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Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
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Do IT this week: Layering
By Mark J. Price
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 08:30 p.m. EDT, Jun 14, 2009
They called themselves the Royal Dead Heads. Whoever they were, they sure had fun.
A carefree bunch of Akron motorcyclists enjoyed colorful adventures during the gloomy days of the Great Depression. They traveled at full throttle and refused to slow down.
The club featured Dusty ''the Invincible King,'' Judge ''the Dauntless Prince,'' Pedro ''the Incomparable Count,'' Smoky Bil ''the Marvel Duke'' and Flash ''the Remarkable Baron.''
We don't know their real names, but we know about their 1930s exploits because of an unusual discovery at an estate sale.
Antique motorcycle collector Tony Murdock, 50, of Ashland, unearthed a rare collection of illustrations in 2008 while rummaging through a pile of books, maps and papers on a table at the Ashland County Fairgrounds.
''I just happened to be sorting through this stuff,'' Murdock said. ''There was a corner of a page sticking out, and it kind of looks like a motorcycle. I dug down through the bottom of this stack of stuff, and here's all these drawings just stuck together.''
Murdock found about 150 drawings on nearly 30 loose sheets measuring 13 by 19 inches. The pictures cover front and back, much like a comic book, although a few pages have images on only one side. The talented artist did not sign his work.
''I've got to save these things,'' he decided.
Murdock bought 10 items that day, including the art collection. He paid $75 for everything.
When he got home, he flipped through the drawings and became engrossed with the oddball tales of the Royal Dead Heads — a cavalcade of tuneups, blowouts and crackups.
''The Depression caught up with us Dead Heads,'' one caption reads. ''Not having much to lose such as stocks or money, all we lost was a chance to gain.''
Many of the images are funny and show the club getting into and out of mischief.
''Burning up Louie the cop,'' a caption says next to a cartoon of an angry policeman. ''Four of us on Dusty's cycle speeding up and down Exchange Street.''
''A visitor to the Dead Head clubhouse discovers his wallet missing,'' another item notes. ''Judge helped recover it, but did not know a gun would be involved?''
The club prided itself on its weenie roasts. The bikers gathered up their friends and rode out to the country for cookouts. Inevitably, the men sneaked off for a ''midnight dip.'' A cartoon shows the naked bikers gathering their strategically placed clothing in the moonlight.
Many drawings feature spectacular crashes. The cyclists plow into cars, guardrails, rivers, each other and even a horse, but most of the injuries are minor.
One drawing shows a biker in the air: ''Daydreaming and high speed kept Judge from making a sharp turn,'' it says. ''He was lucky enough to land in a newly plowed field after missing a fence, boulder and tree.''
Other accidents are minor: ''Pedro threw an old horseshoe over his shoulder for luck. Took a step forward. Result pictured.'' Pedro is sprawled on the ground with a bump on his head.
When they weren't racing around, the guys shared tender moments with their girlfriends. One cartoon depicts a couple smooching at the clubhouse: ''Dusty and Betty break the nonstop kissing record.''
Another shows an angry man holding a shotgun: ''Ruth's father tells Judge to leave.''
The club's main characters earned cash through a variety of jobs, including paperboy, freight handler, messenger, dishwasher, parking lot attendant, delivery boy, plumber, auto mechanic and bowling-alley pinsetter.
They also worked for bootleggers, which might account for drawings of them in jail.
A leading candidate for the illustrator's identity is Judge, who is shown working as a commercial artist at the M. O'Neil Co.
The club's high point appears to be a trip that motorcyclists Dusty, Bil and Judge made from Akron to Yuma, Ariz.
Wearing leather helmets, goggles and skull-and-crossbones T-shirts, they endured bad roads, breakdowns, crashes and other calamities.
They survived floods in Illinois and Missouri, fled a bedbug-infested flophouse in St. Louis, chopped wood for a meal at a Salvation Army, escaped a rat attack at an abandoned gas station, found insects in their water at a Texas restaurant and got sunburned in the desert.
When a motorist crashed into Dusty and Bil near El Paso, Judge got caught speeding while trying to find a cycle shop. In a bizarre coincidence, the officer who pulled him over was from Cuyahoga Falls and let the Ohioan go without charges.
Finally, 22 miles from Yuma, the bikers got into a big fight because Judge wanted to ride with a malfunctioning headlight. The sleepless friends almost started throwing punches, but cooler heads prevailed. They decided to get a good night's rest instead.
