​When people ask me where my journey into the outlaw motorcycle world really began, I have to go back to Southern California in the 1960s and a small but respected motorcycle club called the Question Marks. Long before I became a Hells Angel, before Los Angeles and before I founded the Ventura charter, there were the Question Marks.

My fascination with outlaw bikers had started years earlier. By the time I was old enough to ride, I already knew I wanted to be part of that world. But I didn’t jump into it all at once. I entered cautiously, one step at a time. My first steps were with the Question Marks.

DICK “WOGGY” WOODS

I had heard about the Question Marks before I ever saw one of them, so I was already impressed when I finally met Dick “Woggy” Woods. Dick was the founder of the Question Marks. He was soft-spoken, well-mannered and patient. He stood about six feet tall and was lean, and his reputation for integrity was well established. He was also an extremely talented craftsman. I watched him build choppers and hot rods that could easily have appeared in motorcycle magazines.

But Dick’s future—and ultimately the future of the Question Marks—changed one night at The Sinner’s Palace on Ventura Avenue. Ironically, the location was only about a block from where the Ventura Hells Angels would establish themselves roughly a decade later.

The Question Marks had gone out with members of the Satan’s Slaves looking for a motorcycle that had been stolen from one of the Slaves. The motorcycle was recovered and the situation had apparently been dealt with. Dick arrived after most of the others had already left. As he came through the back door, one of the motorcycle thieves stabbed him in the back. The injury left Dick partially paralyzed.

I’ve always believed that moment changed not only Dick’s life but the direction of the Question Marks. I felt Dick had the ability to become one of the important figures in outlaw motorcycle history. Looking back years later, I even believed the Question Marks might eventually have become a Hells Angels charter long before I founded Ventura. We’ll never know.

What we do know is that in a relatively short period of time Dick had built the Question Marks into a legitimate and respected 1% motorcycle club. Their reputation earned them invitations to Bass Lake and the other outlaw runs that mattered in those days. For a small club, they had earned considerable respect.

THE BARN IN SOMIS

The Question Marks operated out of one of the more unusual clubhouses I ever knew. It was a large galvanized barn in Somis, California, just outside Camarillo. During the day, the building served as a storage and maintenance facility for the Buena Park attraction Movie Land Cars of the Stars. At night, it became the Question Marks clubhouse.

For me, that barn represented an entrance into a world I had been fascinated with since I was young. I bought my first Harley-Davidson in 1966, a 1957 Panhead that cost me $200. Around that period I was spending time around the Question Marks, the Satan’s Slaves and motorcycle customizers such as Von Dutch and Dick Woods. I was learning the outlaw world from the inside, and the Question Marks were an important part of that education.

CAVE DAVE

If Dick Woods was the brains behind the Question Marks, David “Cave Dave” Ortega was the muscle. Cave Dave could be a one-man army. He took outlaw traditions seriously and expected the smaller motorcycle clubs around Ventura to respect them.

Dave even had what we called his Book of Strength. The book contained Dave’s rules and guidelines for outlaw conduct. There was only one problem: the book didn’t actually exist. Over the years young bikers would occasionally ask me if I had ever seen the legendary Book of Strength. I always enjoyed telling them they weren’t ready to see it. That was Cave Dave.

My first memorable encounter with him actually happened before we became friends. In 1965, I was traveling on Highway 101 when Dave came blasting past me on a chopped 1947 Knucklehead. His Question Mark patch was visible on his cut as he disappeared down the highway. At the time I had no idea how important he would eventually become in my life.

I wouldn’t see him again until the early 1970s, after he returned from San Quentin, where he had served time for marijuana possession. After his return, our friendship developed quickly. Dave eventually became one of my mentors and remained an influence on me even after I became a Hells Angel.

Years later, when I was building the Ventura charter, Cave Dave helped me return the emphasis to something I believed outlaw motorcycle culture was supposed to be about: motorcycles and riding.

