Trove Tuesday – Tall Tales but True!

Here’s one for the family historians of the future:

Mr Jax (husband) was late home from work last night.

When he arrived he had the most ‘fantastical’ excuse

... if I didn’t know better

... if similar ‘adventures’ hadn’t happened before...

So, here is the story:

Mr Jax was driving along a road with a narrow median strip. On the median strip was a man with fuzzy red hair, with a uni-cycle and wearing a red top hat with two green birds sitting on top!

Yes, I know, pretty unbelievable so far...

He says he slowed down, wary of someone standing on a narrow median strip in the middle of the highway.

Then, all of a sudden one of the birds flew off the man’s hat and as he went to chase it, he ran straight onto the road into the traffic. 

He fell on the bonnet of Mr Jax’s car, jumped up and ran off with the uni-cycle in one hand and trying to catch the bird with the other.

Mr Jax asked if he was alright and he insisted he was as he ran off after the bird.

Worried about injuries, Mr Jax rang the police who assured him it was the uni-cyclist’s fault and that there wasn’t anything else for them to do if there was no damage to anything / anyone. 

I’m just surprised they didn’t want to breathalyse him!!

So, being the night before Tuesday, I thought I should check Trove to see whether this was a one-off, or if perhaps there are others out there doing amazing things with uni-cycles or parrots!

I found a story from the Australian Women's Weekly from 23 July 1980 about a chimp who does all sorts of amazing things including riding a unicycle. You can read about it here.

I found a tall tale (a tale so tall it makes the CML building look like a beach bungalow) about a green parrot in the Perth Daily News of 1947 - seems this was enough to make the man think about signing the pledge: