Creek, with plenty of pastureland for camping, etc. Just follow the signs from Lexington — they’ll be all over.
The free festival-tournament is expected to draw thousands from Virginia and surrounding states; free food will be served and a variety of musicians, country and rock, will play. Any contributions for the SAVE MARBLE VALLEY effort will be gratefully accepted.

The next two pages of the memory book are samples of our large-format event posters. Each poster is trimmed a bit to accommodate folding the bottom third, roughly, inward to fit the book dimension. The first is our “classy bit” complete with clip-art and actual typographic fancy font-work, etc.

The largest form-factor is the second poster that was intentionally sparse with copy to allow use during and around the event for branding and information signage messaging.

As the posters attest, we were steaming toward launch of the event in late July of 1970. The next page of the memory book is a mimeographed press release with some of the most complete descriptions of how the event prep was shaping up.

Source: Mimeographic press release (smell long gone)
Text note: Unique flair in spelling intact
Author: unk
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
*********************
Transcontinental Croquet Association
157 Main Street
Lexington, Virginia 2445O
Final arrangements for the ROCKBRIDGE OPEN were discussed at a meeting of the T.C.A. in Lexington Monday night, Early indications are that a good sized crowd of several thousand or so are expected. The tournament, the first croquet event of its kind, will mix a jovial sense of competition for esoteric (if not valuable) trophies with music, swimming, eating, and camping. Everything is free, and everybody ls invited; all that is required is a sense of peace and pleasantness. The tourney will kick off at around 10 a.m. Saturday morning, August 1, and will progress to the finals at 2 p.m. Sunday, August 2. Rounds of six players will begin as they arrive, with the winner of each round moving on in the competition; but, keep heart, losers might well get another chance!
The property borders a mile along the Maury River with its cool, yet mild water and rocky (not muddy) bottom, Music will interlace the tournament, princibly in the evening. A number of musicians from Lexington, the state, and elsewhere are expected. Blue grass, folk, and rock should all be represented, Tore are ample arrangements for parking but it is hoped that people will get it together in as few cars as possible to avoid any major traffic jam. Sanitation facillities and plenty of water will be available, as well as free, nourishing, if not scrumptus food. There will be a sense of rugged pioneering about the camp grounds. The farm has not been “national-parkarized” yet.
In keeping with the spirit of living and playing in nature, all proceeds from the “United Kettle” in the center of the mall will go to SAVE MARBLE VALLEY and/or related conservation programs. It was appropriately remarked that one cannot play croquet on a mud flat, an eroded field, or a slag heap. The meeting was closed with thanks to Pres Brown’s Sport Shop, Shenandoah Electric, The Band Box, and Adair-Hutton, all of Lexington, for their generous support in this event. And again, an invitation to devotees of peace, play, and camping everywhere to come.

With the final press release out, flyers and posters were plastered up and down the East Coast — thanks to “viral distribution” by way of hitch-hiking hippies pressed into service in return for a square meal, a place to sleep the night, and a stack of Rockbridge Open flyers and posters with instructions to put them up in rest rooms of bars and restaurants, in head-shops and other bus stations during their further travels.

The next page of the memory book reflects just how close we came to implementing the Rockbridge Open. This is a copy of the small “Burma Shave” road-side signs we were going to use to mark routes from Lexington and Buena Vista to the A.B. Claytor farm, the original location of the Open.

And Then the Fear & Loathing Kicked Up a Few Notches

At this point the memory book takes a decided turn to the Dark Side as controversy swirls…

Source: Lexington News-Gazette
Date: 29 July 1970
Page: 3A

HEADLINE: Croquet Event Called Off

The Rockbridge Open croquet tournament, which had been slated for this weekend, has been postponed indefinitely, Fran Lawrence, one of the organizers, announced today.
Mr. Lawrence said the widely advertised event had been called off on the advice of the County Board of Supervisors “due to inadequate facilities for the number of persons who might be expected to attend.”
Even before receiving this advice from the county authorities, the organizers of the free outing were having their problems.
It became necessary this week to change the site for the event, and the group was attempting to negotiate for another suitable location. As of this morning one had not turned up.
Mr. Lawrence was advised today, by Comity Executive Secretary Gardner T. Unibaiger that the supervisors had ‘ gotten significant negative feelings” in the county regarding the two-day affair.
However, the organizers, mostly W&L students, had also received considerable support from merchants and others who were enthusiastic about the novel idea.
Much work had been done to provide for the health and safety needs of the participants as well as to prepare the tourney site, a spokesman said.
But the factor that seemed to trigger the opposition was the uncertainty as to the size of the crowd that might show up. “No one involved with county services could determine what we might be faced with,” commented Mr. Umbarger.
Meeting with the promoters of the affair this morning were members of the Board of Supervisors, Commonwealth’s Attorney C. H. Davidson Jr., Sheriff W. B. Chittum and Dr. Frank W. Price, health director.
While expressing disappointment at the outcome, Mr. Lawrence said today that his group is still interested in the Save Marble Valley effort and hope to plan another project to raise money for that effort. Even though the croquet tourney had to be called off, his group plans to donate $100 to Save Marble Valley Association, he said.
And, in case some people don’t get the word that the competition has been called off and arrive here Saturday, “we’ll find them places to stay,” he concluded.
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Date: (Thursday) 30 July 1970

