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Glenn Hameroff   

I could not believe what was happening: a perfect stranger, of unknown talent and questionable character was riding a unicycle with my 10 year old son perched on his shoulders.  My son’s only safety equipment was a kitchen colander on his head. My wife, with no protection, was lying directly below the unicyclist’s path when this street character began to juggle. His tools were a knife, meat cleaver, apple and flaming torch.  After a few moments he began to take bites out of the apple as he continued to joke with the audience and juggle. In short this stranger put my entire family in jeopardy of life and limb.

Yes, this really happened. This is not a dream fantasy that my mind manufactures every time I have too much garlic with dinner. My son is 31, so this incident happened 21 years ago. On our first trip to New York’s South Street Seaport, my family joined the audience watching a juggler on a unicycle. He was agile and daring. My wife responded to his call for a young volunteer by enthusiastically pointing at my son.

“Over here! Over here!” My wife screamed as the juggler sought out a recruit for his act. I was nervous, but, I did not believe that my son would be selected. Much to my amazement and dismay, the juggler picked my son to be his assistant. Before I could say yes or no-the juggler snatched up my son.

  The juggler took her suggestion because my son was about ten years old and slender. Before I knew what was happening the juggler had my son seated on his shoulders while still on the unicycle. For safety’s sake he had placed an ordinary kitchen colander on my only child’s head.

  “Can you imagine!-a colander? I hope this guy knows what he is doing.”

Given his tattered clothes I doubted that he carried any malpractice insurance. While this stranger was putting my son in jeopardy, I did not ask to see his diploma from the juggling academy or his membership card from the indigent
Street Performers Guild.

He proceeded to ride the unicycle, juggle a knife, a ball, a flaming torch and an apple with my son on his shoulders. Very quickly, I began to regret my wife’s unwarranted show of confidence in this unlicensed and uninsured stranger. The juggler asked for the boy’s mother to step forward. He gave no indication of what he wanted my wife to do.  I was about to stop this potential tragedy, but my wife insisted that we play along. Against my better judgment, I did not resist my wife’s entry into the act. My son was having a grand time, but a sense of foreboding and doom dominated my consciousness.

The juggler put down a blanket on the concrete where he was performing his act and requested that my wife lie face up on the blanket. Then he began to juggle with my wife directly below the items he was keeping airborne. This was no longer a fun part of my day.

I was so nervous; I couldn’t find the room to be beside myself. I looked around for the police to stop this dangerous escapade, but all I could see were about two hundred people enjoying the spectacle. The juggler now called the father of the family to center stage. He encouraged me to move quickly for if he became nervous, he could lose his balance or drop a knife. I rapidly appeared front and center, where he handed me a collection box to gather his tips from the crowd. He instructed me to collect a good deal of money. I received about forty dollars in tips, including the twenty dollar bill that I contributed to expedite the safe return of my wife and son. After my delivery of the tips to the juggler, my family was returned to me.

The audience applauded the Juggler’s talents, my wife and son’s courage and the good fortune that they had not been participants in this act of street terrorism. My wife called me a worry wart and said the guy knew what he was doing.  I decided not to get into a debate over safety versus the talents of a street entertainer. I was glad this episode had ended without any injuries.

A few months later, we went to the Renaissance Fair in