HAMMER TIME
By Joe Gould
One recent Saturday afternoon between the lunch and dinner shifts, a dozen or so beefy gentleman,
their wives and children took over Pop's, a barbecue restaurant in Madison, N.J., to watch something called
"An Afternoon of Strength."
Retired strongman Lawrence Farman was in the audience, soaking up giddy adulation from a group of grown men,
signing autographs, gripping hands and reminiscing about his famous mentor, Joseph "The Mighty Atom" Greenstein,
a Pennsylvania strongman, vaudevillian and vendor of homemade soaps.
Dominating, magnetic, and virile-looking even at 72, Farman stood 6-feet, 6-inches tall, sporting a gray goatee
and the slicked-back remnants of a pompadour. Set against his all black-attire was a shiny, little hammer, dangling
from a necklace. Back when Farman toured professionally, he'd pop chains by flexing his chest and squeeze I-shaped
railroad spikes into U's. His signature feat, anyone at the luncheon could tell you, was hammer lifting.
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Event Flyer
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At a Madison Square Garden martial arts exposition in 1974, as
"Slim the Hammerman," Farman lifted two 56-pound
hammers with little or no leverage. (To understand how difficult this is, try holding a broom near the round end
and tilting it with wrist power alone. Now imagine if that weight were a few dozen times heavier.)
In his gruff, slightly nasal, eastern Pennsylvanian intonations, Farman was recounting a threadbare anecdote about
his Tom Snyder appearance for a table full of thick-necked suburbanites when his rhythm was broken. A shiny-scalped
power-lifter with hydrant-width biceps cut in, greeted Farman and introduced an attractive girlfriend. Farman gave her
a deadpan once-over. "Did I take her out?" Farman asked. "Well" - he arched an eyebrow - "I should have."
Farman's wife Shirley, a slight, iron-haired woman, was within earshot at a separate table. She never batted an eye.
Though Farman credits his abilities to decades of quarry work, he touts his strong mind - ego, if you prefer -
just as much. Bending rebar across his nose would grind his vertebrae such that he'd see stars, he said. Lifting
hammers has riddled his hands with hairline cracks.
"The point is I'm willing to break my hands to lift that weight,"
he said. "You're not able to get that far. As soon as it gets a little painful, your brain's going to say, 'No. Forget this.' I just happen to be motivated beyond that."
As a young man, Farman's interest in school evaporated when he was passed over for his high school basketball team. Instead
he found he had a talent for brawling, rock breaking and - after he met Greenstein - feats of strength. "It's been a desire not to
be last for a change; my school experience was so bad," said Farman. "Now I can say that I'm the best at something. Isn't that what everybody wants?"
Though retired, he's acknowledged, occasionally by muscled pilgrims who appear at his door to pay respect and receive grip strength tips. Farman
had recently undergone surgery for prostate cancer, so one might think that he would be satisfied to take it easy.
Yet the there was a surprise announcement, before show, that Farman would perform. "After this, we will probably never see Slim again,"
said the emcee, another strongman,
Dennis Rogers. "He's in big trouble because he just had surgery for cancer a month and a half ago, and
he's not supposed to be levering hammers. But we snuck them past Shirley and out of the house. Shirley, he made me do it."
"Yeah, right," said Mrs. Farman, eyes welling.
The "Human Vise" Does His Thing
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Accompanied by encouraging shouts,
Pat "The Human Vise" Povilaitis, a soft-spoken engineer who moonlights as a strongman, suspended a
180-pound engine block from his head, tore a phonebook in half, twisted horseshoes into a valentines, rolled up a couple of Teflon-coated
frying pans, and bent a wrench in half.
Then Povilaitis squatted with a 275-pound stone sphere in his lap while ripping a deck of cards
behind his back. Amidst the deep-voiced spotter-style encouragement was the small voice of Povilaitis' son: "Go, daddy!"
When it ended, the ruddy-cheeked toddler wandered between the stone and the engine.
Soon after, the applause kicked up again for Farman. As if in a trance, Farman strode out of the kitchen and onto the makeshift stage.
His twin sledgehammers, each chrome-plated and fixed with a small weight plate, lay parallel on the floor.
Farman crouched at the handle
ends, made a sort of magician's pass with his hands, recoiled and sprung into a grip on the hammers. With his wrists, Farman tilted them
perpendicular to the ground. To the crowd's rolling applause, affirmative grunts and encouraging hoots, he stood, gripping the hammers,
arms stretched in front of him.
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Soon after, the applause kicked up again for Farman. As if in a trance, Farman strode out of the kitchen and onto the makeshift stage.
His twin sledgehammers, each chrome-plated and fixed with a small weight plate, lay parallel on the floor. Farman crouched at the handle
ends, made a sort of magician's pass with his hands, recoiled and sprung into a grip on the hammers.
With his wrists, Farman tilted them
perpendicular to the ground.
To the crowd's rolling applause, affirmative grunts and encouraging hoots, he stood, gripping the hammers,
arms stretched in front of him.
With arms straight out, Farman tilted the hammers gradually inward to where they barely touched his forehead and - to the same applause - back
out.
With the hammers still pointing up, Farman slowly, waveringly, opened his arms to his sides. Looking at the ceiling, mouth
agape, Farman lowered the hammers towards his forehead in the same fashion. The audience rattled tables, and bellowed. "Yeah, Slim!"
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The Hammer Man Does His Thing
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Afterward, the crowd milled out, chatty and satisfied. Farman let his ego slip a moment. "I've done better," he said in a low voice,
looking a bit anxious perhaps. Then, a few men trickled over to him, asked for his autograph, and shook his hand.
Tom Kelly, a neighbor of Farman's, was waiting. "For a guy who just had major surgery, that's incredible," he said. "He's got to be in major trouble with his wife,"
said Erik Vining.
Not so. Mrs. Farman watched her husband signing autographs with a glint of pride. "Oh, I want him to do it; it makes him so happy," she said of the hammer lifting.
"It's just that it's so soon. It's his mother doesn't like him doing it, 'He's going to hurt himself.' I say if he likes doing it, let him do it."
(Special thanks to Joe Gould and www.silenceofthecity.com for letting us reprint this article)
For more information about Slim The Hammer Man and his training methods,
click here
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