Record rubber band ball museum- bound

MIAMI — It was time to say goodbye.

Five years of knotting, stretching and wrapping came to an end. For one last time, 28-year-old Joel Waul posed with his claim to fame — a nearly 10,000-pound rubber band ball, considered the largest in the world.

Waul watched as a crane slowly lifted the nearly seven-foot tall, 25-foot wide mass of yellow, purple and green out of his Lauderhill, Fla., driveway and lowered it onto a flatbed truck destined for Orlando. There, it will join other notable items as part of Ripley's Believe It or Not.

It began on April 10, 2004. That's the day, according to Waul, he saw a television episode of Ripley's featuring the then-record holder for largest rubber band ball.

Waul wanted the record. He got to work.

"Right then, on the spot," he said, "I started."

He started small, stretching together the brown rubber bands found in most offices. When those wouldn't work, he moved up to the industrial size.

Every six months, he called officials at Ripley's, reporting his progress.

The round mound of rubber grew, reaching the point where it couldn't fit inside the home. Waul moved it outside, to the driveway, where it sat covered in a blue tarp for protection.

It became a neighborhood icon.

Letitta Bush, 30, would tell visitors needing directions that her house was the one "by the blue ball."

In 2008, the Guinness Book of World Records named it the largest around.

Ripley's officials said they have had their eyes on the ball for about a year.

With the record broken and the ball looking good, Waul decided to let it go.

Last week, the nondescript Lauderhill street was filled with trucks, a crane and fans of the "Waul Ball" coming to say goodbye.

The rubber ball will stay in Orlando temporarily while a more permanent home is found. It can't go into just any Ripley's because of the logistics of moving it.

Because the ball will have to be lowered in, Ripley's has to find a place without a roof. The current candidates are museums in Los Angeles and San Francisco because they are undergoing renovations.