Back Then...

I grew up in a pretty great era—at least, I think I did. Maybe that’s just nostalgia for a time that only exists in my imagination, or maybe it's because childhood naivety shielded me from how things really were. But I don’t think so. And to be clear, I’m not saying things were perfect.

My childhood wasn’t all innocence. When I was around five, a young girl was murdered just a few blocks from where we lived. My siblings and I launched our own investigation—but that’s a story for another Saturday. Our family dog was shot one night by a neighbor. We were outside and saw the muzzle flash. Another Saturday. A gang fight broke out in the park next to my school while I was playing basketball in sixth grade. We were hustled back inside while police on motorcycles zoomed through the playground. Later, I found one of the gang members hiding near the trash bins when I was taking out the garbage for Ms. Fox. Another Saturday…

My point is, I’m not looking at the past through rose-colored glasses. I know about the assassinations of Kennedy and King, the war in Vietnam, and Watergate. I know now—though I didn’t then—that the CIA was involved in all kinds of nefarious deeds during those years. Still, in spite of all that, I think I lived in a special time.

We weren’t as safe back then. We rode bikes without helmets—and sometimes without shoes, much to my sister’s regret. We drank rainwater straight from the gutter and played in ant piles. We pulled a broken-down go-kart behind a barely-running Ford Maverick, sliding from ditch to ditch on gravel roads. We picked wild blackberries and tossed bottle rockets into farm ponds at night to watch them flash red beneath the mossy surface. We caught bullfrogs and tarantulas, fished until our hearts were content, and played softball in a cow pasture.

Sports were better back then, too. We had boxing when boxing was great—Frazier, Foreman, Sonny Liston, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, Roberto Durán, and, of course, the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali. This was the era of Bird and Magic, Bench and McCovey, Butkus and Mitchell.

And it was the era of Evel Knievel—the greatest motorcycle daredevil of all time. Nobody topped him, but plenty tried. We built ramps to jump our bikes over trash cans because of him. Some kids went even further, trying to follow in his tire tracks and make names for themselves by defying gravity and common sense.

One year in the early ’70s, we went to the Elko County Fair to watch one of those rising stars in the world of motorcycle jumping. Let me tell you about him—and that day.

Next week…

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a man jumping a motorcycle over a line of cars