April 29, 2021
Volume 51 - No. 17
By Sam Lowe
“We take every precaution to make sure there are no injuries,” Ron Nix said as he ran the nylon strap up my leg and wrapped it around my waist. “We don't want to get hurt, and I'm sure you don't want to get hurt.”
He got that right. Not getting hurt is an old family tradition, honed through the years by parents, grandparents and forefathers, all of whom avoided treacherous situations that might have produced The Paper - 760.747.7119
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injury, pain and anything else even remotely associated with the prospect of bodily harm.
Nix, whose resume included the term “movie stunt actor,” kept talking as he cinched the strap around my middle, trying to reassure me that I hadn't been conned into doing this because when he asked if I wanted to go for a ride with a stuntman, I thought he meant sitting inside a pickup truck racing over the desert, not being dragged behind one.
“You won't get hurt,” he said.
“You already said that,” I responded. “You won't,” he claimed.
“What happens if I do?” I inquired.
“Always remember that cowboys don't cry,” he replied with a grin.
Nix and Tom Noga, who also did this kind of work for a living, rigged the straps and demonstrated how to cut myself loose in a hurry by
The Stuntman Continued on Page 2
pulling a release wire. They said if anything goes wrong, pull the release wire. I pulled the release wire. They said I should wait until the ride began. Then Nix handed me sets of rubberized knee and elbow guards and told me to put them on over my shirt and pants. “Usually, these go under the clothing so the folks watching the movie don't know about them,” he said. “We wouldn't want to ruin our he-man images.”
As if on cue, Noga rolled up his