THE ROAD KILL STORY

Coming home from a visit to Minnesota, where I had seen a ‘novelty’ can of Fish A**holes (FA’s), I thought that with a little help from my PC, I could create a custom version of FA’s for my business partner Chuck Dickerhoff.  They were simple, but CHUCK'S OWN FISH ASSHOLES turned out to be a great gag gift (especially if you wrapped the ‘new’ label around a can Spaghetti-o’s) and Chuck and I gave them to our friends.  We even made several versions for other friends.

Not too much later, life found Chuck and I at a boat show selling mini sailboats.  Just for laughs and to get attention to our booth we brought a few cans of FA’s along.  They were the hit of the show.  By the end of the weekend we had sold almost $2000.00 worth of cans and in the spring of 1991 a business was born.

Chuck, the repressed writer, began to spew out can label ideas and off we went…Chuck stayed up all night (boy, was his wife pissed!) at our tiny one room office and created the prototype of the ROAD KILL STEW label.  Once again using the best in late 80’s PC technology and simple yet funny label was created.  I went to work marketing our cans and Chuck cranked the cans out.  By summertime the company known as L.S.I.* was written up in the national novelty trade magazine, had a national wholesale distributor and was featured on TNN’s NASHVILLE NOW national cable TV show!!

Sometime later in 1994 Chuck and I had gone our separate ways…life does that sometimes…we knew what each other was up to, but never worked together again.  My wife was the last to see him as she stopped by the pharmacy he managed…not too long after that, in the fall of 2000, I got the call that Chuck had been killed on his motorcycle. 

To truly know my friend Chuck was to not only tolerate, but enjoy in his very twisted sense of humor, sometimes gross, even sick, but always funny.  His PUNishments could be brutal…especially if you just had taken a drink of your beverage.  I miss him.  As you read his humor on the side on the ROAD KILL STEW LABEL and get a slim glimpse of his wit, keep in mind, that Chuck got the last laugh…he became Road Kill.

* L.S.I.  Legally stood for Leviathan Systems International, Inc. However, it really stood for Long Sausage International.  Long Sausage was how Chuck would explain his last name’s (Dickerhoff) rough German translation to women.