HEADLINE: Cancellation Hits ‘Rockbridge Open’

LEXINGTON (AP) — Sponsors of the “Rockbridge Open” admitting their plans had met with the disfavor of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors, announced Wednesday the scheduled Aug. 1–2 event has been called off.
The “Rockbridge Open” had been billed by the sponsors as “a very absurd croquet tournament” to be put on with the sanction of something called the Transcontinental Croquet Association. The combination festival-tournament was expected to draw participants from throughout Virginia and the East Coast, both professionals in croquet and “those who simply like having fun in the country” according to the sponsors.
To the supervisors it looked too much like a potential rock festival.
Fran Lawrence, a member of the board of directors of the “croquet association,” said his board had decided to postpone the event indefinitely, an action he confirmed meant its cancellation.
Lawrence said the action was taken because the Rockbridge supervisors had advised the sponsors that unless they called off the tournament, the county board would have to impose restrictions because “of inadequate facilities and the large number expected.”
The event, Lawrence said, was to feature free food, music, swimming and camping throughout the two-day tournament. The site was to be a farm near Lexington and the sponsors said they would furnish referees and croquet sets for competition on the “varyingly difficult greens.”
Source: The Washington Post
Date: 30 July 1970

PRE-HEADLINE: ‘Rockbridge Open’ A Clinker
HEADLINE: Croquet Tourney Proves Too Musical for County

LEXINGTON, Va., July 29 (AP) — Sponsors of the “Rockbridge Open,” admitting their plans had met with disfavor of the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors, announced today the scheduled Aug. 1–2 event has been called off.
“Rockbridge Open” had been billed as “a very absurd croquet tournament” to be put on with the sanction of the Transcontinental Croquet Association. The combination festival-tournament was expected to draw participants from Virginia and the East Coast, both professionals in croquet and “those who simply like having fun in the country,” according to the sponsors.
To the supervisors it obviously looked too much like a rock festival.
Fran Lawrence, a member of the board of directors of the “croquet association,” said, his board had decided to postpone the event indefinitely, an action he confirmed meant its cancellation.
Lawrence said the action was taken because the Rockbridge supervisors threatened to impose restrictions because “of inadequate facilities and the large number expected.”
The two-day event, Lawrence said, was to feature free food, music, swimming and camping at a farm near Lexington.

Source: The Times (Roanoke, Richmond?)
Date: (Thursday) 30 July 1970
Author: Joel Turner (of the Times Shenandoah Bureau)
Section: City County State News of The Times

