Facts:

• Name: Sam White
• Wife: Brenda White
• Location: Chester Virginia, Richmond suburb
• Hobby: Civil War buff
• Death: February 2008
• Occupation: amateur cannonball rebuilder
• Previous occupation: Retired UPS delivery driver
• Weight of cannonball: 9inch, 75-pound naval cannonball
• Age of cannonball: 140 years
• Other chances at fame: 18 additional cannonballs in his driveway
• Complication: Difficult fuse used on naval cannonballs
• White's death has been hard on the relic hunting community
• Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama strangely silent on the the threat of unexploded civil war ordinance.
• Collateral damage: launched chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White's home
• Quotes:
• "I used to laugh at him and say, 'Why do you watch this? You know how it turned out. It's not going to be any different,"' Brenda White, wife of Sam White
• "You can't drop these things on the ground and make them go off," said retired Col. John F. Biemeck, formerly of the Army Ordnance Corps
• "There just aren't many areas in the South in which battlefields aren't located. They're literally under your feet," said Harry Ridgeway, relic hunter "It's just a huge thrill to pull even a mundane relic out of the ground."
• "I truly miss him," Fred Lange, relic hunting partner. "Not a day that goes by that I don't think of him."
• Thwarted opportunities for civil war ordinance to claim more victims:
• late March 2008, a 44-pound, 8-inch mortar shell was uncovered at Petersburg National Battlefield, the site of an epic 292-day battle
• Sources:
• http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/05/cannonball.death.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview