Snowmageddon, 2010

I know that it's hard to believe, but over the past week, the city of Baltimore has gotten approximately five feet of snow! In light of this, we the staff of A Man Named Uno have spent a great deal of time researching Grandpa Uno's past for stories, even legends related to Grandpa Uno's experience with vast amounts of snow, blizzards, etc.

Surprisingly we found nothing.

Despite the fact that Grandpa Uno - then Lt. Uno - was one of the five members of Captain Scott's 1912 expedition to the South Pole (three - as it was then believed - remaining members were found huddled together in a tent, frozen for eight months before uncovered by a search party. It is believed they were on their way to home base from the Pole. The other two members were never found. Truth? Grandpa Uno and a sherpa named Rico actually made it to the Pole, on foot, well after the horses had died of extreme weather conditions. Capt. Scott believed in the English "tradition" of "toughing it out" and deprecated the Norwegian use of dogsleds to get to the Pole. Uno returned safely, and his trip inspired a large number of seafood items to be later used on Pizzeria Uno's menu.), we found nothing.

Despite the fact that Grandpa Uno was the man who, in the early 1970s, developed mogul skiing as a legitimized competitive sport (the word "mogul" likely coming from his time in Germany, where the Viennese dialect for "small hill" is mogl. Grandpa spent a great deal of time in Germany and other parts of Europe after WWII pushing the expansion of GU's Vermont Cheddar Cheese, which already had a strong presence on the continent. Uno liked the idea of freestyle skiing without the need for ramps, jumps, etc., and pushed for grooves, or troughs, to be dug into the snow at regular intervals on the downhill, so that skiers would use the up and down motions as well as increased trajectory of decline and rapid knee movement to perform small but difficult tricks. Grandpa ideated mogul skiing and pushed for its legitimacy for the sake of the advertising options. With the growth of a new sport, Grandpa knew that he could essentially put his logos on anything he wanted...and he did. Later, the sport would become somewhat obscure and draw less financial benefits for Uno, and he would depart from advertising.) we could not find anything.

Despite the fact that Grandpa Uno won thirteen consecutive ice fishing competitions in Alaska during the mid-80s, we could not find anything.

So, with humble remorse, the staff of A Man Named Uno would like to apologize for our inability to bring you a historical happening which ties Grandpa Uno to winter, snow, or anything else of the sort. Should anything of this nature come to your attention, please do alert us here, so that we may continue to look into the matter.

Our humblest of apologies,

The Staff