By Jason Nark - The Philadelphia Inquirer •
Published 2 hours ago •
Updated 2 hours ago
Getty Images
Sweat dripped from Sonny Pistilli’s nose and evaporated on the red-hot horseshoe he’d taken out of a burning forge. He’d been pounding steel with a mallet for two hours, his hands like anvils from a half-century of that same clanging rhythm.
“People think I’m mad at them when I shake their hands,” Pistilli joked on a recent March morning of his viselike grip.
Download our mobile app for iOS
to get alerts for local breaking news and weather.
While those heavy hands can smash a golf ball — he once shot a 69 — Pistilli would rather be awash in flying sparks and curling black smoke in his garage like some Roman god of fire. At 82, he still works as a farrier, someone who trims and shoes horse hooves, and since it’s never felt like a job, he doesn’t think about retiring. He once put a shoe on Triple Crown winner Secretariat, and is a member of the Brotherhood of Working Farriers Association’s Farriers Hall of Fame.