''Get to Yuma, Arizona, with 72 cents between us, and no jobs,'' a caption says.
The men sold their motorcycles, hopped a Southern Pacific Railroad freighter and rode the rails to Los Angeles, where they were promptly arrested as vagrants. An LA judge ordered them to get out of town, so they climbed an eastbound freighter and chugged back to Akron.
Murdock said the illustrations and stories are captivating.
''You can almost see yourself being with them,'' he said. ''Where they get sick from eating tainted food and they're scrubbing dishes to make a living and they're just working their way here or there. It's kind of the American story.''
His goal is to find the identities of the Royal Dead Heads. The captions hold clues.
Dusty and Betty were married Sept. 21, 1933, while Judge and Canook were wed March 8, 1934. Other couples were Pedro and Mary, Bil and Marg and Flash and Hannah. Side characters included Bubbles, Mac, Charley, Connie and Pop Eye.
Murdock enlisted the help of Jack Morris, 79, of Coventry Township, who wrote the single-volume book History of the Motorcycle in Akron, Ohio, which he gave to the Akron-Summit County Public Library.
Morris, an antique motorcycle collector, looked at the drawings and was flabbergasted. He had never heard of the Akron club and couldn't find any information about it.
''That's the most intriguing thing that I've run across,'' Morris said. ''I'll tell you what. The guy who did it was a heck of an artist.''
Over and over, he flipped through the duplicate images that Murdock gave him. He felt a kinship with the Dead Heads after reading their adventures.
''These guys absolutely fascinate me,'' Morris said. ''It seems like I know 'em.''
Although he didn't recognize the men, he has a feeling that others will in Akron.
''I'm sure there's people living who know them,'' he said.
Murdock hopes someone will step forward to identify Dusty, Judge, Pedro, Smoky Bil and Flash. He welcomes e-mail at tmurdock@zoominternet.net.
He said he isn't looking to sell the illustrations. He wants to see them get in the right hands.
''I really think they have a more rightful owner than me,'' he said.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
They called themselves the Royal Dead Heads. Whoever they were, they sure had fun.
A carefree bunch of Akron motorcyclists enjoyed colorful adventures during the gloomy days of the Great Depression. They traveled at full throttle and refused to slow down.
The club featured Dusty ''the Invincible King,'' Judge ''the Dauntless Prince,'' Pedro ''the Incomparable Count,'' Smoky Bil ''the Marvel Duke'' and Flash ''the Remarkable Baron.''
We don't know their real names, but we know about their 1930s exploits because of an unusual discovery at an estate sale.
Antique motorcycle collector Tony Murdock, 50, of Ashland, unearthed a rare collection of illustrations in 2008 while rummaging through a pile of books, maps and papers on a table at the Ashland County Fairgrounds.
''I just happened to be sorting through this stuff,'' Murdock said. ''There was a corner of a page sticking out, and it kind of looks like a motorcycle. I dug down through the bottom of this stack of stuff, and here's all these drawings just stuck together.''
Murdock found about 150 drawings on nearly 30 loose sheets measuring 13 by 19 inches. The pictures cover front and back, much like a comic book, although a few pages have images on only one side. The talented artist did not sign his work.
''I've got to save these things,'' he decided.
Murdock bought 10 items that day, including the art collection. He paid $75 for everything.
When he got home, he flipped through the drawings and became engrossed with the oddball tales of the Royal Dead Heads — a cavalcade of tuneups, blowouts and crackups.
''The Depression caught up with us Dead Heads,'' one caption reads. ''Not having much to lose such as stocks or money, all we lost was a chance to gain.''
Many of the images are funny and show the club getting into and out of mischief.
''Burning up Louie the cop,'' a caption says next to a cartoon of an angry policeman. ''Four of us on Dusty's cycle speeding up and down Exchange Street.''
''A visitor to the Dead Head clubhouse discovers his wallet missing,'' another item notes. ''Judge helped recover it, but did not know a gun would be involved?''
The club prided itself on its weenie roasts. The bikers gathered up their friends and rode out to the country for cookouts. Inevitably, the men sneaked off for a ''midnight dip.'' A cartoon shows the naked bikers gathering their strategically placed clothing in the moonlight.
Many drawings feature spectacular crashes. The cyclists plow into cars, guardrails, rivers, each other and even a horse, but most of the injuries are minor.
