If you want to learn about someplace , you may always pick up a schoolbook . But if you want to get to know a place , you ’re going to have to dig a little deeper . And what you find there might be a little strange . The Strange States series will take you on a virtual tour of America to unveil the strange people , station , thing , and effect that make this body politic such a unique place to call home .
This week we ’re swinging through the Crossroads of America , the Hoosier State — Indiana .
World’s Biggest Ball of Paint
Michael Carmichael of Alexandria , Indiana has a regulation - sized baseball that ’s about 10 - foot around and weighs in the neighborhood of 1300 pounds . It ’s so bad he had to build up a shed next to his planetary house to hold it . Yep , just a stock baseball game … covered in over 20,000 coat of latex rouge .
Carmichael first had the estimation of painting a baseball when he was a nipper back in the 1960s . He was play catch with a friend when a stroke went wide , knocked over an open paint can , and the ball got covered . Carmichael intend it looked pretty cool , so for two years he hold back sink the ball in blusher until he had 1000 coats ; by then the ball look something like a thaw football . He wind up donate that baseball to a local children ’s museum , but the idea still transfix him .
So on January 1 , 1977 , Carmichael had his three - twelvemonth - quondam Logos apply the first of many , many coats of key onto a baseball game . Since then , at least one new stratum of rouge has been supply every day , either by someone in the kinsfolk or curious visitors who drop by the house and give the tumbler a twirl . These share help the ballock become the World ’s Largest Ball of Paint according to Guinness in 2004 .
If you ’d like to append a bed , feel detached to halt by the family ’s house . But you must abide by one dominion : It ca n’t be painted the same colour twice in a dustup .
Have the scoop on an unusual person , berth or issue in your United States Department of State ? Tell me about it on Twitter ( @spacemonkeyx ) and maybe I ’ll let in it in a next edition of Strange States !
Read all the first appearance in our Strange States serieshere .
