Life of Evel: Evel Knievel Read Online Free PDF Page A

whole event must have left a sour taste in Knievel’s mouth as he finally turned his back on ice hockey and set about looking for other ways to make a quick buck. ‘There’s no money in hockey,’ he later lamented. ‘It was my dream to be a pro-hockey player but there’s just no money in it.’ He certainly needed to make some money somehow because Knievel had by now married his childhood sweetheart, Linda Joan Bork.
    Knievel had known Bork from his days at Butte High, and even after he dropped out he still hung around outside the school looking for any opportunity to talk with Linda. Three years younger than Knievel, Bork was caught between her youthful love for the handsome but unpromising 20-year-old and the disapproval of her parents, who saw Bobby as little more than a hoodlum who couldn’t hold a steady job. And if Knievel’s often-repeated tale about kidnapping his future wife is true, then he certainly justified the Borks’ assessment of him. According to Knievel, he became so frustrated by the Borks’ ban on their daughter speaking to him that he kidnapped Linda from the local ice rink. He reportedly dragged her off the ice by her hair and headed for Idaho where he proposed to marry her. Knievel’s grandmother recalled the incident many years later, adding a ring of truth to the story. ‘He did kidnap her of course and they were hunting for them all night long. The police were hunting for them and we were hunting for them but he was not put in jail or anything.’
    Driving conditions on the night of the ‘kidnap’ were terrible and the young couple were forced to pull over and sleep the night in Bobby’s grandparents’ car, hoping the blizzard would abate by morning. But, by the following day, word of Knievel’s escapade had got out and the couple were intercepted by a police road-block before they could reach Idaho. Knievel was charged not with kidnapping but with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but since Linda did not want to press charges he was merely reprimanded by the authorities.
    However, now feeling fully justified in his assessment of Knievel, Linda’s father subsequently succeeded in obtaining a restraining order against Bobby, forcing him to stay away from Linda for a period of two years. Knievel had little choice but to obey – at least in public – but he still never gave up hope of one day marrying Linda Bork. His patience paid dividends and that day finally came on 5 September 1959 when the pair tied the knot having eloped with the help of a $50 loan from Knievel’s grandmother and the use of the family car. Linda had only managed to elope because her father was away on a fishing trip at the time of the marriage and by the time he discovered the truth there was nothing he could do to change matters, no matter how furious he was.
    A married man he may have been, but Bobby Knievel was still without gainful employment and the only money he was bringing in to the caravan he and his young wife were staying in was from a number of petty criminal activities. Knievel had long since realised that most of the people he saw in Butte with money had gained it on the wrong side of the law and he wanted a piece of the action, having seen the benefits of a life of crime. ‘All that you can desire in life or want to be is what you can see immediately around you,’ he explained, ‘and what I saw immediately around me was a pimp with a shiny pair of shoes and a ‘49 Mercury. In Butte, if you weren’t a pimp or a thief you were nothing. And I needed a few bucks to get out.’ It was all the incentive Bobby needed; if he couldn’t earn an honest buck, he’d earn some dishonest ones.
    Knievel had long been used to the wrong side of the law, having been involved in several fights and charged with petty theft, but that was not exactly out of the ordinary for young men in post-war Butte. He was no stranger to dreaming up scams to make money either. One particular favourite was stealing