Schoultz’s Lo-Fi Motel

…and yes, those exclamation points are there for a reason.  Evel Knevel was a manly man and as true an American icon as the Liberty Bell, Mount Rushmore, and Playboy magazine.  Why we do not have a closed federal building holiday in his honor is a damned mystery to me.  Now, you are saying to yourselves, “but Troy, he was just a stuntman and possibly insane.  He was not a statesman, activist, artist, musician, athelete, pioneer, etc.”  Nay!!  I protest your protest!  At the height of the Vietnam War’s very own protest, not to mention a general apathy of youth culture over what it was to be an American, this death-wishing lunatic donned a uniform based on the stars’n’stripes and rode his matching red/white/blue motorcycle off ramps and over things like semi trailers, cars, shark tanks (or was that Fonzie?), and, in a failed attempt in his customized rocket cycle, a f’n’ canyon in Idaho!

If you were not a young or even old adult, or even a young, young child alive in the 1970’s, even I as a writer will have a bedeviled time trying to convey just what Evel Knievel meant to America.  Let’s just state this:  he was, by all accounts including his own, a nut-job, a lousy husband, a drunk, one mean s.o.b., and probably a crappy father to boot.  He also offered himself up to America as a symbol drapped in the uniform colors of the flag.  He gave us something to be patriotic about in a time when patriotism was at it’s dimmest level ever.  He was ours; the blue-collars, the post-hippies, the stoners, the rebels, the skateboard thrashers of Dogtown, and the gun-totting-God-loving Bible-belt conservatives.  He was most assuredly looney.  He broke most every bone in his body.  He was one of my earliest heroes along with Kaptain Kangaroo, Karl Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Three Stooges, and baby, you best believe that means a shite-load of something.

Not only did I own my own Evel Knievel action figure with wind-up cycle, so did my little sister Cassie.  On visitation weekends, I’d go stay at my Mom and Stepdad’s and spend hours in the family room playing with Cass.  We’d launch her Knievel cycle off the play table, crashing it into the panelled wall and leaving rubber skid marks on the table, and I assume, marking up said mentioned panelled wall.  It was her Knievel, so who was I to interfere with her cycle launching?  I simply provided encouragement.  It beat holy hell out of playing with her dolls.  Our mother, being a freak when it comes to appearances, scolded her soundly for the table markings and all-around commotion.  I took the blame.  Cassie still to this day brings that up and looks at me like I’m some sort of hero.  I’m 41 now.  She’s 37.

My Dad and I watched as Evel attempted his 1974 Idaho Snake River Canyon jump in his bad-assed customized rocket cycle.  He didn’t quite make it, but thanks to parachutes his silly-ass survived.  Watching this at so young an age,  being able to still remember it vividly, while I can’t remember the names of most roommates I’ve had, ranks it right up there with losing my virginity as far as absolute moments of uber coolness go.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I consider Evel Knievel the MAN. 

Years of bodily wounds from cycle crashes, substance abuse, and general whacko hard living aged Evel prematurely.  I guess that killjoy up above we call God doesn’t take kindly to his creation hauling this offered gift called “life” to the absolute limit.  No matter.  Evel was absolute evel and took it and rode it and screwed it and drank it and exited the arena of life for good in 2007, leaving this nation and world in general a bit more dull than before.