Phil Cross - Phil Cross: Gypsy Joker to a Hells Angel

First published in 2013 by Motorbooks, an imprint of MBI Publishing Company, 400 First Avenue North, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

2013 Motorbooks

Text and photography 2013 Phil and Meg Cross

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Digital Edition: 978-1-61058-758-7
Softcover Edition: 978-0-7603-4372-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Editor: Darwin Holmstrom

Design Manager: James Kegley

Designer: Karl Laun

Cover designer: John Barnett

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PHIL AND MEG CROSS

PHOTO EDITED BY MARK SHUBIN

M y name is Phil Cross, and Ive been a Hells Angel for forty-three years. Everybody has their own story as to what led them to become a member, but we all have one thing in common: a love of both motorcycles and the camaraderie of the brotherhood. This is my story.

I have been a Hells Angel longer than many people predicted I would be alive. Im not kidding; I was somewhat reckless in my youth and was told more than once or twice, or a dozen times, that I would not live to see thirty, or probably even twenty-one. You get the picture. Well, it turns out that they were all wrong really wrong. I even survived a liver transplant when I was fifty-nine and stage four cancer five years later. So I guess you could say I have been lucky, or maybe I was just meant to live a long and interesting life (and that I have). And it all started when I was born in San Francisco, California.

San Francisco has always been an interesting place, right from the start. Before it was called San Francisco, the Bay Area was home to the Ohlone Indian tribe to the north and the Miwok Indian tribe to the south, and you have to agree they were pretty interesting people. Then the missionaries came and built Mission San Francisco in the late 1700s. The next big deal was the gold rush that started in 1847, which made for big growth in two industries in San Francisco: prostitution and gamblingthis was the Barbary Coast. In 1906, the big quake hit and the fire that followed wiped out the entire Barbary Coast, which meant no whores and no gambling at least not for a while. San Francisco played a big role in World War I, but nothing like it did during World War II. Being a port city, San Francisco was vital in the war effort. The shipyards located there and along the coast worked with machine shops, metal fabricating shops, and woodworking shops to become one giant ship-building industry. Thats what my dad did for a living; he helped build those ships that were so badly needed by our armed forces, and thats where I come in.