One drawing shows a biker in the air: ''Daydreaming and high speed kept Judge from making a sharp turn,'' it says. ''He was lucky enough to land in a newly plowed field after missing a fence, boulder and tree.''
Other accidents are minor: ''Pedro threw an old horseshoe over his shoulder for luck. Took a step forward. Result pictured.'' Pedro is sprawled on the ground with a bump on his head.
When they weren't racing around, the guys shared tender moments with their girlfriends. One cartoon depicts a couple smooching at the clubhouse: ''Dusty and Betty break the nonstop kissing record.''
Another shows an angry man holding a shotgun: ''Ruth's father tells Judge to leave.''
The club's main characters earned cash through a variety of jobs, including paperboy, freight handler, messenger, dishwasher, parking lot attendant, delivery boy, plumber, auto mechanic and bowling-alley pinsetter.
They also worked for bootleggers, which might account for drawings of them in jail.
A leading candidate for the illustrator's identity is Judge, who is shown working as a commercial artist at the M. O'Neil Co.
The club's high point appears to be a trip that motorcyclists Dusty, Bil and Judge made from Akron to Yuma, Ariz.
Wearing leather helmets, goggles and skull-and-crossbones T-shirts, they endured bad roads, breakdowns, crashes and other calamities.
They survived floods in Illinois and Missouri, fled a bedbug-infested flophouse in St. Louis, chopped wood for a meal at a Salvation Army, escaped a rat attack at an abandoned gas station, found insects in their water at a Texas restaurant and got sunburned in the desert.
When a motorist crashed into Dusty and Bil near El Paso, Judge got caught speeding while trying to find a cycle shop. In a bizarre coincidence, the officer who pulled him over was from Cuyahoga Falls and let the Ohioan go without charges.
Finally, 22 miles from Yuma, the bikers got into a big fight because Judge wanted to ride with a malfunctioning headlight. The sleepless friends almost started throwing punches, but cooler heads prevailed. They decided to get a good night's rest instead.
''Get to Yuma, Arizona, with 72 cents between us, and no jobs,'' a caption says.
The men sold their motorcycles, hopped a Southern Pacific Railroad freighter and rode the rails to Los Angeles, where they were promptly arrested as vagrants. An LA judge ordered them to get out of town, so they climbed an eastbound freighter and chugged back to Akron.
Murdock said the illustrations and stories are captivating.
''You can almost see yourself being with them,'' he said. ''Where they get sick from eating tainted food and they're scrubbing dishes to make a living and they're just working their way here or there. It's kind of the American story.''
His goal is to find the identities of the Royal Dead Heads. The captions hold clues.
Dusty and Betty were married Sept. 21, 1933, while Judge and Canook were wed March 8, 1934. Other couples were Pedro and Mary, Bil and Marg and Flash and Hannah. Side characters included Bubbles, Mac, Charley, Connie and Pop Eye.
Murdock enlisted the help of Jack Morris, 79, of Coventry Township, who wrote the single-volume book History of the Motorcycle in Akron, Ohio, which he gave to the Akron-Summit County Public Library.
Morris, an antique motorcycle collector, looked at the drawings and was flabbergasted. He had never heard of the Akron club and couldn't find any information about it.
''That's the most intriguing thing that I've run across,'' Morris said. ''I'll tell you what. The guy who did it was a heck of an artist.''
Over and over, he flipped through the duplicate images that Murdock gave him. He felt a kinship with the Dead Heads after reading their adventures.
''These guys absolutely fascinate me,'' Morris said. ''It seems like I know 'em.''
Although he didn't recognize the men, he has a feeling that others will in Akron.
''I'm sure there's people living who know them,'' he said.
Murdock hopes someone will step forward to identify Dusty, Judge, Pedro, Smoky Bil and Flash. He welcomes e-mail at tmurdock@zoominternet.net.
He said he isn't looking to sell the illustrations. He wants to see them get in the right hands.
''I really think they have a more rightful owner than me,'' he said.
Mark J. Price is a Beacon Journal copy editor. He can be reached at 330-996-3850 or send e-mail to mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
Akron, OH
Posted 02:40 PM, 06/15/2009
A wonderful find. Thanks, Mark.
Akron, OH
Posted 05:16 PM, 06/15/2009
I hope someone remembers who these guys were and can identify them...they sound like a fun bunch!
madison, wi
Posted 07:19 PM, 06/15/2009
For more stories on antique and vintage motorcycles see www.oldbikenews.com
