Topeka, KS – What kid in the 1970’s didn’t build a ramp to jump their bike like Evel Knievel? We did. Evel was legend. He inspired millions with his daredevil jumps over Snake River Canyon and we couldn’t wait to see him on ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
The Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, Kansas, does justice to the motorcycle trailblazer with highlight videos of his famous crash at Caesars Palace to his obnoxious statements that made him the Barnum Bailey of motorcycles.
One of the interesting things during my time at the museum happened at the start where a young dad entered with his kids who appeared to be about 7 and 9.
The dad would read out loud some of the stories that went with the photos. You could tell he was in his element. Reliving the glory days of watching Evel Knievel and now he was sharing those treasured moments with his kids.
“He sure fell down a lot,” said the little boy.
“He was a trailblazer,” said the dad.
“Is that him on the ground,” said the little girl watching a video.
“Yes…,” said the dad with slight irritation. “But Evel did things nobody else was doing at the time….”
“Is that a doctor. That guy standing there looking at the man on the ground,” said the little boy.
“You guys just aren’t getting it,” said the frustrated dad.
I followed that family around the entire museum.
Tidbits from the tour…
Diana and Ed were fantastic hosts at Bob’s Lake. It was strictly a fishing lake, where they stocked the lake, you fish and then throw your catch back and that’s the deal.
The original building on the property was just a small fishing shack and then Diana and Ed remodeled it and built a house. I think the year was the 1990s.
The couple also owned a home in nearby Saint Joe, MO. “Our property is pretty much the entire block,” said Diana. “It’s right by the church. We call it ‘the hood.’”
Diana said there’s a lot of drug abuse and homelessness in the area.
They want to put the house on the market, but they are also trying to keep Bob’s Lake as developers are like pariahs and inundating them with calls to sell the lake so they can put up homes.
“We just want to keep this a simple fishing lake, where people can relax and come out with their moms and their sons and the dads,” said Diana.
The couple were very kind. My camping spot started as “any spot of green grass under the gazebo” and later, when they realized storms were coming overnight, they swapped it out for an empty shed. It was new, nice, clean and dry as storms did pass overnight.
Kindness of strangers.
As a funny side note, when I left in the morning Ed loaded me up with… Click HERE to read the rest of the story at theBiKeWriTer.com
Abilene, KS – One goal of the tour was to visit the Evel Knievel Museum in Topeka, KS, and the other was to knock one more Presidential Museum off my bucket list. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum is in Abilene, KS. I wondered though, were there any Eisenhower family members still living in the community?
The get-it-done director of Abilene Convention and Visitors Bureau,Julie Roller Weeks, put the meet together as she introduced me to the youngest granddaughter of President Eisenhower, Mary Jean Eisenhower. “My job is to grow the businesses in this community,” said Roller Weeks. “If you’re having fun in Abilene, then you’re probably spending money in Abilene.”
We lunched at Hapisoul Cafe & Juicery.
A brief history note: Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, serving from 1953 – 1961. The Eisenhower’s had two sons, Doud and John. The first son Doud died of Scarlet Fever when he was 3 years old.
John, followed in his father’s footsteps, graduating West Point. He married and had four children. Mary Jean was the youngest, born in 1955. She saw her grandparents often at the White House since her father worked for the presidential administration as Assistant Staff Secretary in the White House, on the Army’s General Staff, and as an assistant to General Andrew Goodpaster.
Mary Jean Eisenhower was just a delight. She wore a black top and dressy black pants, simple gold earrings and necklace, and she had an easy smile.
Born two years into her grandfather’s first term, Mary Jean recalled an incident with a toy car when she was 5-years old and tooling around the White House lawn.
“I got my first speeding ticket at the White House,” she said. The Mattel toy company gave all four grandchildren an electric car. The siblings had to take turns, but when it was Mary Jean’s turn to drive, it was her brother who stepped in and said he had to.
“I thought it was odd… but, it was never my turn,” she said.
As the story went, one day Mary Jean’s brother was off doing something and so were her sisters and there she was alone, with the Thunderbird.
“I thought… Okay, it’s my turn,” she said. Having watched enough cartoons about driving she jumped in, turned it on and hit the gas.
“I was doing donuts in front of the diplomatic reception area,” Mary Jean said. “Suddenly there’s this hand and the man said, ‘Ma’am, I believe you’re speeding.’
“Well, I didn’t know how to brake and he told me to just take your foot off the gas. So, I didn’t know how much he would be revealing to my grandfather.”
Mary Jean took the ticket and went to her room and sat there the entire afternoon “just straining about the whole thing.”
Too young to even read the ticket, she eventually went down to dinner. “Granddad wasn’t home from ‘work’ yet… so I just looked around the table to see if anyone knew,” she said.
Two things were unacceptable in the Eisenhower family, one was… Click HERE to read the rest of the story at thebikewriter.com
Follow along with Judy Steffes on the Amazing Ride for Alzheimer’s Tour Kansas 2024; don’t miss out on the adventure.
