Sunday December 10th was the 15th annual running of the largest one-day charity motorcycle event in the southeast, Ft. Liquordale's Toys In The Sun Run. The local papers estimated roughly 30,000 motorcycles and 55,000 people overall made it out to the party at Markham Park in Sunrise, FL. Money raised benefits the Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital and Boys & Girls Club, while the toys are donated to the Fraternal Order of Police for distribution to needy children.

As for myself, I've been in enough parades loosely veiled as a "run". Lining up at 7:00 in the morning at the Pompano Harness Track 15 miles north of me, just to turn around at 10:00 when the first bike leaves and pass my house single file (at 20 mph) on the way to the park didn't sound like much fun. I waited for my buddies Joe & his wife Annie to ride down from Port St. Lucie before leaving for the park at the crack of noon. My '57 Panhead chopper fired on the second kick, which has become such a common occurrence it's ominous. It's a beautiful feeling when something you've built performs flawlessly, or at least better than a 45-yr old motorcycle has any right to.

I-95 South and I-595 West were shut down from when the first bike left at 10:00 AM until about 1:00 PM. This makes getting to the park a bit more difficult (as well as anywhere else), if you don't feel like strengthening your clutch hand in the parade. I live close to Markham Park. What should have been a 10-minute ride took all of 20 minutes--no big deal. As we were parking, bikes were still rolling in from the parade at noon with no end in sight. As usual all the highway overpasses from Pompano to Sunrise were filled with folks and kids watching the parade, something everyone should experience at least once.

If you weren't riding in the parade, the volunteers made you park farther away. Didn't bother me much, but my friends were annoyed as it meant a longer walk to the rolling bar that was their Road King. Baggers have their purposes, and one of the better ones is that you can get a case of beer and a bag of ice in each fiberglass bag. I don't think Harley lists that as a product feature, but it's a damn good way to make new friends. Besides, I'm pretty sure that the folks manning the beer trucks weren't donating their cut to charity.

Entering to the park required a $10 donation and one unwrapped toy, over $400,000 was raised last year and from the size of the crowd I'm sure that number was easily exceeded. Entertainment kicked-up at noon, with Hep Cat Boo Daddies, ASP Soup, and Hat Trick opening for Eddie Money and Pat Travers. The area around the stage was packed, so we opted to stay out in the open in between the vendors (more every year) and Wall of Death.

Being 6'5" and wearing one of Jose's bright red Chopperfreak shirts tends to make you stand out in a crowd. We ran immediately into Mike from work, as well as a good photo-op with some beer ticket-bearing Santa's helpers. The beers went down easy, but the physical dexterity required to kick over my magneto Pan kept me out of too much trouble, at least today. A turkey leg was needed while we tried to track down some more friends and I almost hurt my neck checkin' out the eye candy. I remember hearing recently that South Florida is a close second in plastic surgeries performed to Brazil, and there were some shining examples of quality aftermarket work represented. Guess it's just like choppers, if you didn't built it then it'll always be someone else's. We also came across Lester from West Palm for the first time in a couple of years, as well as Gary and his insane friends Tom & his ol' lady that I haven't seen since last Daytona Bike Week.

There was a huge bike show sponsored by the SFPC and Florida Biker Action, plenty of "custom" choppers with foreign parts that pretty much all looked the same less different crayola paint jobs as well as foreign bikes trying to look like Harleys. There were however a few cool ol' school rides, like the acid-trip Shovel chop or pseudo-stock '50s Panhead that both made me think I should have put my '57 in the show. On the flip side, having to hang around for eight hours just to have somebody else tell me that my bike is cool just isn't worth it. The bike show was cut short as the Sheriff's Dept and Sunrise Police made everyone leave the area after finding a "suspicious" bag drew the bomb squad. Turned out that the gal it belonged to, asked someone else to watch it while she headed over to listen to the music. Unfortunately even the small bike runs have been affected by recent national news.

I bailed pretty early at the ol' lady's request (shocking everyone), due to our 5-month old daughter at home. Two-up rides are cut pretty short these days. On the plus side, not closing down the party meant I got spared the twin rooster tails from my tires as the skies opened up after we'd been home about an hour. Dry boots, a rigid pan, and breasts in your back after catchin' up with old friends & making new ones all for a good cause - not a bad day...

The tall author with his crowd. Blame it on him.

--Lojack --