Vermont People: Joe tuttle

What follows is an excerpt from the book, Vermont People, written by Peter Miller. Previously featured as our Vermont Only Book of the Month, this is only one of many poignant and unforgettable stories of Vermonters featured in this book.

The doctor told me not to go in the barn or I'll get pneumonia. Well, I went anyway, so there I was in the hospital.

"Want to know how to make a million dollars?" I asked the doctor.

"Sure," he said, and all the nurses came in to hear what I had to say.

"Make a cure for arthritis," I told them. That's what slowed me down. Hospitals took most of my money and now I spend eighty-eight dollars for sixty arthritis pills."

Joe Tuttle is 93 and lives with his third wife, Marian, on a hillside farm above Tunbridge.

.... Joe is well-experienced with hospitals and doctors. When he was a youngster he was dragged under a horse-driven sled and slightly trampled, so they took him to the hospital.

"How do you feel?" said the doctor.

"All right," I answered.

"Well, you ought to feel dead," the doctor said. Both my shoulders were broken, my collar bone cracked and ribs were tore off in the back, and one leg was crushed. I was okay, though."

Source: Peter Miller, Vermont People, Waterbury, VT: Silver Print Press, 1990.