THE MEN BEHIND THE QUESTION MARK

The history of any motorcycle club isn’t really the history of a patch. It’s the history of the men who wore it.

There was Tom Donaldson (Known as Tom Dooley) a tall, lean blond who became both a brother and an important source of guidance in my life. There was Little Chico Jones, a smaller man physically but certainly not in heart. There was Lanny Moore, an old high-school brother of mine who stood about six-foot-five and continued flying his Question Mark cut decades later.

There was Garry “Shears,” recognizable by his long blond hair and his Panhead with some of the tallest and loudest stack pipes I’d ever seen. There was David “Chief” Brown, whom I’d originally met in high-school shop class. After graduation we went our separate ways, only to find each other again through motorcycles and the outlaw world.

And there was Paul “Animal” Hibbits.

Animal was another important figure from those early days. He was one of those men whose path through the outlaw motorcycle world crossed mine repeatedly over the years. The friendships formed during that period didn’t simply disappear when clubs changed or people traveled in different directions. There was a shared history between us that went back to a time before any of us knew where our lives were ultimately going to lead.

Animal would also be there for one of my most important memories of Dick Woods. Years after Dick’s injury, when he was living in the mountains around Sonora, Animal, David “Cave Dave” Ortega and I made the trip north together to see him. Looking back, I think all three of us understood on some level that we might be going there to say goodbye.

That trip has stayed with me because it brought several pieces of our history back together. Here were three men whose lives had traveled different roads through the outlaw world, sitting once again with the man who had helped open that world to us in the first place.

These weren’t characters somebody created for a movie. They were real men. Some were wild. Some were complicated. Some left us far too early. But all of them became part of the history that shaped my life.

A DIFFERENT OUTLAW WORLD

It’s difficult today to explain exactly what the outlaw motorcycle world of that period felt like. The culture was still developing. Clubs were smaller and largely regional. Reputation mattered enormously. Respect wasn’t something you could manufacture—it had to be earned. The Question Marks earned theirs.

Eventually, my own road took me in another direction. I became a full-patch Hells Angel with the Los Angeles charter in 1976. Six months later I became president of that charter, and in 1978 I founded the Ventura charter. My life would become closely associated with the Hells Angels for decades.

But becoming a Hells Angel didn’t erase what came before it. The Question Marks were part of my foundation. So was Dick Woods. So was Cave Dave. So was Animal. And so were the other men who introduced me to a culture that would ultimately dominate much of my adult life.

THE LAST VISIT

That final trip to see Dick remains one of the memories I carry with me. Animal, Cave Dave and I traveled north to the mountains around Sonora where Dick had settled after recovering as much as he was going to from the injuries that had changed his life years earlier.

During that visit, Dick talked to the three of us almost like a proud father talking to his sons. He told us he was proud of what we had accomplished. He felt that what the three of us had gone on to do in the outlaw motorcycle world had somehow helped make him part of outlaw history.

I’ve always thought Dick had it backwards.

Animal, Dave and I didn’t make Dick Woods part of outlaw history. Dick helped make us part of it.

He was already part of that history before any of us knew where our own roads were going to lead. Dick was one of the trailblazers. We followed the trail.

Today, the Question Marks aren’t a name most people outside the old Southern California motorcycle world would recognize, but that doesn’t diminish their importance. History has a tendency to remember the organizations that became the biggest and forget some of the smaller clubs and individuals who helped create the culture in the first place.

I haven’t forgotten.

Before the decades of club politics, before the investigations, courtrooms and prison cells, and before the Hells Angels became such a major part of my identity, I was a young man trying to find my place in the outlaw motorcycle world. The Question Marks helped me find it.

They were there near the beginning of my journey: Dick Woods. Cave Dave Ortega. Paul “Animal” Hibbits. Tom Dooley. Little Chico Jones. Lanny Moore. Garry “Shears.” David “Chief” Brown.

Men from another time and another version of the outlaw motorcycle world.

More than half a century later, I still remember them.

And I still remember the men behind that Question Mark.

— George Christie