| The
History of the Northeast Ursamen Tee Shirt |
| Presented here for the first time
online is a brief history of the Northeast Ursamen as seen thru
the many tee shirts issued over the years. If you're an old-time
member, enjoy this little trip down memory lane. If you're a newer
member or a curious on-looker, then enjoy our stories. Once you've
read this article, you may have the makings of a game like "spot
the license plate". You can generally tell how long a member's
been around byt assessing which tee shirt he wears. |
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This is the original
club tee shirt from the the 1992-1994 period. On the front, the
original logo. On the back, the hind portion of the constellation
known as "Ursa Major", the "Big Bear" seen
in the northern sky. This design provided the basis for the original
"club colors" featuring a black bear on a blue field
with the big dipper superimposed on him. In 1994, the club marched
in the Hartford Pride parade carying rainbow colored baloons,
and everyone wore these shirts like uniforms. We looked so great,
the Hartford Courant saw fit to photograph us in full color and
run us in the Sunday paper. |
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In 1994, the next
generation of club tees was created. Eventually to become known
as "Neuman", this new design was bold and out front.
Who in their right mind would wear a picture of a hairy shirtless
guy on their chest? An out and proud Ursaman, that's who. These
sought-after tees were bold and sold like crazy and sadly have
never been reproduced in their original form. Most people would
agree that this is probably THE definitive Ursaman tee. A very
limited number of black tank tops were also made. |
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In 1995, in response
to the success of the original Neuman tee, the club issued this
special edition tee with alas, an inverted gay pride flag behind
our popular mascot (although it should be noted that somewhere
in the world it's been stated in print that the proper orientation
of the pride flag as "red stripe on the bottom"). Club
members who marched in the Hartford Pride parade that year earned
one of these. And what a statement they made. That and a GIANT
brown teddy bear on our float and king-sized letter blocks spelling
"MEN URSA EAST NORTH" earned us the "gayest float"
award. |
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Later in 1995, members
who attended the Halloween Weekend in Provincetown were able to
purchase this one-of-a-kind event tee, printed on the back of
shirts from "The Ranch". These are probably the rarest
Northeast Ursamen tees in existence. |
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In 1996, the pride
theme was "Pride Without Borders", so we did "Bears
Without Borders". This tee was a giveaway to members who
marched in the Hartford parade. Neuman was given a red hat for
the very first time. Members marched with baloons and plackards
painted to resemble national flags with the word "Bear"
written on each in the native language. We earned another award
that year: "Best interpretation of theme". It should
be noted that since this shirt was produced, Neuman has appeared
with varying hat colors, although none were as popular as the
red version. |
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Somewhere in the middle
of all this, there was a desire to offer recognition to the members
who founded the club. The Ursamen had grown from 17 members to
over 200 strong. A revised version of the original four-legged
bear tee appeared in color, resembling the configuration seen
on the club flag. A set of shirts with the words "Northeast
Ursamen Founding Member" were printed and presented to the
founding members at an annual meeting one year. Afterwards, a
version minus the "founding member" text was issued
for sale to members (shown here). These tees were quite popular
and well received. |
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In 1997, yet another
freebie Neuman shirt was given away to members who marched in
pride. The design featured Neuman in a purple hat on the front,
and a pictogram design on the back which spelled out the Pride
theme: Equality thru Visability. Some of us spoofed the design
by coming up with other translations for the pictograms. It went
like this: "EE Koala Bear Golf Tee, Thrips-ooh, Credit Card
Bill, Mop with Glasses and Hat, EE." As you can imagine,
the club had little to do with this design, but we had our fun
with it! |
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In 1998, we took our
Pride shirt designs back into our own hands. The artistic master
Rob F. took the theme "Equality thru Diversity" and
reworked it into "Equality thru DiFURsiry" and gave
Neuman a new global look. The back of this tee sports one of the
few cartoon drawings by Rob, featuring diverse bears of all shapes
and sizes. At Pride, we gave baloons and mini teddy bears away.
This shirt was also a club member giveaway. |
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In 1999, everyone was
gearing up for Y2K. The theme was called "Pride2K".
We called ourselves "Bear2K". The slogan was "A
Proud Past, a Powerful Future". We decided to reinterpret
Neuman in historical garb for past and future. We ended up with
Neuman as a Roman centurion (past) and as an astronaut (future).
The back of this shirt featured a bear flag with all the club
member names embedded in the stripes. We brought the theme to
life on our float with two club members dressing as the two historical
Neumens. This would be the freebie pride T-shirt as well as the
last major float-and-baloon production by the Ursamen for Hartford
Pride. In later years, Pride was moved to the fall, and the march
itself was eventually eliminated. |
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Some time after Bear2K,
the club produced a toned-down club T-shirt, in response to requests
for something more subtle. Gone were the giant bearded Neumans
from the front. Instead, a newer club logo based on the bear flag
was embroidered over the left breast, and a reversed Neuman embroidered
on the sleeve. This shirt was available for sale in in khaki and
black. An item of trivia: it was a blank khaki shirt that was
inverted and used for the "skirt" worn by "Joan
Rivers" in the "Tale of the Bears" DVD from 2002. |
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In response to requests
to bring back a traditional club tee, a new generation of Neuman
tees were made available for sale on both black and white shirts.
This later generation Neuman shirt is close in design to the original,
but not quite. Added to the hat design are two pawprints and the
name "Neuman" . These tees were also made into tank
tops. Shown here is the black version. |
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In 2006, with a
revamped Hartford Pride on the horizon, the club decided to
reintroduce the concept of a pride tee giveaway. This design
brings back Neuman in all his glory - complete with his favorite
red hat and the Bear Pride colors back him up. Although this
design is fairly predictable (see the 1995 pride tee above),
it was long overdue and deserved to see the light of day. It
serves a dual purpose as a pride tee and as a new-generation
club tee. Not shown: the dreaded misprint version of this! What's
on the horizon for the 15th anniversary of the Northeast Ursamen?
Stay tuned! |
