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2007-12-02 6:07 p.m. Vrooom, Vroooom Vrooom!  In One Piece... Evel Knievel, brilliant visionary, outlaw, with PT Barnum-esque showmanship and razor-sharp business sense. Evel, 69, died November 30th, 2007 in Clearwater, Fla. I honor and celebrate his brash rebellious creative nature. He'd inspire passionate intense feelings, from Awestruck to Angry. Legendary! Evel Knievel Information: Evel's hometown is Butte, Montana- he was a standout athlete in track and field, ski-jumping and ice hockey. Joining the Army in the 1950s, he volunteered to be a paratrooper and made 30 jumps. Afterward he played semiprofessional and professional hockey, for a time with the Charlotte Clippers of the Eastern Hockey League. Then he took up motorcycle racing full-time until falling and breaking bones in a race in 1962. When he was 27, he became co-owner of a motorcycle shop in Moses Lake, Wash. To attract customers, he announced he would jump his motorcycle 40 feet over parked cars and a box of rattlesnakes and continue on past a mountain lion tethered at the other end. Before 1,000 people, he did the stunt as promised but failed to fly far enough; his bike came down on the rattlesnakes. The audience was in awe. "Right then", he said, "I knew I could draw a big crowd by jumping over weird stuff." Evel Knievel once described himself as the last gladiator in the new Rome. Another time he said he was a conservative wildman."Next year the Ideal Toy Company is going to make a lot of Evel Knievel toys. ... One toy I'd like them to make is my own idea; I think it's the most super toy in the world. You wind it up, it goes like a little bugger, goes across the floor, grabs this little Barbie doll, throws her on the floor, gives her a little lovin', jumps back on the motorcycle and goes whizzing out the door screaming, 'G.I. Joe is a faggot!" "I am a guy who is first of all a businessman," he said. "I'm not a stunt man. I'm not a daredevil. I'm... | ||
