The Pine Tar Incident of 1929

     In which the author re-posts this blog to honor the memory of “T”: 1952-2014.

     Between 2002 and 2008, I worked for a home nursing agency that sent me all over western Suffolk to assess patients, teach them to manage their health and regain independence.  While interviewing them they sometimes got off subject, relating incidents from long ago.  Far from being a waste of time, this enabled me to assess their educational background, current ability to learn and how best to teach them.

     Sometimes I would be in trailer parks; other times McMansions, often in the same day.  My favorite places were the rambling old homes of the extreme north shore in all their faded glory and genteel decay. I was in housing projects, tract housing and illegally subdivided basement housing. But the best part was meeting my fellow Long Islanders and listening to their stories.

     Were you a firefighter in the South Bronx during the Fort Apache years?

     Were you a young Marine in Viet Nam during the Tet Offensive?

     Did you grow up on a tiny Caribbean island without electricity?

     And most wondrous of all, did you raise five children in a little ranch house without ever learning to drive?  If so, sit right next to me because I want to hear all about it.

     Lots of crazy things happened and one time I was thoroughly cursed out in two languages and almost attacked with a cane since I did not arrive with a cure for arthritis. Just to be clear, “putana”, it is not a compliment, right?

    The person I remember most was Britt, a woman who came up from North Carolina in the 1960’s but never lost her mountaineer accent and the feistiness that accompanied it. She was living with her daughter, “ T” in a sunny , spotless little apartment and was suffering from end stage emphysema. T’s efforts to manage this distressing situation were usually sabotaged by Britt, who tended to crank up the oxygen, inhale a few extra hits of albuterol and take the edge off with xanax and beer.

     This was mostly ineffective and I spent quite some time trying to bring order into this chaos and in doing so heard stories of life on the farm, the different methods of harvesting tobacco and of Britt’s years skating in the Roller Derby after work at one of the many mental institutions in western Suffolk.

    However it was during my initial interview that I was required to ask about every scar, lesion or skin anomaly and I noticed a thin black line crossing Britt’s nose.” How did that come about?”  I asked. Britt said her nose had once been chopped off and T insisted it was true which leads us to the incident noted in the title.

     In 1929 Britt’s father left the farm on horseback and rode into town. He came home with a brand new axe, just sharpened.  Britt’s older brother Buddy was enthralled with the axe and nobody could stop him from playing with it. He was about five and Britt was two when the heavy axe slipped out of his hands just as Britt was under it.  The axe chopped her nose off.  Nearby the grandmother Leda, who everyone called “ Leelee”, took action right away and told Buddy to go wash the nose off in the “spigot” and told Britt to hush up.  She then grabbed the axe and cut into a pine tree extracting the tar (or sap) and put that on the nose and stuck in back on Britt’s face.

     Other than the barely visible line the only problem occurred was when it was very cold and Britt’s nose would turn purple and folks would accuse her of drinking.

     The emphysema progressed, which is paradoxical medical terminology for saying it got worse. Once I found Britt in respiratory distress, and tried to persuade her to go to the hospital but she floored me with the following statement: “I ain’t a-goin’”.  It was the triple dog dare of hospital refusals, beyond anything I had ever heard and knew not to push it any further.

    T did her best to care for her mom even though she herself suffered the aftereffects of a stroke and had a degenerative spine condition that caused chronic pain. If pure devotion could have helped Britt’s health, she would be doing double axels in the next Winter Olympics.

      Eventually Britt went on the hospice program and lived out her days with her attentive daughter by her side.

      I loved listening to these stories and   felt privileged to hear them. This, as much as anything we read in textbooks, is where we learn our real history.

R.I.P. Britt and T, together again…