Monday, February 17, 2014

The Mighty Strahan: Do We Need to Say That He's Strong?

He is strong.
He is a strong man.
He is … strong.
He is strong. Really strong.


With one hand Strahan seizes the 16-pound sledge hammer and raises it over his head, his wrist cocked like a fly fisherman about to make a cast. With a twist of his torso, his arm whips forward and the head of the sledge smashes down into the wall, punching through as if the lathe and plaster were wet cardboard. He steps back, swings the hammer wide, like a cavalryman about to slash an enemy and brings the sledge across horizontally, gouging an arc six feet across through the shattered plaster.

With a crash the lower half of the wall collapses while the upper section hangs in splinters, a chaos of white and brown stalactites. An observer, face white from the flying dust, jumps back, tripping over a length of fallen wood.

Strahan flips the sledge in the air the way a juggler might toss a bowling pin. It rotates with an audible swish. Down it comes. He catches it by the handle, keeping it level in spite of the rotational force of the  ball of iron at the end.


“That wall is not a bearing wall,” Strahan says. “Don’t worry, cupcake. The rest of this house isn’t going anywhere.”

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