In Goffstown, Cynthia Geiger told the true story of her husband Bruce and the upending of his tricycle tractor. I heard the story from their neighbor several months ago and have been telling it all over. At one point, I heard that Cynthia had heard I was telling it and was pleased. Bruce died a couple of years ago. He was a man of many stories. Finally, Cynthia made it to one of my programs – I told the story. I put it in a blog back in March, but here it is again in case you missed it.
A tall thin man, good with horses, Bruce Geiger (pronounced Geigah) did a lot of work in the woods. One day he was out in the woods working with his tricycle tractor. When his wife came home from work, Bruce hadn’t come in from the woods yet. She got ahold of their other neighbor, Tinkah Johnson. “Tinkah,” she said, “I haven’t seen Bruce. He should have been home hours ago.”
So Tinkah went in search of Bruce and came upon a terrible scene, the tractor upended and Bruce pinned underneath. Tinkah rushed to Bruce’s side expecting the worst. But he realized his friend was still alive when Bruce looked up and said: “What took ya?"
Cynthia’s version includes a lot more detail: It was June and had been raining a lot so the ground was soft. She hadn’t been at work, but at church. The neighbor’s name was Tinker Anderson (not Johnson). She walked up and down the road hollering for Bruce before she enlisted Tinker’s help. Bruce had been hollering for help for a long time. His voice had just about given out. The dog who was with him heard Cynthia and Tinker coming and alerted Bruce, who was pinned under the tractor. Bruce hollered and they heard him. He insisted he didn’t need to go to the hospital, but ended up being hospitalized for several days anyway. His legs were badly hurt but he recovered. Cynthia wasn’t the one to call for the ambulance though, since Bruce had forbidden her to do it, and if the ambulance showed up and Bruce didn’t need it, she’d have heard about it. Another neighbor called.
How did Bruce get pinned under the tractor?
Cynthia said it was on
a hill and started to roll on its own. Bruce “played cowboy” and tried to jump
on to stop it. That was a mistake.
“Did he say, ‘What took ya?’” I asked Cynthia.
“He might have,” she said. “I didn’t hear it, but maybe he said it to Tinker.”
And so the story continues even as it changes. Next time I tell the story, I’ll tell it a little differently and with a little more authority – thanks to Cynthia. Can’t guarantee I’ll get all the facts right. They shift, like soft earth under my feet. But I’ll get the gist of it. And, ultimately, it’s the gist that counts and lasts.
Here’s the scene at the
Goffstown Historical Society. “Recycled Percussion,” the drumming group from
Goffstown that came in third in America’s Got Talent, was playing just down the
road, but these folks preferred potluck and stories, so that worked out well
for us.
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