| Hammerhead: Do you ever wonder who Hammerhaid really is? |
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By: By MIKE WEST, Managing editor
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And just who is Hammerhaid?
Readers have hazarded more than occasional guess over the years. Lawd knows I get endless questions about his identity.
One caller swore that Hammerhaid was his brother-in-law. Others recognize him as a neighbor, a co-worker or the guy who just cut them off in traffic.
Truth is Hammerhaid earned his nickname some 25 years ago in Smyrna.
He wasn’t called that for being a fast-moving predator like the ancient Hammerhaid shark. Prehistoric he might be, but the nickname comes from being as dense as a ball-peen hammer.
Those of you who know tools recognize a ball-peen hammer as being heavy and not much good for anything except knocking dents out of metal. It is not a sophisticated implement. As hammers go, it is blunt, straightforward tool and more than a bit clumsy for precision work.
For you newcomers to the community, being called a “ Hammerhaid” is a bit like being a “chowder head” or maybe an iron head.
But the Hammerhaid in question earned his moniker for being a bit dense and more than a little hardheaded on certain, seemingly unrelated issues.
Yes, he originally had a last name when he moved from Smyrna to rural Bedford County. It was Jones. While a common enough last name, it is possible to draw parallels to other Joneses with similar stubbornness.
As his face grew more familiar to the community, everybody just dropped that last name, putting Hammerhaid in the same league with other one name people like Cher, Madonna and dare we draw the comparison ... Elvis.
People with their roots in the South seemed to identify with his insights as half-witted as they might be. After all, not all people see the humor in poking fun – for example – at two 220-pound men being treed on the top of a D-3 Caterpillar bulldozer (dat’s a real big dozer) by a 30-pound rabbit dog. Or they might not relate to reminiscing about collecting Coke bottles to save up enough money to go catch a show at the Martin Twin at fabulous Jackson Heights.
While he’s not all that old, Hammerhaid represents the olden days in Murfreesboro and surrounding communities. It is a viewpoint that is slipping away in an area increasingly populated by newcomers, people now statistically called ‘imports.’
Hammerhaid, who tends to regard anyone born north of Nashville and south of Fayetteville as imports or worse, is trying to be more tolerant. Back in the day, the only imports Murfreesboro had tended to be tied to long-closed Stewart Air Force base or the occasional family of plant managers at Samsonite and other long-gone manufacturers.
So the question is can Hammerhaid still be relevant in the 84th fastest growing county in the U.S. of A?
Reckon so.
As long as there is a *&^% knucklehead blocking the intersection of Northfield and Memorial, Hammerhaid will be there. As long as there is a *&^%$#@# wanting to demolish another historic building, Hammerhaid will be there. As long as there are Wal-Mart greeters, Hammerhaid will be there to ask: “What the *&^% you lookin’ at.”
“T-t-t-t-that’s r-r-r-r-r-right.”
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