Clad in a blue, star-spangled jumpsuit, 67-year-old David Smith completes his uniform by strapping a helmet over a wisp of silver hair on his balding top.
It's time to go to work.
The Missouri man then climbs up and clambers out to the end of a 35-foot metal pipe suspended several feet above the ground. He throws a couple thumbs-up to surrounding spectators below while he waits for hydraulics to elevate his end of the cylinder high into the air at a near 50-degree angle.
The engine stops. Smith waves one last time and disappears down the long barrel in a swift, feet-first slide.
The crowd begins the countdown: "Ten, nine, eight …"
There's no room for a reverent bow, but deep in the dark, shoulder-tight barrel, the Mormon daredevil closes his eyes and utters one final, last-second prayer.
("… seven, six, five …")
He prays for safety, but not just for his own sake. In fact, he doesn't necessarily care if he lives long. He wants a G-rated landing at the end of flight because it's a family show; hundreds of innocent-eyed children are watching, counting down.
("… four, three, two …")
Smith whispers, "Amen."
("one!")
Boom!
The long-barreled muzzle belches out a smoke-filled blast that violently launches David "Cannonball" Smith 70 feet closer to God at freeway speed.
Four seconds — and half of a somersault — later, Smith's body hurls back to Earth spot on target into a net he had previously placed 150 feet away. The former junior high math teacher knows his ballistics.
"Once in a while, I'll catch a knee to the face," he says, describing an occasional rough, bloody-nose landing. "But I've never broke a bone."
Since Smith slithered down his first homemade cannon in 1975, he's miraculously hit the net every time — 9,000-something times in a row!
"Give or take a few," he said. "I've lost count."
But the freedom he feels soaring high above squealing observers, or the relief of cheating gravity with a soft landing, aren't Smith's favorite parts of his high-power gig.
"The best part of my job is after the shot," Smith said. "I get to spend a half an hour, 45 minutes, with the kids and their parents taking pictures. They walk around the cannon, see my 'Jesus' sign (painted on the back) and strike up conversation. … I get a lot of chances to witness out there. I try to serve people, present a good image. No drinking, smoking, swearing, being clean-cut. I try to be an example."
An example similar those set by Latter-day Saints who introduced him to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 43 years ago when he moved to Utah to attend Utah State University. He was baptized and later married an LDS girl.
When Mormon Times caught up with Smith, he was heading out for an 11-hour journey, driving from his home in Halfway, Mo., to have a blast in Fort Wayne, Ind,, cannon it tow.
"I'm basically a truck driver," he said laughing. "I go where there's work, stay in hotels most the time, and come home when I can."
Hitting several dozen scheduled performances throughout the year makes it difficult for him to hold a regular church calling, but Smith said he's "kind of created" his own by committing to drive the missionaries around.
Two of his 11 children, his wife and his niece have all followed in Smith's daring career. His daughter Stephanie "Lady Cannon" Schneider overshot her net during an Australian show several years ago and broke her back. She's fine and walking today, he said. His son David "The Bullet" Smith Jr. tours the world professionally and even keeps one cannon on a boat for shows overseas. His "beautiful, blonde, tall" wife isn't built anything like a cannonball — more like a "twig" — but played the high-caliber role for two years.
"At one show, she broke her ankle on the first shot," Smith reminisced jovially. "She taped it up and the next show (the same day) she broke her other ankle. She was crawling around, laughing, having fun. She's my hero."
Even with all his junior followers, though, the 180-pound "Cannonball" Smith Sr. still holds the world's longest human cannonball record at 201 feet on a 70 mph flight over two Ferris wheels in 2005.
One may presume that playing human artillery for 34 years, regularly experiencing the pressure of nine gravity forces with each blast (the space shuttle only produces about 3 G's) would completely wreck a man. Not Smith, a former college gymnast and still-limber senior.
"I'm getting stronger at it," he said. "I don't feel a thing out there. I don't know, maybe all of my nerves are dead."
e-mail: jhancock@desnews.com