By BILL ARCHER
A trucker friend of mine, Larry Cunningham, gave me the CB radio handle, “The Hammerhead,” because he couldn’t wrap his brain around the concept of the handle I selected for myself — “The Left-handed Hammer.” I thought of myself as a literate guy back in the mid-1970s, and I was shooting for an ironic twist. Instead, I wound up with a CB radio name that fit my trucking personality.
The concept of putting the hammer down on a truck, implied running at full speed, but speed and full-throttle don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. Keeping a truck rolling is all about trying to maintain a constant balance of revolutions-per-minute — RPMs — of the diesel engine. Unless they’re modified, the drive axles of a single or twin-screw truck do not accelerate like a passenger car. As a result, the concept of “flooring it” or “nailing it” aren’t the same thing as putting the hammer down in a truck.
Speed and power in a tractor-trailer result from a gradual increase in each geared step. A truck driver can’t skip steps increasing or decreasing speed. A demonstration of power or speed require a fair amount of patience. Larry Cunningham didn’t think of me as a “Hammer head,” because I drove my Freightliner at its top speed all the time. He called me that because I was stubborn, persistent and patient.
I forgot my truck driving lessons a couple weeks ago, pushed myself physically beyond my heart’s present capacity, and wound up in the Bluefield Regional Medical Center heart catheterization lab, listening to Madonna’s new CD and promising David Rumley and Karen Maxey I would send a secret message to them in the newspaper. (Hey Karen and David. Thanks.)
Before he looked inside my heart, Dr. Javed, my cardiologist thought it may have been angina. I pushed myself way too hard on the elliptical trainer at the Wellness Center, and experienced a few minutes worth of chest pain after my exercise. After he looked inside my heart, Dr. Javed could see a very small branch off one of my arteries that was mostly blocked. The six stents Dr. England put in me on April 18-19, 2006, are working great. Dr. Javed told me not to push my exercise so hard. I have a parameter.
I have pushed myself as hard as I can all my life. When I was in fifth grade, I used to push the wheel in the playground as hard as I could. As a high school football player, I tried to run hard enough and long enough to see if I would collapse, but I never reached that level of exhaustion. After my first heart attack in 2006, I started limiting the things I would agree to do, but that didn’t last long. It’s easy for me to say yes because I really care about the people I try to serve with my work at the paper and in the community. We have a great region, and I’m proud to search for and write stories about this area.
So I’m thinking of 6 a.m., on Nov. 10, as being a wake-up call for me to take the time to get some real rest when I get the chance, and to not let little things in life cause me stress. Life is too short to waste on getting upset over the small things. Just sitting on a railroad tie in an open field atop Jones Hill on a sunny Fall afternoon can be more therapeutic than anything I can imagine.
When I was in the hospital and recovering at home, I had to beg off doing several things I was planning to do. I hated doing that, but it was what I had to do at the time. I didn’t realize how busy I had become until I started calling people to cancel the things I was planning to do. I hated missing Melvin Grubb’s roast, Mrs. Virginia Hebert’s induction into the Bluefield High School Hall of Fame, the Red Cross annual dinner and everything else I had to cancel. It all catches up with you sometimes.
When I didn’t have a column in last Monday’s newspaper, my mother was worried that the paper had hired Dan K. Thomasson, and that he might be taking my place. I usually write my columns a week ahead of time, but I was too busy on Sunday, Nov. 8, to get to it. Charles Owens told me in advance that he was going to stick that column in Monday’s paper so I knew, but I hadn’t told my mom. It humbled me to know that it was important to her. It humbles me still.
Bill Archer is a Daily Telegraph senior editor. Contact him at barcher@bdtonline.com.
