A couple years after we moved to Presque Isle, our neighbor in back of us began working his garden spot. It was over a quarter acre in size and had grown up to weeds and sod. One day I looked, and he was out there with a shovel turning over the sod. He did that for two years until he was satisfied. Though it would have been easier to have someone come in with a small tractor and land plow, he said he wanted and needed the time outside. In doing this, it kept him busy and made for a productive use of the back of his lot.
After that, he would be in the garden with a five-gallon pail and an old rototiller, tilling the soil and picking out any rock bigger than a golf ball. Then, to my chagrin, he still didn’t plant it until the fourth year. That year he had the prettiest spot on the planet, in my mind. He had string beans, radish, turnips, beets, corn, zucchini, squash, cucumbers and potatoes — in other words, the typical Aroostook County garden. He was an elderly man and his wife was he same age as he was, or so I assumed. So you can imagine, my wife and I were given bags and buckets of veggies and we also were told to “Help yourself” anytime he saw us.
One day I had been given an old rototiller by a friend I worked with. Reggie, the elderly neighbor, loved to tinker with things when he wasn’t in his garden. So one afternoon I was working on this tiller, trying to get it running. I heard a noise and there stood Reggie. He asked me, “You got any fire in the engine?” I said I didn’t know but would get my spark tester and see. He said “Nah, just take the spark plug out and hold the plug wire and spin the engine.”
I had taken small engine repair in school and I knew that when you spin a small engine, if the coil is doing what it is supposed to do, then you can get a nasty poke of electricity from it. So I held the wire and gave her a spin. No poke, so no power. I had a spare magneto coil, so I changed it. I set the flywheel on over the magneto and spun it really easy by hand. I still didn’t feel anything and Reggie, being Reggie, told me to move. He put the rewind housing on the engine and gave the starter cord a pull like he was trying to start it. He was also holding the spark plug wire.
What happened next happened so fast that I didn’t see it. All I heard was a real loud “EEEEEYYYYOOOOW!!!” and Reggie wasn’t standing there anymore and the rewind was gone from the engine. Then I heard a scrabbling sound from the woodshed.
When Reggie came out of the woodshed with the rewind cord and housing still in his hand and his glasses all akimbo on his face, I can only think of two people he put me in mind of. One was Dr. Zorba from the old “Medical Center” TV show, and the second was a gray-haired Bozo the Clown. He started laughing and said, “Heh-heh, she’s got fire now.” I laughed until I hurt. I knew the massive jolt of power he took to test that coil and I knew I didn’t like shocks and really it wasn’t funny, but the expression on his face and the way he looked were. Even an old gunfighter wouldn’t have been able to draw his gun as fast as Reggie was transported to my woodshed. He and I laughed often about that experience.
Sadly, Reggie passed away a couple years later, and I lost a really good friend. But you know what? Through my acquaintance with Reggie, I was a better person.
I saw an old rototiller and that triggered the memory of Reggie and the tiller, and I was able to hear his laughter as I took the time to Remember When . . .
Guy Woodworth of Presque Isle is a 1973 graduate of Presque Isle High School and a four-year Navy veteran. He and his wife Theresa have two grown sons and five grandchildren. He may be contacted at lightning117_1999@yahoo.com.
