Evel Knievel has died. I was seven when he hit the apex of his fame, trying to jump Snake River Canyon. In the year after he made that doomed attempt, I remember riding my Schwinn through the streets of Carmel, building little jumps with other children and playing a game that we simply called “Evel Knievel.” When I saw he died today, I had a sudden flashback to a time — nearly thirty-five years ago — when he was the hero of every kid in my school. I had a little plastic Evel Knievel motorcycle with a plastic action figure, and when I wasn’t building small wooden ramps out of particle board to do jumps on my bike, I was playing with that darned doll.
For someone who writes as much about masculinity as I do, it’s odd I don’t refer more often to the cultural icons of my childhood. Three public figures from the mid-’70s were, for me, the ultimate “men’s men”: O.J. Simpson, Evel Knievel, and the actor Tom Laughlin, who starred in The Trial of Billy Jack, an utterly forgettable film that was perhaps the first grown-up movie I saw in the theater (age eight). Another post for another time about these three very different men and their influence on a very young Hugo.
Ahem,
You were playing with that darned ACTION FIGURE.
Such post would be interesting to read.
the actor’s name is Tom Laughlin, not Loughlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Laughlin_%28actor%29
and “Trial of Billy Jack” may have been forgettable, but the first movie “Billy Jack” was anything but…
I also remember, at that time, all the wooden ramps in my neighborhood for jumping with your bike. There were even a few small ones that kids were jumping with their Big Wheels tricycles.
Was your toy Evel Knievel motorcycle the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle with the hand crank to power it up for jumping ramps?
Yes it was, Fred! I had forgotten it!