Ok, so Katherine and Eric have both inspired me to post something about the passing of Evel Knievel. It also came as a bit of a shock to me when I heard the news.

Being a child of the 60s-70s I kind of grew up hearing about and watching his famous stunts (besides also being a motorcycle rider). The video of him jumping the fountains at Cesar's Palace, and of course the spectacular crash that followed, left a big impression. I was telling my son just now the story of 'borrowing' the neighbor kids Evel action figure, exactly like the one in the picture above, with wind-up motorcycle action and jumping it off the rood and then strapping Estes rocket engines to him and launching him "to test the aerodynamics of the action figure!" He survived the launch but then we decided it would be cool to soak him in kerosene, light him on fire and then launch him off the roof. I seem to remember taking a trip to Thrifty Drug Store to buy the neighbor kid a replacement ;)

Of course Evel also inspired me and my friends to setup ramps and jump bicycles that gave me my own fair share of childhood injuries. Katherine provides a list of the bones he broke during his career, I assume by counting the ones listed in the article at Wikipedia. It's a very cool articel. Be sure and check it out.