There's no safety net here.

My unicycle and the do or die endeavour of following Jesus.

Photo by Noel Nichols on Unsplash

I remember the first time I fell off a unicycle.

I was about eight years old; that's what my memory tells me. My uncle had built the unicycle from scratch in his shed, welding the pieces together.

I had borrowed it to learn to ride for a church Sunday School concert. I thought it was so cool - I knew no one else probably did, but that was okay with me.

Although the fall hurt, it wasn't that bad compared to the joy of success that awaited me on the other side. A couple of grazed hands amounted to a little burn here and there, and a few rocks embedded in my palms. I remember hitting the ground time but then getting straight back up and trying again.

That happened a lot.

On another occasion, I grazed my knees and had to wipe blood off the ground, which was a little gruesome. Once, I came pretty close to hitting my head on the concrete sidewalk. But through it all, I never considered stopping though. It never entered my mind.

Those types of adventures have always interested me. Whether juggling or balancing on a slack line (which was a great Father's Day gift one year) or the fire clubs I've always wished for. So when I recently stumbled across an article about the Wallenda family, I was intrigued.

Who are the Wallendas?

The Wallendas are a family of generational high-wire walkers.

Their story is fascinating.

The long line of aerialists began with Karl Wallenda, who started doing stunts as a 6-year-old. At 17, he formed the "Flying Wallendas," a high-wire act with a couple of school friends, one of whom would later become his wife.

They toured Europe for several years before moving to the United States with a dream to become part of the famous Ringling Bros circus.

The act became a family thing. Karl's daughters Jenny and Carla joined the troupe at a young age. Carla's debut on "the wire" was when she was just six weeks old. High in the air, her mother carried her while she sat on the shoulders of Karl... who was riding a unicycle.

The risks they took to walk the wire are hard to fathom.

They had two signature moves: performing without a safety net and a seven-person chair pyramid. If the first wasn't crazy enough, the second made performing without a net even more terrifying.

It's mind-blowing to think they started performing without a net because of an administrative mistake. Before their debut with the Ringling Brothers Circus in 1928 at Madison Square Gardens, their safety net had been lost in transit. 

And this is where the saying "the show must go on" probably came from because they chose to walk the wire anyway - despite having no safety net to catch them, should they need it. And on that occasion, the performance went well. They received a 15-minute standing ovation. But later, this decision would be the one that had a lasting impact for generations to come.

In 1962, the lack of a safety net proved fatal at the Shrine Circus in Detroit. Karl's daughter Jenny had taken a night off. She watched as her husband Richard and cousin Dieter both fell to their deaths as the seven-person pyramid collapsed in front of her and a gasping audience. Karl fell three stories onto the concrete floor but survived with only a cracked pelvis. He returned the wire the very next night.

The tragedy continued the following year when Karl's sister-in-law, Henrietta, died in another fall. And Karl's son-in-law, Chico, was killed in 1972 when his balancing pole touched a live wire during a performance in West Virginia.

Then, on 22nd March 1978, at 11 a.m., it was Karl's turn. It was on a day when the wind was blowing, and his family tried to persuade him not to step onto the wire. He made it halfway, but when his foot slipped and he grabbed for the wire, it was an impossible task. He couldn't hold on. Karl fell 121 feet and hit the ground below. All in front of a T.V. audience. The tragedy was palpable.

But Karl was not the last of the Wallendas to fall from the wire.