For Donnell, it’s hammer time again

SEDGWICK – Bill Donnell stopped in his yard before going in for his evening cup of raspberry tea to search for the word he wanted. For one who views visits from guests as shared celebrations and the colored tales of his checkered past as enthusiastic ramblings, a quiet moment from Donnell was unusual.

But the spirited, 66-year-old Donnell needed time. As he stood amid the wild flowers and looked to the fading sky, Donnell considered what it will mean to participate in his first track and field meet in 37 years. How it will feel to hurl the hammer in competition once again.

“If I can pull it off with the 16-pound weight, I will not be justified, or satisfied. I won’t be exonerated or have revenge,” Donnell said, then paused. “It will come to me later.”

Perhaps the words that best explain Donnell’s attachment to the hammer are those that have been used to describe his business, Donnell’s Clapboard Mill. Trade publications say Donnell’s traditional clapboards are rare because of their “strength and stability.”

The same could be said of Donnell’s ageless ability to throw the hammer.

Donnell said when he began practicing the event three years ago after a 37-year hiatus it was like coming home. A self-proclaimed poet and philosopher, the wiry, slow-moving workman has it right.

When Donnell competes next Thursday in the USA Track and Field National Masters Championship at the University of Maine, he will throw the hammer at his alma mater, where he competed intermittently for 11 years.

Donnell started college in 1940 and graduated in 1961 after leaving periodically to fight in the Korean War and to work in lumbering, sailing and fishing jobs. In the years when the NCAA was less of a watch dog, Donnell was able to compete in a meet or two beyond his due.

“I wasn’t an Olympian. So I slipped in a few more seasons,” Donnell smirked. “I threw the hammer in college, then in the summers I’d be able to keep up handling the pulp. There were two things. I loved to throw that hammer and I could hold my end up logging.”

The only year Donnell lettered was 1957 when he placed first and third in UMaine’s two outdoor dual meets. He made it into the UMaine track annals with his throw of 127 feet, 1 1/2 inches that won the Boston College meet. Donnell was not as good as the top throwers in New England, but he was just as passionate about the event.

“It was something to do. The only thing I really enjoyed,” Donnell said. “I enjoy reading, thinking, I enjoy company. But that is something to do for sheer joy. It’s a big event. I just love to toss that hammer.”

Today Donnell is proof that the aged can be active – even when he is not throwing the hammer.

In his 19th century mill, Donnell produces what is believed to be the world’s only eight-foot-long, radially sawed clapboards. Donnell’s clapboards are made to last 200 years and used to restore historical buildings such as the Trinity Church in Newport, R.I., and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Old Manse in Concord, Mass.

With vines growing out of ancient motors and sawdust covering the floor, Donnell’s working museum would seem a forgotten graveyard of outdated machinery. Signs of life are in the well-polished wheels, carefully hung tools and the smell of fresh sawdust.

Visiting the mill is a trip through time and Donnell does nothing to disturb the passage. The miller’s unending tales of lumberyards and able-bodied, 80-year-old fishermen tell of a time when arduous work offered great satisfaction and people made it fun.

“When I was logging in the 40s and 50s, we’d have competitions,” Donnell said. “Who was the fastest to unload a pulp truck? How much wood could they take off? They were athletic events.”

Three years ago, Donnell’s zest for physical exertion led him back to the hammer. A friend of his at Bowdoin College in Brunswick introduced him to Peter Slovenski, the head track coach at the school, and Slovenski supplied Donnell with hammers. In return, Donnell furnished Bowdoin with clapboards for its shot put area.

“His timing was good in that Bowdoin had just closed down an old dirt field house and had in a storage room a few of the big old weights that Bill probably threw in his youth,” Slovenski said. “We have no use for them because in modern [indoor] track competition, we use rubber weights.”

A year later, Donnell contacted UMaine assistant track coach Rolland Ranson to inquire about the regional masters track meet at UMaine. Donnell wanted to compete in the meet last summer, but work kept him from leaving home.

“The Eastern Regional was the precurser to the [Masters] National Championship. He remembered and called me this spring,” said Ranson, the meet director. “He said he had been training since last summer. He contacted us.”

Donnell wanted to register for the national meet early on, but waited.

“I didn’t want to say I was going. I might wake up one day and find my name in the obituary,” Donnell said. “I didn’t want to be presumptuous. Now it’s close enough, I could sign up.”

Donnell’s only concern is if he will be allowed to throw the 16-pound weight. Throwers in the 65-70 age division throw 12-pound weights, but Donnell practices with 16- and 35-pound weights, and the smooth handle on his weight suits his banged-up hand.

Years ago Donnell’s forefinger on his right hand was left stiff and swollen after it was caught in one of his machines.

But with or without pain, Donnell is looking forward to dancing with his old friend again.

He wonders how well he will do; if all the old feelings will be there. In the end, Donnell will relish whatever the moment offers him.

“I don’t care how far it goes. I don’t measure. I have to be sensible,” Donnell said. “It’s important. As long as I make a couple of spins and do reasonable, I’ll feel good.”