Today I did some training for Bell Labs researchers. As an enticement to show up, I offered a reprint of Claude Shannon’s humorous unicyclist skills list published in the USA’s second newsletter, April 1, 1974.
It turns out that the reprint not only wasn’t an enticement, but those who did show up really weren’t interested. Not a one of them - even the recent hires - didn’t know who Shannon was. But not a one of them knew about his extracurricular activities or found his skills list including riding a 32’ giraffe 100 feet the least bit amusing.
On the plus side, I did get to unicycle the hall where Wilson and Penzias helped prove the Big Bang theory and get a Nobel for their effort.
A bunch of old newsletters at: http://uniusa.org/publications/usa-newsletter/
Some interesting reading there including the account of Wally Watts ride across Canada in the April 1974 issue. He rode every day for three months and averaged about 50 miles day on his 42" unicycle.
And if you like that story, fast forward to 1976 or 77, when Wally set off on a unicycle trip around the world, which took him about 2.5 years to complete (with some gaps). Coverage follows in various issues up into 1978 I think.
