Update on chewing tar!

Several weeks ago I wrote a column about my sister chewing road tar when she was five years old. I thought that was really strange and she was probably one of very few people who ever did that. Boy, was I wrong.

Paul Sartor said when he was about 8 or 9, he lived in Terre Haute. There was a plant that manufactured tar near-by. Trucks that carried the tar were in a fenced-in compound. The trucks had a faucet-type spicket device to release the tar. Usually some tar dripped out and hung to the end of the device. Paul said he and four or five other boys climbed the fence, got the tar from the truck spicket and chewed it. He couldn't remember what it tasted like. But he didn't remember it being terrible. He only did it once because he was afraid of getting in trouble for climbing the fence. The other boys who were a little older did it more often.

Marv Moon told me that in the past several years at least 15 different men, older guys, had mentioned to him that they had chewed road tar when they were kids. One of them was his uncle who lives in England. So chewing tar isn't even unique to Indiana. It seems to be an international past-time.

And there's different kinds of tar to chew. The Pell men from Pell's Roofing and Siding Company all said they chewed roof tar. It was confusing to me, but John tried to explain that what goes on the roof is actually asphalt tar and there is coal tar. Neither are the same as road tar. He chewed asphalt tar occasionally and didn't think it was so bad. Something to do.

Brad Pell said the roofing asphalt tar came in 100-pound vats and was heated to 425 degrees. After it cooled they'd take some of the tar from the hot asphalt kettles and chew it. He said it was kind of salty probably from the sulfur in it. It was just an occasional thing. If you chewed it often or long it could make you sick.

Chris said coal tar came in 50-gallon vats, it had to be heated to 375 degrees to liquefy it for use. But it was kind of soft initially. He said they couldn't chew that because it would hurt you. But before they heated it they'd sit on it and squish down in it to see who could make the biggest butt print.

Kids today don't know what they're missing. It seems like tar is more entertaining than video games.

Keep smiling.

Linda Messmer can be reached at 812-448-8725.