September 8 1974, Snake River Canyon, Idaho. A battered dude named Evel Knievel straddles a Skycycle X-2 at the base of a ramp. 1600 feet away across the canyon is the ramp’s twin. No motorcycle can make that jump, so the Skycycle is a skyrocket rigged to blast him across. He revs and starts up the ramp. His red-white-and-blue starred white jumpsuit and cape make him look like Captain America after some questionable life choices. 3.5 million spectators watch at home and another 15,000 people have crowded the canyon area to see the spectacle. What everyone is about to see is as American as apple pie and unaffordable healthcare.
We humans have long enjoyed spectacle. Droves gathered in the Colosseum to watch humans maul and brain each other. In the UK, families would pack a lunch and go watch the public executions or public punishments. Nothing complements a fruit cup and a ham sandwich like the sound of someone’s spine snapping on the rack. In Elizabethan London, dog and bear baiting were rabidly enjoyed by a drooling audience. Sometimes the bear would break loose of their chains and turn on the audience. All in the price of the ticket.
So, when Europeans showed up in the New World, they brought their inherent want of spectacle. And this was fortuitous because America was filled with things of size and grandeur. Canyons, waterfalls, cliffs, rivers, animals, party subs. So it was only a matter of time before someone recognized the opportunities within this grandeur to entertain people and make money. After all, there’s little point in having a grand canyon unless we can pay to watch someone jump off of it. Thus arose a profession aimed at entertaining spectators at the doer’s peril. The dare devil.
The dare devil specialized in climbing up, walking over, or jumping off high things in front of a crowd. In 1859, Charles Blondin became the first person to visit Niagara Falls and pointed out that what was missing from this natural wonder was a man walking above it on a very narrow rope. A mistake he corrected. In 1901, a schoolteacher named Annie Taylor celebrated her 63rd birthday by going over Niagara Falls in a barrel she designed – but not before testing out the barrel on her cat. Both survived. Taylor was a widower and her barrel stunt was to lead to financial security for the remainder of her life. Unfortunately, her manager stole her barrel and ran off to Chicago (the traditional destination for barrel thieves). She spent the money she’d made trying to track it down. In the end, she had nothing and had made an enemy for life in her cat. She should have just moonlighted as an Uber driver like all the other teachers.
At the forefront of America’s early dare devil craze was Jersey Sam Patch. Dubbed the Jersey Jumper, in the early 1820s Patch had made a name for himself jumping from a mill into a reservoir. Noting his rise in popularly, he moved up to jumping off waterfalls. At Niagara Falls, he jumped from Goat Island into the roiling waters below. People came from far and paid to watch him jump. But Patch was more than a jumper; he was the forerunner of Knievel in his swagger and personality. He was witty and vocal. A wit evidently lost in his most famous and blindingly bland aphorism ‘Some things can be done as well as others’. He walked around towns in all white clothing (in the early 1820s, this was like going to a bar wearing a solar system diorama on your head). He had a pet black bear. According to the flyers for his jumps, sometimes the black bear jumped too. Like Annie Taylor’s cat, the black bear probably wondered where it had all gone wrong for him.
Jumping off a rock into water didn’t require the same steady hand or foot that walking a tightrope might. And so, a jumper might enjoy a little Dutch Courage to prepare himself. The term Dutch Courage originates as either insult or praise. The English either used it as a broad attack against the natural cowardice of a sober foreigner. Conversely, they might have been complimenting the calming effects of the Dutch gin (jenever) they drank before going into 17th battle to cut off limbs and die of sepsis. Like those manly men, I take Dutch Courage before reading my electric bill.
Jersey Sam Patch loved his bear, jumping off stuff, making stupid quotes, and drinking. He spent most of his day pre-jump drinking in the nearby town to get ready for his act. This typically made for a loose-y goose-y pin fall into some water. But on November 13, 1829 when he jumped into the Genessee River, it didn’t go quite as planned. Spectators noted that his jump started fine. But on the way down, things went sideways – a thing you want neither metaphorically or literally while you’re gaining velocity towards water. Witnesses said he hit the water all wrong, suggesting that he probably hit his head. When he didn’t appear immediately after going under, people held their breath. He was a showman after all, and known to stay underwater to increase anticipation. But when he didn’t appear after a few minutes, people began elbowing for a spot. He was found downriver 7 months later frozen in ice.
A lot of time occurred in America between 1829 and the 1960s. In the burgeoning world of dare-devilism, a lot of it was spectacularly stupid. Moving vehicles featured largely in this as men and women walked out on the wings of flying airplanes and jumped off, on, and in front of moving trains. Skyscrapers created a new arena for gawping. People climbed them, created base jumping off them, walked tiny wires between them, and sometimes fell off of them.
But in the 1960s, Evel Knievel took it to the Patch level of 140 years earlier. He was a larger-than-life personality who jumped a motorcycle off stuff onto other stuff. Patch had a bear, but Knievel jumped over snakes, crocodiles, and sharks. Knievel took his Dutch Courage very seriously and would boost his guts with a shot of his favorite prejump hooch – Wild Turkey, a shot that in itself needs Dutch Courage. Knievel was a drinker, a partier, a devotee of Wild Turkey. He carried a walking stick with a hollowed-out section for flasks of the whiskey.
Knievel was known for his tough persona which was only girded by his hard drinking lifestyle and swagger. He called himself the ‘most injured’ man in the world – and he might have been right. On September 8 1974 as he stood above Snake River Canyon, he had 10 pins in his body and almost 400 spots in bones that had required repair. But these were a testament to the spectacle’s job – failing, falling, crashing, being injured, Tyson biting off Holyfield’s ear, the faulty lid on the shark-proof cage, the human fly’s hand slipping on the 38th floor, the bear breaking his chain and looking at a spectator like he’s a Marie Callendar’s pot pie. Part of the spectacle was secretly hoping for failure. When Sam Patch didn’t come up from the water, was the crowd scared or excited? This is why they required Dutch Courage.
Like Patch’s Genesse River stunt, Knievel’s Snake River Canyon didn’t go off as planned. As Knievel and his bike reached the end of the ramp, his rear parachute deployed early. The jump was blown and around 2 million people watched Knievel drift softly, safely, and impotently down into the canyon. He didn’t die, but his hard reputation never quite recovered.
Today we have to drink to the American joy of spectacle. From fighting bears and chickens doing math to motorcycle jumps and waterfall jumpers. And to those who did it with a little Dutch Courage, we get it. Today we drink Evel Knievel’s personal cocktail – a Montana Mary.
A Montana Mary
Ingredients
- 4 oz Tomato juice
- 2 oz Wild turkey
- 6 oz Beer
- Ice
- Hot sauce
Instructions
Pour a shot of Wild Turkey into a shot glass. Don’t smell it; drink it down in one gulp. This will burn, note the gathering warmth and go with it. Pour another shot of Wild Turkey into the glass; knock that thing down like it was talking about your sister. Note the feeling of invincibility. This is Dutch Courage. Do not climb or jump off of anything. Don’t even look at your chair. Pour a tall glass of ice, follow it with 2 ounces of Wild Turkey, the hot sauce, then the beer, and top it off with the tomato juice. Stir with your finger and drink to the love of spectacle, to dare devils, to Evander Holyfield’s ear, and drink to Annie Taylor’s cat and Sam Patch’s bear.
