Looking for a Rufous

Krazy Cross: Rest Stop Songs

3/11/13

This is the first in a series of posts of an undetermined number that follow the theme of “Looking for a Rufous: What a Life? What a Life!”.

I met Art, sometimes called Krazy Cross at the I-5 rest stop north of Wilsonville. I was on my way back from a job interview in Salem had stopped to get a cup of coffee or at least take a few pictures since I had brought my Nikon with me.

He was strumming and singing with his guitar case open for donations. I tossed in a bill. He had some hand-printed signs in the case too (see the pictures I took) and a copy of a newspaper article published in March of 2010 in the West Side Newspaper, a Salem paper. More on the article in a minute. . . . .

I didn’t know anything about him, although he was very willing to share information about his past and in fact was very talkative. However, I wasn’t prepared to take notes, and I thought I might be able to get a copy of the paper later. The following week I drove down to Salem to West Side’s office. As it turns out, I got to meet the columnist who wrote the 2010 article and a follow-up article published in October 2012. His name is Pat Wilkins, and he writes a column for the paper. I also talked to Chris McCartney (no relation to Paul, although we talked about music and the Beatles). Chris is the Managing Editor of the West Side Newspaper.

Pat and I had a very interesting conversation about his background in journalism and the people he had met and worked with, including some famous people. But this article is about Art, not Pat.

In newspaper lingo, Art or “Krazy Cross” is the “hook” for this blog post. I will only recap Pat Wilkins’ articles, although if you wanted to read the entire original article I’m sure Chris would be happy to send you copies of the paper if you called him.

Art’s dad was Spider Severance, one of the 13 founding members of the Hells Angels based in Purdue, California. Spider died of a heart attack while being interviewed in New York where he was attending the funeral of another Hells Angel member. Art followed in dad’s footstep and became a Hells Angel. For a paycheck, he became a long-haul trucker driving big rigs. Like many in this life, Art’s life had its ups and downs, mostly downs for a long time before the curve turned up. More on that later.

Upon reflection I think, well, we all have rough spots in our lives and should take the good with the bad (sounds like advice my dear old daddy might pass along). Despite that idea, I should note that Art’s life if not tragic was at least very interesting.

There’s more, much much more, but I want to save that for the next post about Krazy Cross.