Roy and Margaret Ann Melanson felt right at home this summer with the IJA in Montreal. They were both born there, and lived there through the day they got married in 1965. In that time they covered nearly every foot of the St. Lawrence River-front city... and Roy covered most of them from the seat of a unicycle!

 

Resting in a chair in the gym at McGill University this summer, Roy and Margaret Ann showed a beautifully crafted scrapbook that told the tale of Roy's entertainment career, and his longest ride.

 

It all began in a garden in La Fleche, a Montreal suburb, when 12-year-old Roy did his first three-carrot shower in 1950. He expanded his repertoire thereafter to include ball spinning, some homemade wooden clubs and unicycling.

 

In 1952 he joined the Blue Sky Revue, a 10-act entertainment troupe mainly involved with entertaining Korean War troops. He joined Shell Oil as an ambitious mail clerk in 1953, but continued his performing career. The company gave him time off with pay as the group flew all over North America to perform their patriotic duty. Shell featured him in company publications and asked only that he perform at the company Christmas party.

 

The war ended, but the Blue Sky Revue continued occasional performances. In 1957, Melanson began unicycling his six-footer the 21/2 miles to work at the University Tower at the corner of University and St. Catherine streets. He spoke cheerily to everyone that he passed on the streets, rode right into the elevator, pedaled out and down the hall when it reached his floor and didn't dismount until he was at his desk. He cut quite an unusual figure mounted there in coat and tie, clutching a briefcase.

 

The daily ride earned him significant recognition in the streets, and was also good practice for his off-hours work in clubs and at private parties around Montreal. In 1957 he decided to challenge himself to an 18-mile unicycle ride the length of Montreal down Sherbrooke St. He rode his small unicycle and juggled clubs much of the way, and met his personal goal of never falling off.

 

A year later he decided to do it again on a tall unicycle, and lined up big support for the effort. He played guitar as he rode, and led a motorized entourage that included four members of the Blue Sky Revue playing music in one convertible and four Shell Oil beauties seated in a second convertible. The stunt was reported by the media through­out Canada, and led to appearances on several big television shows. Roy again met his goal of never coming down from his perch during the hot ride, but lost eight pounds during the 2 1/2 hours.

 

Margaret Ann read about Roy in the paper, they met in 1962 and got married three years later. Roy was tiring of Shell and the entertainment grind, so he looked for a new start. They packed the Melanson-mobile for California and never looked back, and he forgot about juggling for a while.

The mortgage company he joined near Los Angeles eventually found out Roy was an old juggler, and asked him to perform for an open house one day.

 

That began a second entertainment career that's been almost as big as the first. As an employee of Advance Mortgage he spent the years 1974-1980 as "Advance Man," the official company spokes-superhero, performing variety skills and dispensing sage advice on mortgages at conventions, shows and open­ings of the real estate offices.

 

Still, though, Roy performed in a vacuum. It wasn't until he heard the IJA was meeting in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1982 that he discovered the size of the pond in which he had been swimming for so long. Margaret Ann, who had shown no interest in juggling at all until that point, was inspired by the gym full of jugglers then to utter, "Teach me."

 

Roy did and the couple has performed together for 11 years now, mainly for charity causes in the San Bernadino area. They built a "Juggling Experience" room on their house for practice and their immense memorabilia collection, and adopted that name for their act. They keep returning to IJA festivals (eight in all so far) for the inspiration and fellowship, and keep a scrapbook on each one. Ask to see it when you meet them in Fargo next summer!