November 30, 2007
AND NOW HE'S DEAD: EVEL KNIEVEL
I was a freak for Evel Knievel. So hearing today that he had died was sad news.
As a kid born in the mid-'60s, I came of age right about the time Knievel's popularity reached it's height in the late 1970s.
I badgered my parents so I could get an Evel Knievel stunt bike. I whined until I got the Evel Knievel RV and towing platform to go wtih it. For a while, I only bought comic books that had ads for his toys inside.
All the kids in the neighborhood took turns skidding black patches on the sidewalks through Bear Creek Elementary, seeing how close we could come to sliding-but-not-smashing-into the brick wall at the end of the hallway. We'd take turns falling off to mimic how Knievel fell at Caesar's Palace.
Because of Evel Knievel, I got a Graco BMX bike for Christmas that looked like a motorcycle. Damn thing was almost too heavy to pedal. One day in a winter headwind on the way to school, I threw it to the ground in a tantrum and walked the rest of the way. My older cousins Harry and C.J. got to ride motorcross motorcycles. They won loads of trophies. I thought they were the coolest guys on the planet. Me? I had an anchor that looked like a motorcycle.
This was the decade of Bigfoot and Nessie and UFOs and D.B. Cooper jumping out of a jet airliner with a bag full of money. It was the decade Reggie hit three home runs on three swings. George Willig climbed the World Trade Center. Nixon quit. Wallace got shot. Elvis croaked. Billy Jean beat Bobby Riggs. Astronauts played golf on the moon. Someone made a baby in a test tube. For a while, it seemed like everything took turns being bigger than life.
And Evel was bigger than them all. At least in bursts and flashes.
He'd brag about having broken every bone in his body, and then he'd get on the bike and do it again. There was a very real sense that he had no idea what the outcome would be. That's what made it great. Here was a guy who obviously didn't enjoy what he was doing, a man who knew every ride could be his last and yet he couldn't stop his ego from pushing him to do it again. When he climbed into the Snake River Canyon sky cycle, you could see it in his eyes: this is a one-way ticket. It was almost nauseating to watch someone roll that big a pair of dice. When he lived long enough to say he would never do it again, it was almost a relief.
Sure, there were other daredevils back then.
But for me, Evel was the king.