I was wondering the other day if my childhood hero, Evel Knievel, was still alive? Turns out he passed on in 2007. The first time I saw him on TV I was blown away. I went straight outside, got a concrete block and a piece of plywood, built a ramp, and crashed straight into my mom's Monte Carlo. I had some Evel Knievel stickers on the seat of my Western Flyer that I got out of a cereal box and I was always doing my best imitations of him. My parents wouldn't get me a motorcycle so I had to do all my jumps on my bike until I got old enough to buy my own motorcycle. I had Evel's motorcycles, sky-cycle, lunchbox, everything, etc. I used to soak'em in gasoline and crank them up and run them through fire. I set the driveway on fire more than once, remember Mom? One morning, years later, I was waking up with a cup of coffee and our Chesapeake retriever was standing at the back door with something in his mouth that looked a little gross so I wrestled it away from him and it was the old, burned-up, melted Evel Knievel doll that I had thrown in the woods to keep my parents from finding it. Good boy Champ! He flunked dog obedience school but nothing got past his nose. Champ was a hell of a duck dog. He would go get the ducks no problem but then he wouldn't give'em to you. He figured if he was the one that waded through the icewater to get it that it was his to eat. That dog heard a lot of cuss words. Remind me later to tell you about the time he ran out into the street to fetch the football and got hit by a Mazda RX-7 and still retrieved the football. Don't worry, he wasn't hurt but the RX-7 needed a little body work. Here is a photo I stumbled onto on Wikipedia, I was a little surprised to see ol' Evel with a bicycle. Let it be remembered that Evel Knievel rode steel frames.
I got another 650B belt-drive mountain bike in the works to start off the new year. Stay tuned.
