FOR JOEL WAUL, CREATING THE WORLD’S LARGEST BALL of rubber bands was just the next step on his goal to eventually set himself on fire. The 28-yr.-old Lauderhill, Florida, man was watching a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not tv show back in April, 2004, and saw a segment about what was then the largest rubber band ball. In a moment of quirkiness, he decided to do one bigger. And that very day he took a couple of rubber bands out of the drawer and got started.
Five years and 730,000 rubber bands later, his nearly-10,000 lb.creation that he’s nicknamed “Nugget” is on its way to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum.
AP /Diaz
As he was progressing with his project, he would periodically call Ripley’s to report on his status. Finally last year, Ripley’s became seriously interested in the stunt which had already surpassed the current record-holder by more than twice over. As the ball kept getting bigger, Joel had to move the “Waul Ball” as the neighbors dubbed in, out of the house and into the driveway where he kept a blue tarp over it to protect it from the sun and weather.
When it approached 6 ft. in height, getting rubber bands large enough to hold it together became a problem. So he called a company that makes physical therapy machines that use very large rubber bands for the exercise equipment. They generously donated hundreds of them so that he could finish.
After making a deal with Ripley’s to sell them the ball for an undisclosed price, they came by his house this past Thursday to load it up and cart it away to their warehouse in Orlando. They haven’t decided yet which of their many museums around the world to put it in. The ball won’t fit through the doorway of most of them, but they are considering Los Angeles or San Francisco which are undergoing renovations and would allow the ball to be lowered by crane through the roof of their buildings. WESH-TV documented the farewell:
The soft-spoken stock clerk has long had a desire to become a professional stunt man and he plans to use his sales proceeds to pay for his tuition and living expenses to attend the stunt school in Seattle. When the students graduate from there, part of their graduation finals is to be set on fire and Waul hopes to beat the current record of 2 minutes and 38 seconds ablaze.
For more on this happy story, read the New York Times HERE,
or the Miami Herald HERE
and the Associated Press HERE.
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