HEADLINE: Rockbridge Croquet Tournament Hits Sticky Wicket

By JOEL TURNER
of the Times Shenandoah Bureau
LEXINGTON — The Rockbridge Open won’t be held after all.
The croquet tournament planned for this weekend at the A. B. Claytor Farm near Lexington was canceled Wednesday by the Trans-Continental Croquet Association (T C C A), the organization formed to sanction it.
The Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors “told me in no uncertain terms that if I did not cancel it, they would adopt an emergency ordinance to stop it,” said Fran Lawrence, one of the tournament’s organizers and a Washington and Lee University student.
Supervisor Chairman Lyle E. Koogler said the board, which met with Lawrence Wednesday, recommended that the event be cancelled.
“There were too many unknowns about the thing — too many unknowns about the size of the crowd and what could happen,” he said.
“We told him that we could adopt an emergency ordinance to stop it,” Koogler said, although the supervisors did not actually adopt such a measure at the meeting. He said that the board will likely enact an ordinance designed to prohibit rock music festivals in the near future.
Public opposition to the tournament from county residents was apparently mounting, Lawrence said. The owners of two planned sites for the tournament informed Lawrence that their property was no longer available.
Claytor, who had agreed verbally for the tournament to be held on his farm about 10 miles from Lexington, informed Lawrence Tuesday that the site was not available. An alternate site, at Zollman’s Pavilion six miles from Lexington, was obtained Tuesday night, Lawrence said.
But Ralph Zollman, the pavilion owner, said Wednesday it was not available Lawrence said.
The TCCA was negotiating for use of the Natural Bridge Speedway Wednesday morning when the supervisors threatened to adopt the emergency ordinance, Lawrence said.
“The only thing they (the supervisors) could think about was a rock festival or a cocktail party,” the W&L student said.
“I can’t deny that we had to be dynamic with our estimates of the size crowd we were expecting,” he said. This past weekend he said he was expecting a crowd of 5,000 to 7,000 persons.
There were no plans to turn the croquet tournament into a rock festival although the organizers planned to have blue grass music in connection with the event, Lawrence said.
The health department had given approval to the sanitary facilities which were being developed at the Claytor farm, he said.
When Claytor “backed put” of his verbal agreement, Lawrence said, the TCCA came to an agreement with Zollman to use the pavilion.
The Lexington chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) had a square dance planned for the pavilion Saturday night. “We had worked it out where the VFW would cater food to the tournament spectators and hold its dance in connection with our tournament,” Lawrence said.
But Zollman told him Wednesday morning that the site was not available. Zollman’s wife said Wednesday night that her husband changed his mind when he “found out how many people they were going to have.” She said the pavilion facilities were not large enough to handle a large crowd.
“The whole thing depended on the good sense of the community,” Lawrence said. The tournament “wasn’t necessarily a youth thing and we didn’t plan a rock festival,” he added.
The supervisors were getting a “lot of complaints” from residents about the tournament, Koogler said. Some feared that it would actually be a full scale rock music festival.
“The way they had arranged the things,” Koogler said, “it was an open invitation to everybody, everywhere to come.”
The association, which had planned to give any proceeds from the tournament to the Save Marble Valley Association, will still donate $100 to the group formed to fight Virginia Electric and Power Co.’s planned hydroelectric project.

With disappointment spreading like proverbial wild-fire, Roanoke Time’s Sports Editor, Bill Cate, and friend of the ‘RO’ weighed in briefly and forcefully in his column. And I can’t help but think that an outraged Bill stormed into the editorial office and demanded a third of the Opinion Page July 31st to vent his rage… although the editorial has no by-line.

Source: The (Roanoke) Times
Date: 31 July 1970
Section: Sports of The Times
Author: Bill Cate

HEADLINE: None (the first item in his daily column)

Headline: Board of Supervisors Forces Cancellation of Rockbridge Open
My Side: A croquet tournament has now been cancelled. What will they cancel next? Church?
Fran Lawrence’s Transcontinental Croquet Association, a group devoted to saving Marble Valley, is still intact however. To avoid cancellations in the future, maybe the TCA should stage milder events. Anyone for tiddly-winks?
Source: The Roanoke Times
Date: (Friday) 31 July 1970
Section: Opinion Page

HEADLINE: Closing the Open

Calling a croquet tournament a croquet tournament doesn’t make it a rock festival, nor did the originators of “The Rockbridge Open” plan to turn it into anything but a gathering of fans for a somewhat unconventional, but presumably bona fide, sporting event.
The Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors nevertheless canceled the event, scheduled for this weekend outside of Lexington, on the rather vague grounds of “too many unknowns” in the picture.
The board rightly took into consideration the feelings of local residents when it decided that neither of the two sites could be used by the Trans-Continental Croquet Association (TCCA). But it is possible that both board and residents are victims of a delusion (attributable to so many unfortunate episodes at rock festivals) which triggers predictions of disaster at any gathering of young people.
Moreover, the board seemed to ignore several factors that differentiated the tournament from many crassly commercial rock festivals. The TCCA, formed by some Washington and Lee students and led by the student body president, planned to give the proceeds to the Save Marble Valley Association.
They had even planned a joint outing with the Veterans of Foreign Wars for Saturday night, with the VFW generously offering to cater food to the tournament spectators, while they ‘all joined in a square dance.
But now “The Rockbridge Open,” gigantic put-on or not, can no longer take place. A leisurely weekend has been canceled, ostensibly because of “unknowns”… but, more likely, because people could not put aside stereotypes even when something unique may have been in the works.

With Lexington Board of Supervisors strong-arm tactics forcing the last-minute cancellation of the Open, it was incumbent on us getting the word out that the Open was not going to happen. This quickly-created flyer announcing the cancellation was prepared to replace the skads of event-promoting posters that were all over Lexington, Buena Vista, and the surrounding area.

The final page of the memory book are post-mortem and follow-up coverage that let folks know what went on causing cancellation of the event and resolving whether there was a future for the Open.

Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch
Date: 31 July 1970
Page: 1 (w/ two continuations)
Author: Larry Markley
By Larry MarKiey
The Transcontinental Croquet Association lives.
That was the word Thursday from Fran Lawrence, one of the TCA’s founders, in the hectic wake of the eleventh-hour postponement of the association’s first endeavor — the first Annual and Existential Rockbridge Open, a croquet happening better known as just the Rockbridge Open.
Two Choices
The demise came Wednesday, when the Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors, fearful that they had a rock festival in the making, gave Lawrence and the TCA two choices.
Either cancel the event scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, the supervisors said, or they would enact emergency ordinances really restricting it. (The supervisors have no power to actually prohibit croquet tournaments.)
So Lawrence and the TCA canceled the Rockbridge Open, or as he put it, “indefinitely postponed it.”
“But it’s not a dead issue yet,” Lawrence said Thursday of the aborted Rockbridge Open. “If we can find some people at Washington and Lee (University) next year to get this thing really rolling, we might do it.”
While the happening has been “indefinitely postponed,” the immediate problem has been finding places to stay for those who show up Saturday anyway. Thursday night, after nearly two days of frenzied searching, Lawrence said he believed enough lodging had been found.
Formed in June
The Transcontinental (“It’s one word in the American Heritage Dictionary,” Lawrence said.) Croquet Association and the Rockbridge Open came into being in early June after Lawrence and a group of friends began discussing ways to bring people together especially those in the Rockbridge area.
His own interest in croquet had begun last spring when he was given a croquet set, Lawrence said, and the idea of croquet as a vehicle to promote “dialogue” ard “togetherness” evolved naturally.
“Croquet is kind of low-key sport, you know,” Lawrence said. “It’s kind of a cross between golf and billiards.”
The format for the Rockbridge Open would be simple: a croquet tournament in the day, music at night, perhaps swimming and during it all, dialogue.
Everything would be free, although collections would be taken, and what was left after expenses would go to environmental protection causes like the Save Marble Valley Association, a group that’s fighting Virginia Electric and Power Co.’s plans to build a hydroelectric project in the mountains nearby.
The Rockbridge Open never was a front for anything,” said Lawrence who is president of the Washington and Lee student Executive Committee, the student government association.
The TCA went about eliciting local support for the Rockbridge Open, and Lexington, where Washington and Less is located, “really got caught up in the thing,” Lawrence said.
A local sporting goods store donated some croquet sets, a department store provided prizes, an electrical supply company lent electronics equipment. A “couple hundred dollars” in contributions came in, he said.
“Late in the game we were working with the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars), which would have been terribly unique,” Lawrence said.
Then came the Rockbridge supervisors.
“We made a mistake, an acknowledged mistake, not knowing how many people were going to come.” Lawrence said. (He guessed Thursday that 1,000 to 2,000 persons would have attended and several hundred of those would have been overnight campers.)
“Apparently they (the supervisors) got afraid that more people were coming than they thought, or they thought it was
[[Continued on Page 4, Col. 7]]
(Third continuation has its own ‘headline’)

(Continuation Headline): Croquet Issue Termed ‘Alive’ in Rockbridge

Continued From First Page
a rock festival, or they didn’t want this sort of thing.
“The county supervisors could only talk about rock festivals (at their meeting Wednesday). The Rockbridge Open was something they’d never heard of or seen before. They could only understand it was a rock festival or dance — and it wasn’t either.”
No Big Name Groups
Nobody would have been paid to perform at the Rockbridge Open, no big-name groups were scheduled to appear, and the music supplied by area groups would have been “slanted toward bluegrass,” Lawrence said.
People such as folk singers Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger, country and western singer Merle Haggard, pop singer Elvis Presley and author Truman Capote (“We figured you could never have a party without Truman Capote”) were invited, but none said they would be attending, Lawrence said.
The Rockbridge County Health Department had been complainin about sanitary facility arrangement — latrines had been dug to Army manual specifications — and two farm-site location offers were withdrawn in 12 hours this week, Lawrence said. Then the board of supervisors frowned on the whole idea.
But Lawrence is more disappointed than bitter about it all.
“All you can blame the supervisors for is their own incapacity for imagination,” he said.
“It’s sad that the people of Lexington were looking forward to a fun weekend, you know, and now they won’t have it,” he said, recalling that among the written purposes of the TCA is on of “demagnetizing the poles.”
And what’s Lawrence, who has put in a lot of time and some money on the Rockbridge Open plan doing now?
“You know,” he said, “I’m gonna go out to the VFW square dance Saturday night and see what’s happening.”

And with that, we’ve reached the end of the official ‘Rockbridge Open’ Memory Book. All that is left is to show you the equally nondescript back cover which, like the book’s front cover, does nothing to suggest the “historic meat” that lies within.