32-1,p15

"Scoop a little more, right hand! That left hand keeps reaching up higher cause it thinks it can't catch it otherwise, I guess. I can't keep it down!" Bill Sheldon, from Wayne, Mich., talked to himself in the quiet of a hallway outside the Hampshire College gym as he practiced his five ball cascade.

"I started learning this trick about a year ago," he said. "It sure is hard to make that weak left hand do what it should, though."

He told about becoming a juggler shortly before World War II. "I saw someone on stage before a movie," he explained. "Well, monkey see, monkey do, I guess, so I went home and got three balls and learned.

Then I gave it up for a long time until three years ago."

In those three years, he developed a fairly steady five ball rythm, despite his occasional admonissions to his left hand. "This is my first convention and I'm having a good time. But it'll probably be a long time until I'm satisfied with my five bal! trick here!" he concluded.

Ed Jackman and Dan Roseman stood eight feet apart, hands linked with a steady stream of clubs. At an unseen signal, Ed pirouetted without making the slightest dent in the club shower.

"C'mon, let's do it again," he said. He talked easily over the rhythm of his hands, ignoring them like most people do their heartbeats.

He twirled again. Like a ballet dancer, his eyes led his shoulders around. They riveted the air ahead, intent and immediate, searching for the link with only a fractional second to find it.

Hours and hours of practice at the pirouette and countless other moves gained him first place in the seniors division. Rosen, a 16-year old high school senior from Los Angeles, said he enjoyed this year's convention better than last year's. "Not as many cosmic jugglers," he laughed. "It seemed like last year about half the people were into this thing of juggling being the ultimate cosmic reality. Here, people are just doing it, not preaching it."