Meeting the Odd Unicyclist on the Street

Today I had the too-rare experience of seeing someone on the street with a unicycle. I was parking my car in my mom's neighborhood when I spotted him walking down Columbus Avenue and pushing a unicycle. Immediately I went thru my mental roster. Who could this be? From behind, he looked a bit like my brother, but I knew it wasn't John. Finally I was able to accept the truth: Someone was about to walk onto my mom's block -- with a unicycle -- and I did not know him. There was only one thing to do: I told my wife to finish parking and ran out of the car to chase him down. Since he was walking with his wife, I reached him quickly. Had he been riding, it might have been a few blocks! As soon as I got to him, I said the first thing that came to mind: "You ride a unicycle, but I don't know you."

He was struck by the oddness of this statement; after all, why should I know him. I quickly explained that I'm the head of the New York Unicycle Club and that I always feel that I actually know all of the unicyclists in NYC. This is clearly not true, for several reasons:

1. There are 8,000,000 people living in New York City, so it stands to reason that even Mayor Bloomberg would have a hard time assembling a list of everyone who can ride a unicycle.
2. There are new people buying unicycles everyday.
3. Not all of these people own computers or know to Google "New York" and "unicycle" so that they could find out club's website.
4. There may be some unicyclists who wish to remain anonymous and who only come out late at night under cover of darkness or who only ride from the East Wing to the West Wing of their mansions.

Still, my e-mail list of unicyclists, most of whom come from the tri-state area (NY, NJ, and CT) has over 200 names on it, and it still astounds me when I see a stranger riding along (or in today's case, walking along with) a unicycle. And in fact, my reasoning was pretty much on target: This fellow had just bought his uni two weeks ago.

Literary types among you may have discerned a comic twist in the title of this post. Today's find, a man my age named Julian, was not only 'the odd unicyclist' but is also an odd...unicyclist. He hails from England, and nearly 20 years ago, he represented Cambridge University as a member of the varsity Tiddlywinks team. And this brings up an important point. Is there anyone who rides a unicycle who isn't, in some way, a bit odd? Are we not all a bit 'odd'? I think that any adult who rides a unicycle would be considered odd by modern standards.

Every time I go for a ride, I guess I'll always be "the odd one out."

But that beats the alternative. Which brings up a wonderful story from my brother's adolescence. Some girl in his High School said, "You're so weird," to which he replied, with a smile, "I know. And you're so average."