Unusual Sport

Back in the late 1800s, when he was a young man, my grandfather participated in a sport most people today have never heard of. 

It was called cannonball juggling.

Players would take a 16 pound cannonball, balance it on their upper arms, and bounce it back and forth between that and the other arm simply by tightening his muscles.

The idea was to see how many times the ball could be sent back and forth without getting dropped.

I hate to think how it must have felt if anyone participating dropped a cannonball on his toes!

And I wonder if many of today's athletes could juggle cannonballs.

My grandfather was a champion at that sport. He must have had mighty strong biceps!

Here's a photograph of him posing with the ball on his arm: