Hammer

Burl was the foreman and I was the youngest among several grizzled men. I was told to disassemble a piece of machinery. I wasn’t sure what the thing was but I was to reduce it, piece by piece, to its smallest parts. I whaled away … I cursed … I yanked … I hammered … doing my darnedest to show I knew what I was doing. Burl walked by. He barely slowed. He said, “You can drive a 3 inch nail with a two dollar hammer, but you’ll only ruin the hammer and annoy the nail.” I thought about that some. I still do.