Cartoon Thunder

Toy runs are hands down one of the funnest events I’ve ever been to.  And it’s been a while since I’ve had the chance to go on one.  I have memory of a toy run in Ukiah, CA, I think put on by the MMA (Modified Motorcycle Association).  This is somewhere in the early- to mid-nineties.

Seems I rode up there with a few friends and rode back with a different crowd.  The group I rode back with were some guys I was familiar with who were members of the Redwood Empire HOG chapter.  Old guys, really, and over fifteen years later and in my forties, I still hold that.  But they rode like they were twenty.  And I don’t mean they just poured it on and rode fast, which was true, but they did it with precision expertise.  They were on newer Harleys and I was on the same Shovelhead I’ve had since the late eighties, trying to keep up and hoping I wouldn’t start dropping parts on the road.  Coming down the Russian River Canyon above Cloverdale the pack rode in tight staggered formation, blasting it the whole way.

What a rush.

For the record, this re-run is the first strip printed by Thunder Press when Terry Roorda (the Blue Dog hisself) picked up the strip nearly a year ago.  I had a conversation with Terry, who I’d crossed paths with when I first started riding, during finals week at the end of the Fall semester, and he liked what I was doing enough to give me a shot.  I’m still pretty grateful, both to be in print in Thunder Press, and to have my work picked by someone of Terry’s caliber.