A folk hero and legend..

When I was a kid, nothing was cooler than Evel Knievel.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, there wasn't a kid in my neighborhood who didn't have (or at least didn't want) an Ideal Evel Knievel Stunt cycle.

Just about every jump he made during those days was a national TV event, invariably aired by ABC and narrated by Howard Cosell.

Whether he was jumping over other motorcycles, or school buses, everyone cheered when his bike hit the landing ramp, and gasped during the times he wasn't so lucky.

All of us on our banana-seat bicycles, (my brother on his AMF Roadmaster Renegade, me on my Royce Union, and my friend on his Schwinn Stingray (with the "stick shift" shifter on the middle bar) would make ramps from plywood and make believe that we were Evel Knievel, jumping over schoolbuses (well, okay, they were ants--but to us they were schoolbuses).

Evel was our vicarious thrill ride.

Oh sure, there would be others after Evel who jumped longer and did crazier stunts. But it is safe to say that they never would have been there had there not been an Evel Knievel to pave the way.

Now 67 years old, and a smattering of 40 broken bones, titanium plates, screws, chronic lung disease, and prescription pain killers that would down a bull elephant, Evel is a shell of his former self. Although his bravado is still there, he can barely walk from his chair to his bathroom.

Ravaged by years of abuse resultant of his derring do, Evel is beset by constant pain and ailments that make his body seem much older than his chronological age of 67 would indicate.


But to me, Evel will always be remembered as the cocky, cool, hero with the red, white & blue leather jumpsuit sporting the #1 AMF Harley Davidson logo, and the cape that made every kid feel like he was capable of the impossible.

Long before there was Michael Jordan, Robert Craig Knievel, later to be known as Evel, was the one that made us kids believe we could fly.



(Filed under heroes)