Viva Knievel!

There was a year or so when I thought that I might like to be Evel Knievel. That was back in the seventies, when I learned to drive my older brother's Kawasaki Trail Boss. With a full one hundred cubic centimeters, the engine was a good deal more impressive than the mini-bike my friend rode around the block. I can remember the blustering around the front porch of our cabin, as the older boys from the hills dropped by to argue the merits of their Yamaha, or their Honda. I did not know that Yamaha made guitars, and those little cars were Hondas. These were motorcycles, and in my eyes inferior to the Trail Boss. Mr. Knievel drove a Harley Davidson. It would be many more years until someone opened my eyes to the difference between cubic centimeters and good old American cubic inches - but that's another story for another time.
In 1971, I went to see Evel's life story on the big screen. I had already seen the motocross documentary "On Any Sunday" and was ready for the next big thing. Evel Kneivel was that. Played in the film by George Hamilton at his most tan, we are given this introduction to the spirit of this American hero: "Ladies and gentlemen, you have no idea how good it makes me feel to be here today. It is truly an honor to risk my life for you. An honor. Before I jump this motorcycle over these 19 cars - and I want you to know there's not a Volkswagen or a Datsun in the row - before I sail cleanly over that last truck, I want to tell you that last night a kid came up to me and he said, "Mr Knievel, are you crazy? That jump you're going to make is impossible, but I already have my tickets because I want to see you splatter." That's right, that's what he said. And I told that boy last night that nothing is impossible."
Steve McQueen was cool, but this guy had a sense of showmanship and a death wish that walked hand in hand to the rim of the Grand Canyon, and then...
Well, Evel never did jump the Grand Canyon. In 1974 he didn't even make it over the Snake River Canyon in his jet-powered rocket-cycle. He just went mostly straight up, then came crashing back down to earth. And that's pretty much where he's been ever since. We all got our chance to see him splatter - for the last thirty years. But the folks in Butte, Montanta welcome their hometown hero back every July for Evel Knievel Days. I haven't driven a motorcycle since I moved to California, but I think I could still do it. Evel can't. He's sixty-seven and he's dying. He's dying from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis - not from the stroke, diabetes or forty broken bones he received during his career as "the last gladiator in the New Rome."
There aren't many days that I would want to be Evel Knievel anymore, but I'm glad that there used to be.