Although I was going downhill, I kept peddling my bike. Hot summer sunshine blazed in the afternoon sky as I sped down the road creating a breeze that fluttered through my uncombed hair. The sleeveless top I was wearing caught some air and billowed away from my sweaty back skin.

The center of the gravel road was hard like pavement, but loose gravel lined the sides of the road. The driveway to my family’s farmyard came up faster than I was ready for it. With all the confidence of a ten-year-old enjoying her summer vacation from school, I decided to keep peddling and just turn the wheel of my bike when I got there.

All the hay wagons that had come in and out of our yard that summer had made the driveway hard as pavement, but also covered it with a large amount of loose gravel.  My bike skidded and tipped over, but momentum kept me moving. Still clutching the bike handlebars, my right knee scraped across the hardened driveway made up of thousands of sharp granite crystals.

Coming to a stop, I sat up immediately and took stock of the situation. My right knee hurt. However, I figured it didn’t hurt bad enough to have a broken bone. My wound was covered with gritty dirt. It didn’t even immediately bleed. I stood up and walked my bike to the back door of our farmhouse, yelling for Mom. By the time, I reached the door, there was blood running down my leg.

It hurt to have a soapy washcloth rubbed over my knee, but I understood that the dirt had to be washed away. Some of the dirt refused to leave the wound. Mom said it was trapped under a flap of skin. Opening the medicine cabinet over the bathroom sink, she pulled out a small bottle of mercurochrome. With tears running down my cheeks, I cried, “No! Don’t put any of that on my knee! It burns and hurts too much. My knee already hurts more than I can stand.”

Putting the nasty bottle of red liquid back into the medicine cabinet, Mom grumbled, “I don’t know if it really prevents infections like the people who sell it claim. Pine pitch is better and doesn’t cause pain.” Selecting a glass, six-ounce jar from the medicine cabinet, she unscrewed it and looked in. She commented, “The toothpick I used the last time almost sank.” Pulling on the nearly submerged toothpick, Mom extracted a long strand of sticky pine tree pitch.

I relaxed. Pine pitch was good medicine. It drew out slivers, dirt, and infection from wounds. The only problem with it was getting rid of the sticky mess it left when it was time to take off the Bandage. Sniffing away my tears, I questioned, “Where did you get our jar of pine pitch?”

Looking at the jar in her hands, Mom shrugged and explained, “This jar is from before I was married. My brothers gathered the pitch when they worked for the Conner lumber company when they logged out the land around Stratford. I’ve melted it and strained it once already, but I think that needs to be done again. I can see a bobby pin and another toothpick on the bottom of the jar.”

Even at ten years of age, I realized that a lot of pine trees had to be cut down to fill a six-ounce jar with pine pitch. I tried to picture my mom’s brothers gathering it. Did they have the jar with them in the woods? The sticky hands a person gets when handling a balsam Christmas made me realize that gathering that quantity had to have been a messy job.

I’m sure many people these days would never think of using pine pitch medicinally, calling the practice old-fashioned nonsense. However, I have never doubted the effectiveness of pine pitch as a medicine, even though it sounds like a crazy thing to put on a wound. I’ve seen what it can do.

Modern research has vindicated the value of this medicine used by my family. Scientists have found that pine pitch is an astringent antiseptic. It also has antifungal, antibacterial, and anti-inflammatory properties. Despite all its good qualities, I doubt we will ever see jars of pine pitch sold in drug stores. It’s messy to use. Also, the jar was from Mom’s childhood home and was filled between 1910 and 1915. Despite our family using it often, the pitch wasn’t even half gone. Sticky pitch goes a long way!

I will never need to worry about having to find another jar of pine pitch to buy, though. Because I still own the jar Mom used to treat my injured knee when I was ten years old and attempted to turn my bike into a driveway while traveling thirty miles per hour on loose gravel.

Pine Pitch turns into Amber?

Amber formed 50 – 45 million years ago from the resin of the ancient ancestor of a pine tree called Pinus Succinifera.