In 1985 while on the first Ride Home to Milwaukee I met this skinny chick with hair past her butt. She and Jo were involved in the first mag devoted to women bikers, Harley Women. I was riding a BMW alongside Willie G Davidson on the trip. Willie’s son Billy was also on the ride packing some chick. I knew Billy from various deals we both attended and I asked Willie who was the girl with Billy? He said “That’s my daughter Karen and you keep the [censored] away from her,” which of course I didn’t, and Karen and I became friends.

Cris and her editor Jo were riding Harley factory bikes and they asked me if I would ride with them ahead of the pack as they were over the 55mph speed limit back then during the last oil scam and they wanted to ride helmetless. I agreed instantly. Me refuse to ride with a couple of foxes? Are you nuts? So we rode together for the day. Then I didn’t see Cris for years and I ran into her again in Sturgis where she got admitted to the Hall of Fame and met and hooked up with Pat Simmons of the Doobie Brothers Band.

A few years later the Doobie Brothers were playing during Daytona Bike Week along with Johnny Paycheck, so my friends Monkey and Kenny and I headed over to the gig. At the back gate I showed my press credentials and explained they were my bodyguards and the gate watcher was having none of this when all of a sudden I hear somebody scream Rodent! and Cris comes running up with a big hug and a kiss. Well the gatekeeper just waved us in. We thanked Cris and headed towards Paycheck’s big tour bus where another guard stopped us, but just then the bus door opened and Johnny stuck his head out screaming Monkey! and we were on the bus partaking.

I’d run into Cris at various events and a couple of years ago I ran into her at her book signing in Sturgis for her best seller about women riders back when and way before the finger starter, in the days of kick start. She was with hubby Pat off on tour for a few days. I didn’t see her again until September 2010 at the Quality Inn stop on the Cannonball Run in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She rode in and grabbed me from behind on her 1915 Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Pat showed up and we watched the Vagabond girl crew service the bike for the next day’s ride in pouring rain to Gallup, New Mexico. Chris was one of the two women to ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the only women on a Harley.

I was just hanging in Frisco a couple of months later and part of my routine was on my way from Ocean Beach digs to Cafe Trieste in North Beach I would stop at the flagship Apple store and play with the new computers, etc. One day there was a small sign that the Doobie Brothers would play in the store a couple of days hence. A quick email to Cris and I was on the list. I took my friend Leslie and she met Cris and Pat and enjoyed the short set at a most unusual venue. There were signs in the store that photo taking was not allowed but I think the signs were in some obsolete language that I didn’t understand.

The next encounter with Cris and Pat was in the Official Harley-Davidson tent in Daytona during Bike Week. Harley had invited Cris to display the 1915 Harley that she had ridden across the USA in the Cannonball. I found her removing the temporary California red sticker and installing a legitimate California license plate that she had finally obtained along with a California title after a long tiring battle with the DMV. Hubby Pat assisted. Cris told me the bike was going to the Harley Museum in Milwaukee on loan until Cris’s new book on her cross country ride in the Cannonball Run is released, and then the bike is accompanying her on a book signing tour. We’re anxiously awaiting this book, which is sure to be a best seller.