Print

Email story

Comment

Letter to the editor

Trucker known for a big heart, but not a strong one

The last week of his life, Tim Sohr predicted something bad would happen to him soon.

By ANDREW MEACHAM
Published July 17, 2007

PINELLAS PARK - Tim Sohr spent a lifetime trying to outrun his heart. The worry was always there, tucked into the slipstream of the semitrailer as he hauled taxis from Pinellas Park to Detroit.

The doubt rose in him even as he tried to push it down with Hungry Howie's pizza, or smoke it out with two daily packs of Doral menthol lights.

To others, Tim was the picture of vigor. He fixed cars, boats and computers for friends and neighbors, for free. As 80 family members celebrated in June at a reunion he had organized, Tim manned a videocamera so those who didn't make it could watch online.

He diverted himself with hundreds of action movies and untold hours of Internet video games in the Pinellas Park apartment he shared with two cats.

Sohr died from a heart attack last Thursday at his mother's house in Treasure Island, just hours before a doctor's appointment about his heart. He was 38.

At a memorial service Sunday, brother Jim Sohr, 31, choked back tears as he recounted his wedding just two weeks earlier in Connecticut. Tim was his best man.

A few years ago they worked for the same trucking company. They were a pair, Jim and Tim, their handles J Rock and Warlock, flying down highways side by side at 80 mph and sleeping to the hum of their engines.

Jim talked to his brother Wednesday night on the phone. Tim said he was scared about the appointment for a possible heart catheter. He also feared he might need surgery for a pacemaker.

Tim's heart, already rescued once with bypass surgery, had been weakening since February. Doctors didn't know why.

Tim ended that conversation with something he rarely said: "I love you, bro."

At the wedding, his brother recalled, Tim said he stopped by Wisconsin to see their step-father for the first time in five years. Tim repaid a $200 loan. Jim said it almost seemed as if Tim was preparing for something, cleaning up his accounts.

The last week of his life, Tim also exchanged text messages with Lena Brotzman, an ex-girlfriend. Something bad was going to happen, he said.

After several of the messages, Lena, 24, had had enough. "I don't want to hear that kind of talk out of you," she wrote back. "Besides, how do you know something is going to happen?"

"I just know," Tim replied.

Of the more than 40 people who came to the memorial service, many worked with Tim at Yellow Cab.

Randy Marsala, Tim's boss, was about to tell him he had created a dispatching job for Tim, something he could do at the same pay with less risk to his heart.

A tough talker, Marsala described an employee who was honest, and treated the company semi as if it were his own.

"He was one of those people you just can't find," Marsala said.

BIOGRAPHY

Tim Sohr

Born: May 31, 1969.

Died: July 12, 2007.

Survivors: mother, Linda Hanning, and her husband, John Hanning; father, Francis Sohr, and his wife, Kathy Sohr; a brother, James, and his wife, Debbie; grandparents Edna and Pete Sohr; and many aunts, uncles and cousins.

[Last modified July 16, 2007, 21:48:12]