Our town has a few characters/eccentrics, such as the woman who reads the Bible out loud at a major intersection, man-about-town Shopping Cart Guy and his trusty companion, Shopping Cart Dog, and let’s not forget golf-club-wielding Suitcase Guy. Apparently, I’ve joined their ranks.
My wife’s friend’s co-worker recently moved to our street, and my wife’s friend asked the co-worker if she’s met me yet. “No,” the co-worker said. Said my wife’s friend: “Have you seen a guy on a unicycle?” Co-worker: “Oh, I’ve seen him.”
So I’ve become Unicycle Guy, which I expected when I started riding, and is just fine with me. If “Unicycle Guy” isn’t in the first sentence of my obituary, I’ll be greatly disappointed (I will be faking my death, for gambling-debt reasons, so I’ll be perfectly alive to experience disappointment — but I digress, and probably have said too much).
Is anybody else their town/city/neighborhood’s Unicycle Guy/Gal? Has unicycling become your defining characteristic?
Embracing my new status as Unicycle Guy, I’ll be forming a Justice League-type organization with Bible Woman, Shopping Cart Guy and Suitcase Guy. Watch out, criminals of Salisbury, Md.!
Bible Woman, Shopping Cart Guy, Shopping Cart Dog, and Suitcase Guy… You sure you’re joining the right group? Where’s the first meeting going to be held?
I pass a particular elementary school on the way to work each day on my 29er. The kids now yell out “Unicycle Man!”. The crossing guard told me they talk about me at lunch.
When I ride my bike they always act disappointed.
It’s nice that kids are always so positive about unicycling. Maybe I take unicycling too seriously but I hope I’ve inspired a few kids to take it up one day.
Kris Holm was inspired by seeing a street performer when he was 12 I think. I wonder if that street performer knows. I would assume so.
I’m apparently gender neutral. Or I’ve just been practicing too much in sweats and a toque. Because I’m “unicycle”. No gal, no girl, no woman, no lady. Just “Hey unicycle! How are you?” whether I’m with it or not. (“It” being Matilda, or Tildy, my current unicycle steed)
To another friendly old man neighbor, I’m “the mechanic”. Because I’ve been learning in my neighborhood, people saw me more times than not holding the darn thing rather then riding it. Rode past him the other day and was greeted with a “hey, you finally fixed it! Good job mechanic!” Today he also greeted with me with “How’s the mechanic?”
I dunno. Darth Vader’s Head of Doom looks pretty good to me. It’s covered, it’s big, it might even be heated, and it probably has a nice smooth floor inside. I’ve driven all over the place looking for a good spot to practice in when it’s raining. They are damned hard to find. I end up in my living room trying not to leave tire tracks on the wall.
They’re not always so positive about it when they’re YOUR kids and you’re recognized around town. My 14-year old wants to disappear every time I’m recognized in public. I’ve threatened more than once to go on Zazzle and order up a shirt shouting the fact that I’m her father.
At Halloween a bunch of costumed kids came to the door, and when I answered, yelled out “it’s unicycle man!”
And somebody who recently reluctantly moved here (Atlanta) from San Francisco, told me that when they asked if there was anything interesting about our street, the only thing anybody could come up with was the guy who rides the unicycle. They seemed pretty disappointed, but hey, SF is hard to compete with. And I do seem to be our street’s defining characteristic!
I imagine most of us on these forums have been the “Unicycle Guy/Girl” at some point or other. There just aren’t enough of us. For those of us in clubs it’s different, but as soon as you get back to your neighborhood from the crowd at your club, you’re the only one again.
And I hope unicycling is not the first thing I get remembered for when I’m dead. The second thing maybe, but family comes first. Plus if I cure cancer or something between now and then, I won’t mind that taking top billing.
And you might try to get over the gambling habit before faking your death; otherwise you’ll have to do it again in a few years anyway. I find that many afflictions can be cured by just riding faster–as fast as you can!
