"TODAY IS THE DAY!" (From Don Covington)

1420111123130107001_t160, a photo by bucklesw1 on Flickr. David "Cannonball" Smith emerges from his custom cannon to soar six stories above the ground. contributed photo / David "Cannonball" Smith mcbainr@courierpress.com 812-464-7520 David "Cannonball" Smith plans to go out with one last bang this Sunday, concluding his high-caliber career in the city where he began performing as a professional daredevil. The 69-year-old will blast out of a 36-foot-long cannon, soaring six stories over the floor in the Ford Center to land in a net, in the climax of Hadi Shrine Circus. He plans to quit going ballistic after this circus closes, grounding a career that's sent him sailing over Ferris wheels, a baseball scoreboard and outfield fence and the international border between the United States and Mexico. Smith, a former math teacher who stepped out of the classroom to soar in the circus, dove, literally, into professional daredevilry in Evansville's Hadi Shrine Circus more than four decades ago. He made his entrance as a sponge diver, leaping off a beam in the 42-foot-high Roberts Stadium, into a pile of foam mattresses collected for him locally after the giant air bag he'd shipped for the stunt failed to arrive. It looked scary, but it was easy for Smith, a high school and college gymnast. "I dove straight down and then rotated onto my back." Several years later Smith left sponge diving and trapeze work to launch his career in a higher caliber act — blasting out of stage cannons. He built his first cannon when he was about 32. He declines to say exactly how the cannon works or what propels him, but the device can send its charge flying up to 70 miles per hour, into a parabola six stories high and nearly 200 feet long. Originally, he used his math skills and a test dummy to calculate and test the physics of the cannon's parabolas. Now he relies on records he's kept in cannon flight log books over the past 40 years. Once he launches out of the tube, he arcs up and then plunges down into a 18-by-45-foot net, propped 18 feet in the air. That may sound big, "but when you're coming up over Ferris wheels and stuff, that net looks pretty small down there," he said. Smith held the Guinness world record for the longest human cannonball flight until this year, when his son, David "The Bullet" Smith Jr., beat it in Milan, Italy, traveling nearly 194 feet. "The Cannonball" doesn't begrudge his son's taking the record. "Records are made to be broken," he said. A breath later, however, he noted that in an unofficial shot, "I did 201 feet over a Ferris wheel in 2002." He's also matched his son's highest flight. "The Bullet" Smith has gone 74 feet vertically, noted his father, "but in that 201-foot jump, I went over a Ferris wheel that was probably 43 feet, and I probably cleared it by 30 feet, anyway." Smith didn't necessarily want his children to follow him into cannonballing, he said, "but I didn't have a choice. I mean, kids, they grow up watching their dad do that stuff and then they want (a cannon) of their own. What am I going to say?" He has said "yes," building eight cannons for his family to get into the act. So far, his wife, six of his children and a niece and, this year, her husband, have gone ballistic for a living. His daughter, Jennifer Smith Schneider, blasted through the air in Roberts Stadium during a monster truck show and competition just a couple years ago. The Hadi Shrine Circus hasn't booked a human cannonball in years, however, says Joe Vezzoso, the annual circus's executive director. Limited by the shorter floor span and 42-foot-high beams in Roberts Stadium, human cannoneers "really had not been able to put on a very good show there," Vezzoso said. Smith has blasted out of his cannon in buildings with as little at 18 feet of vertical clearance, he said, "but I like to be up around 65 or 70 feet traveling. I'm more comfortable up there." He should have no worries in the Ford Center, with 90 feet of clearance from the floor to the rafters. Smith decided to retire this year after breaking his leg when he landed wrong in the net. He broke both bones in his lower leg. He only knew he'd broken it because he couldn't turn his foot, however, he said. "There was no pain at all — nothing." He took it as a sign, however, to pass on his act to a nephew who assisted him for that show. Smith asked the man, who had fired the cannons for 20 years, but never ejected from one, to take over for him in for the next show. "He just got in the gun and did fine," Smith said. "He filled in for me for the rest of the season." Smith has recovered from the broken leg, but he's giving the gun and the act to his nephew. "I figure God wanted me to turn it over to him," Smith said. "I'll only come back if he gets hurt or something, and I need to fill in for him." IF YOU GO ---- What: The 78th Hadi Shrine Circus ---- When: 3 p.m. Thanksgiving day; 9:30 a.m., 2 and 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday; and 3 p.m. Sunday ---- Where: The Ford Center ---- Tickets: General seating, in the arena’s upper level, is $19 at the door. Reserved seats, in the lower sections, range from $21 to $32. Reserve seating may be purchased at hadishrinecircus.com, at the Ford Center or at the Shrine Circus ticket office. ---- Information:Visit hadishrinecircus.com or call 812-425-4376 or 800-662-5696.