Mike Gorges '71 describes his eureka moment. "That was my art "CRUISIN." I did the Chuck A Burger art on the bill board. Originally I did a t-shirt for Ralph Stille, the owner then of the only surviving Chuck. I had previously worked as the night manager at the Rock Road location. Ralph was the supervisor of the the North County (4) chucks. After leaving and starting to print t-shirts in my basement, (yeah, I was the one printing posters and ribbons in the Brothers' basement after school hours), I ran into Ralph and he asked if I would do a Chuck A Burger shirt, "just for the workers to wear."
When I started designing the shirt, I wanted to do nostalgia of the Cruisin era. Ralph, expecting his "Chuck A Burger" logo on the shirt, was blown away, when I surprised him with a full color '57 Chevy, car hop and the Logo around the graphic. Immediately, he wanted to order more, "to sell to a few of his patrons and family." I started printing this shirt 3 doz at a time, and eventually through several years produced thousands of these shirts. I still have a couple of the original run. This eventually lead me to working for other t-shirt companies locally, and finally landed me in Indianapolis, where I work as a high end artist doing NFL, NBA, and NHL t-shirt art. You might see our shirts at WalMart or Pennys and occasionally at the stadiums. You can see some of my other work at http://www.flickr.com/photos/michael_gorges/"
