Beall trades evil for Evel
LAPD Officer Will Beall, homicide investigator, LA Rex author and sometime source trades his usual commentary on gangs and crime for a hilarious piece on the late Evel Knievel in today's Times.
Growing up in the '70s, I had an Evel Knievel lunchbox, an Evel Knievel action figure with a working stunt cycle, Evel Knievel comic books featuring "Evel Knievel and the Perilous Traps of Mr. Danger" and "Evel Knievel versus Ghost Rider." I was even Evel Knievel myself for Halloween one year. Larger than life doesn't begin to cover it. The guy was a walking, talking, honest-to-God superhero.
Working-class heroes were still real in the proletarian neighborhood where I grew up in the 1970s, and no one could beat Evel Knievel, a former small-time criminal from a broken home in Butte, Mont. Even Carl, the swarthy auto mechanic who lived at the end of our block, was a romantic figure to me. A kid in my class, whose father was a deputy district attorney, lied and told us his dad was a trucker.
It definitely makes for an amusing, even thought-provoking read, even when he gets all preachy at the end.
We've since devolved into a nation of neuters and babies. Our own safety has become our obsession. We cower in gated communities and fret about the West Nile virus. Infantilized, we have little use for the freedoms we once cherished, and we're happy to trade them for personal safety.
Rather than risk another terrorist attack, for instance, we would render this country unrecognizable, a fascist shadow of its former self.
Today, as we verge on destroying everything beautiful about this nation in the name of our own safety, we should remember Evel Knievel, who taught us that liberty -- not safety -- is what's worth dying for.