Good Mornin’! Good Mornin’!
As a kid growing up in the 1970s, Evel Knievel was the ultimate definition of cool. He wore red, white and blue with plenty of stars and he soared over things.
Lots of things. Sometimes he crashed and broke more bones than we ever knew he had. But he always got back up, maybe after a few months in a hospital bed and soared again.
His stories were legend tinged with a shot of truth and his antics and demeanor were backed up by his performance.
Evel Knievel was cool and had fancy motorcycles.
I had a yellow, three speed Schwinn Sting-Ray with a banana seat and those long looping handlebars. I had an empty paved country road, and old tire and a few boards that fashioned into a ramp.
The road was long enough where you could see a tractor or truck coming and clear it all away. Though once I wasn’t paying close enough attention and an old Chevy knocked it down and then went on its way. I rebuilt it and kept jumping.
Trying to get more height, more length, more speed. I was South Sunflower County’s answer to Evel Knievel as were hundreds of other country and city boys in various cul de sacs.
We followed his leap over that fountain in Las Vegas, his jump in London and anything else that came on Saturday afternoon’s Wide World of Sports.
We became daredevils and defied gravity and good sense. Most of my jumps were spectacular in my mind but only a few feet in actual distance. Evel’s first jump in 1965 was over some rattlesnakes and mountain lions and went about 40 feet. He sprained his ankle. His next was over two pickup trucks.
Then he did a mid-air over another motorcycle.
Then there was the successful 12 car jump followed by an unsuccessful 13 car jump where he first broke some bones. He kept climbing – 14 cars, then 15 and 16 cars. He kept going further, faster, higher and eventually crashing with great fanfare.
I was not so lucky. I pushed the limits of my Schwinn and my fifth-grade legs and courage to the brink that summer.
There were no cheering fans or TV cameras for my final jump. It was no Snake River Canyon moment but more like Caesars Palace. I geared up and pedaled faster than I had ever thought possible, hit the ramp perfectly and became some sort of chemistry equation project as I soared.
For some reason, my bike turned sideways and I was looking at my dad’s farm shop instead of Three Mile Lake Road and Bridge. It seemed to last forever, that sideways moment but I’m sure it was just a millisecond.
The tires hit the pavement simultaneously and I bounced, like a Bumble, so to speak. And I was tumbling in the greatest re-creation of Evel’s dismount after jumping the Caesar’s fountain. Though I had on shorts and a t-shirt and tennis shoes and not a shining leather Star Spangled banner outfit.
I saw stars, then I felt pain. Pretty much all of my body hurt and my Sting-Ray Schwinn hit me for good measure, much like Evel’s own Triumph Bonneville did in Vegas.
No one saw the debacle that became my final jump. Sure, I’d look at that ramp from time to time and thought about hitting it when friends biked out from town. But I had learned my lesson and my elbows still have ridges where the road skinned me up. I knew the world only needed one Evel Knievel and I was ok with that.
I still am.
